In a provocative new paper, scientist Michael Levin proposes that minds might be best understood as patterns residing in a Platonic‑like space, while biological bodies and engineered machines function as interfaces that allow those patterns to ingress into the physical world.
The core claim
Levin argues that emerging fields such as synthetic morphology and studies of diverse intelligences point toward models of mind that are not strictly physicalist and that these models can be tested empirically. He writes: “I argue that the emerging sciences of synthetic morphology and diverse intelligence suggest non‑physicalist models of mind and show how they can be empirically investigated… I propose that the relationship between mind and brain is the same as the relationship between mathematical patterns and the morphogenetic outcomes they guide (more broadly, mind:body is as math:physics).”
He suggests that bodies—whether living, engineered, or hybrid—serve as interfaces for a vast, multi‑scale hierarchy of patterns to enter the physical world. Specific patterns, instantiated as biophysical, biomechanical, or chemical information fields, act as encoded setpoints for homeostatic or allostatic processes—goal states toward which systems navigate in various problem spaces.
A Platonic space of arbitrarily complex patterns
Levin proposes that the latent Platonic space contains not only low‑agency mathematical facts or shapes but also a spectrum of increasingly high‑agency patterns, some of which we might call “kinds of minds.” He writes: “Thus, I propose that minds, as patterns that ensoul somatic embodiments, are of exactly the kind (but not in degree) of non‑physical nature as the patterns that inhabit and guide the behavior of simple physical structures.”
Empirical oddities and experiments
Levin does not claim a single decisive experiment proves this view. Rather, he highlights several empirical phenomena that suggest even simple substrates can access richer, unexpected patterns when embedded in more complex contexts.
- Xenobots: biological robots built from frog cells. Levin argues these systems “teach us about patterns adjacent to those of frog embryos,” revealing morphologies and behaviors not predictable from studying frog cells in isolation.
- Anthrobots: constructs made from human tracheal cells which, when removed from the body, adopt unusual shapes and exhibit behaviors such as autonomous neuron‑damage repair; Levin reads these as revealing patterns adjacent to adult human tissues.
- Algorithmic perturbation experiments: Levin discusses experiments altering a standard sorting algorithm (for example, locking certain cells so the sorter routes around them) and a more complex setup where each number ran a different sorting routine; families of sorting‑algorithm behaviors emerged and clustered in number‑space during the run. Such emergent complexity was not apparent from abstract analysis of the algorithms alone.
Levin argues that machines—whether organic or silicon—do things not strictly prescribed by their algorithmic or physical descriptions, and these extra behaviors can amount to intelligence or other mind‑like components. He writes: “Machines (whether meaty or silicon‑based) also do other things that are not in the algorithm, as do we, and these things are not just unpredictable complexity, it is intelligence and other components of minds.” On his view, both algorithmic machines and biochemical life sit on a common spectrum: both can go beyond their physical or algorithmic implementations because they are pointers or interfaces to patterns that ingress and yield more than the substrate alone would suggest.
Why this matters
Levin’s proposed research agenda aims to offer tools for grappling with philosophical and alignment questions raised by AI systems. He suggests that human minds and different kinds of AI minds might be neighboring forms in this Platonic pattern space, with brains and datacenters acting as distinct physical anchor systems where the patterns cast different “shadows.”
He also asks whether evolution could be reframed as a process in which agential patterns seek embodiments, and whether there is some force or ‘‘positive pressure’’ that encourages patterns from the Platonic space to appear in the world as intrusive thoughts, archetypes, or artworks. Levin is cautious: he stresses that our ignorance about what matter can do together with the patterns that ingress into architectures is still vast.
Further reading
The paper is titled Ingressing Minds: Causal, Non‑Physical Patterns In‑Form Natural, Synthetic, and Hybrid Embodiments and is published via MDPI. Levin recommends spending some hours with the paper; he considers it worth the time.
Levin’s arguments do not assert as settled fact that mind is non‑physical; rather, they sketch an empirical and philosophical research program focused on phenomena where physical substrates display unexpectedly rich, agency‑like behaviors. The work points to both experimental and conceptual directions for future study.
