Developmental biologist Michael Levin argues that all intelligence is collective intelligence because all organisms are made up of parts with competencies that were once separate individuals. He discusses the competency architecture in biology, with each level having problem-solving abilities. Levin also discusses the importance of recognizing unconventional intelligences such as those that may be too small or too large for people to understand. He gives examples of physiological and transcriptional problem-solving abilities in creatures such as flatworms. The question is not whether something is physics or chemistry versus cognitive but rather what kind of cognition is involved and how much.
Sure, here are the key facts extracted from the provided text:
1. People tend to think of intelligence as being of two kinds: "real" intelligence and collective intelligence.
2. All intelligence is collective intelligence because all organisms are made of parts.
3. Developmental biology is the study of the journey from physics to mind.
4. Humans start life as unfertilized oocytes and gradually develop into individuals with metacognitive capacities.
5. The Multi-scale competency architecture in biology allows different levels of cells to solve problems.
6. Each level of biological organization has problem-solving competencies.
7. Intelligence in living systems includes goal-directedness and the ability to take actions not determined by local circumstances.
8. Systems that have scaled up basic levels of agency are considered life.
9. Humans have limited capacity to recognize intelligence in unconventional embodiments.
10. Recognizing intelligence in extremely small or large entities can be challenging.
11. Physiological-state space can be as intuitive as three-dimensional space if we had a primary sense for it.
12. Planaria, flatworms, can adapt to novel stressors like barium through gene expression changes.
13. Evolution has allowed simple systems to solve metabolic, physiological, transcriptional, and anatomical problems.
14. Intelligence in biological systems varies in kind and degree.
These facts provide an overview of the key concepts discussed in the text without including opinions.