Mind everywhere: recognizing and communicating with unconventional intelligence

In this talk I will describe my framework for an engineering approach to recognizing, communicating with, and ethically relating to unconventional intelligences. I will begin with some conceptual clarification of intelligence and embodiment. I will then describe a number of surprising examples of intelligence, using the collective intelligence of cells navigating anatomical space as a model system, and show data on our approach to use the bioelectric interface as a means of communicating with the agential material of life. I will show how re-setting the memories, goals, and cognitive light cone of cell groups drives applications in birth defects, regenerative medicine, cancer, and bioengineering. I will describe our efforts to develop tools to expand our native mind-blindness to large regions of the cognitive spectrum, including the emergent cognition of very minimal models (both living and computational) whose capabilities are not explained by evolutionary history. I will end with some speculative implications of these ideas for the future of science and philosophy of mind.