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Their wordsI argue that morphogenesis is not a mechanical process captured by emergence of complexity, but a fundamentally cognitive one: living matter constitutes an agential material whose multi-scale problem-solving capacities cannot be fully captured by conventional mechanistic or cellular automaton models.
Our reading
Evolution of agential materials has different dynamics than the evolution of passive substrates.
Their wordsMoreover, evolution acting on competent, agential materials has distinct dynamics from evolution of passive substrates, with important consequences for evolvability.
Their wordsBut, developmental biology also tells us there is no bright red line - no magic point in which we tick over from being chemico-physical machines to cognitive agents with minds; what it reveals is a gradual process of metamorphosis.
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