Michael Levin appears to be demonstrating that cells have a goal-seeking intelligence operating more or less independently of directions from the nucleus. Since literally every cell on earth arose by fission from another cell, the lineage of this intelligence goes back in an unbroken line to their first common ancestor billions of years ago, with natural selection operating on it directly by success at solving problems of survival and reproduction in real time, not just via selection of genes.
In a similar way, every membrane in every cell came from extending and then splitting an existing membrane, again more or less independently of the nucleus. Natural selection has operated directly on those membranes, besides its role in adapting the genes that code for subunits of the membranes.
The nucleus might be thought of as mainly a library of apparatus that the cell's goal-seeking capacity may draw upon as needed. This analogy is necessarily limited because there are innumerable feedback control cycles encoded in genes and repressor and promoter proteins they encode, and enzymes to methlylate or de-methylate start and stop codons.
But something is in charge that operates on a shorter scale than those can. We understand very, very little about that intelligence. It is far more capable than we could ever have guessed. It barely seems possible, with as few moving parts as we know about.
In a similar way, every membrane in every cell came from extending and then splitting an existing membrane, again more or less independently of the nucleus. Natural selection has operated directly on those membranes, besides its role in adapting the genes that code for subunits of the membranes.
The nucleus might be thought of as mainly a library of apparatus that the cell's goal-seeking capacity may draw upon as needed. This analogy is necessarily limited because there are innumerable feedback control cycles encoded in genes and repressor and promoter proteins they encode, and enzymes to methlylate or de-methylate start and stop codons.
But something is in charge that operates on a shorter scale than those can. We understand very, very little about that intelligence. It is far more capable than we could ever have guessed. It barely seems possible, with as few moving parts as we know about.