The living world is forcing scientists to rethink purpose | Alan Love: Full Interview
The Well
93,106 views
Purpose is not just a human search for meaning. Philosopher Alan Love explores how purpose, function, and agency appear across living systems, and why understanding them could transform how we think about biology, medicine, AI, and science itself.
❍ Subscribe to The Well on YouTube: https://bit.ly/welcometothewell
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Alan Love studies how scientists think about life, purpose, and agency. In this full interview, he offers a wide-ranging guide to purpose in living systems, moving across biology, medicine, artificial intelligence, and the structure of science itself. He explores what it means for organisms to act with direction, why agency matters at multiple scales, and how ideas like function and goal-directed behavior can help us better understand life.
For Love, these questions are not confined to one field. They require philosophers, biologists, doctors, AI researchers, and other thinkers to work across disciplinary lines — because the hardest questions about living systems rarely fit inside a single box.
1:17 Part 1: The Science of Purpose
1:21 The Censored Language of Teleology
5:23 The Broken Wing Display
9:37 Agency, Directionality, and Function
15:36 Part 2: Purpose in the Wild
15:40 Cells Gone Rogue
23:28 Collective Agency: Ants, Wolves, and Military Units
27:03 AI and the Limits of Agency
32:32 Part 3: How Science Gets Unmade
32:36 The Siloing of Science
39:57 The Vienna Circle and Beyond
Read the full video transcript: https://bigthink.com/videos/the-livin...
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Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
So what do they think?
How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions?
Let’s dive into The Well.
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20 Comments
The cognitive function of all my cells and the symbiotic bacteria
I encompass together create me. And reasonably my consciousness.
The answer can then be used to determine the universal moral standard and universal economic system.
The living world is forcing scientists to rethink purpose | Alan Love: Full Interview
The Well
93,106 views
Purpose is not just a human search for meaning. Philosopher Alan Love explores how purpose, function, and agency appear across living systems, and why understanding them could transform how we think about biology, medicine, AI, and science itself.
❍ Subscribe to The Well on YouTube: https://bit.ly/welcometothewell
❍ Up next: Your ancestors aren't who you think they are Your ancestors aren't who you think they a...
Alan Love studies how scientists think about life, purpose, and agency. In this full interview, he offers a wide-ranging guide to purpose in living systems, moving across biology, medicine, artificial intelligence, and the structure of science itself. He explores what it means for organisms to act with direction, why agency matters at multiple scales, and how ideas like function and goal-directed behavior can help us better understand life.
For Love, these questions are not confined to one field. They require philosophers, biologists, doctors, AI researchers, and other thinkers to work across disciplinary lines — because the hardest questions about living systems rarely fit inside a single box.
1:17 Part 1: The Science of Purpose
1:21 The Censored Language of Teleology
5:23 The Broken Wing Display
9:37 Agency, Directionality, and Function
15:36 Part 2: Purpose in the Wild
15:40 Cells Gone Rogue
23:28 Collective Agency: Ants, Wolves, and Military Units
27:03 AI and the Limits of Agency
32:32 Part 3: How Science Gets Unmade
32:36 The Siloing of Science
39:57 The Vienna Circle and Beyond
Read the full video transcript: https://bigthink.com/videos/the-livin...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
❍ About The Well ❍
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
So what do they think?
How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions?
Let’s dive into The Well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Well on your favorite platforms:
❍ Facebook: https://bit.ly/thewellFB
❍ Instagram: https://bit.ly/thewellIG