Cameron Brooks, Estelle Janin, Gage Siebert, Cole Mathis, Orit Peleg & Sara Imari Walker 
Scientific Reports (2026)

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has historically been a search for aliens like us, shaped by human-centric ideas of intelligence, communication, and technology. However, humans are not the only instance of an intelligent, communicating species on Earth, and thus not the only guide to how we might think about ETI. Here, we explore how non-human communication systems could complement existing SETI strategies, usually focused on complex, potentially decodable signals, using firefly communication as an illustrative example. Fireflies communicate their presence through evolved flash patterns that are distinguishable from complex visual backgrounds. Drawing on this strategy, we present a firefly-inspired model for detecting potential technosignatures within environments dominated by ordered astronomical phenomena, such as pulsars. Using pulsar data from the Australia Telescope National Facility, we generate simulated pulse sequences that exhibit evolved dissimilarity from the surrounding pulsar population of Earth, which would constitute a signature of intelligence embodied in a relatively simple signal. This approach shifts focus from anthropocentric assumptions about intelligence toward recognizing communication through its fundamental structural properties, specifically evolutionarily optimized contrast with natural backgrounds. Our model demonstrates that alien signals need not be inherently complicated nor must we decipher their meaning to identify them; rather, signals might be distinguishable as products of engineering or evolutionary design. We discuss implications for broadening SETI methodologies and leveraging the diverse forms of intelligence found on Earth.

Read the full article at: www.nature.com

Michael Levin

Philosophies 2026, 11(5), 161

I argue that the emerging sciences of synthetic morphology and diverse intelligence suggest non-physicalist models of mind and show how they can be empirically investigated. Whence the anatomical, physiological, molecular-biological, and behavioral properties of engineered new beings that have never before existed, and do not have a history of selection? Understanding, predicting, and guiding new forms of life and mind requires characterizing a structured latent space of patterns. Developmental, synthetic, and behavioral biology should take seriously, and exploit, the kinds of non-physicalist ideas that are already a staple of Platonist mathematics. I propose the following hypotheses. (1) Patterns in this space span a highly variable degree of agency, comprising a spectrum ranging from static truths studied by mathematicians to active ones studied by behavioral scientists (i.e., some patterns on the same spectrum as mathematical truths are kinds of minds). (2) The relationship between mind and body is the same as the relationship between causally instructive mathematical facts and physics. (3) Living beings have no monopoly on the “free lunches” provided by the ingression of these patterns into the physical world. While traditional computationalist views of living and cognitive systems are insufficient, my framework erases artificial distinctions between organisms and machines, framing all physical constructs (natural or engineered) as being, to various degrees, in-formed by patterns from the latent space. I sketch a research program, already begun, inspired by these ideas. Such frameworks, while contradicting long-held assumptions of both mechanists and organicists, could have many implications for evolutionary biology, regenerative medicine, AI, and the ethics of synthbiosis with the forthcoming immense diversity of morally important beings.

Read the full article at: www.mdpi.com

Sebastian Sander-Oest

Synthese Volume 208, article number 143 (2026)

Self-assembly and self-organization are central concepts in theories of how patterns form in natural systems. However, literature on the topic has for long been riddled with inconsistent uses of these concepts, which often conflate their meaning or define them idiosyncratically. This is problematic as it struggles to make sense of the ubiquitous interaction between self-assembly and self-organization in chemistry and biology. The thermodynamic account is an attempt to draw up clear definitions of the concepts using thermodynamics as the appropriate framework for distinguishing the two concepts from each other. In this paper, I challenge this account and argue that self-assembly shouldn’t primarily be understood in terms of thermodynamics. I offer a philosophical analysis of core conceptual challenges for self-assembly and self-organization and argue that the thermodynamic approach follows a misguided conceptualization strategy. Drawing on recent philosophical work on scientific definitions, I propose an alternative account that treats the concept as a conceptual tool that directs our attention towards the kinds of features that are explanatorily relevant for the pattern-formation process and towards the features the resulting pattern itself will possess.Self-assembly and self-organization are central concepts in theories of how patterns form in natural systems. However, literature on the topic has for long been riddled with inconsistent uses of these concepts, which often conflate their meaning or define them idiosyncratically. This is problematic as it struggles to make sense of the ubiquitous interaction between self-assembly and self-organization in chemistry and biology. The thermodynamic account is an attempt to draw up clear definitions of the concepts using thermodynamics as the appropriate framework for distinguishing the two concepts from each other. In this paper, I challenge this account and argue that self-assembly shouldn’t primarily be understood in terms of thermodynamics. I offer a philosophical analysis of core conceptual challenges for self-assembly and self-organization and argue that the thermodynamic approach follows a misguided conceptualization strategy. Drawing on recent philosophical work on scientific definitions, I propose an alternative account that treats the concept as a conceptual tool that directs our attention towards the kinds of features that are explanatorily relevant for the pattern-formation process and towards the features the resulting pattern itself will possess.

Read the full article at: link.springer.com