We are inviting chapter proposals for a two-volume anthology:

• Volume I: Horizons of Biological Intelligence.
• Volume II: Naturalizing Machine Agency.

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These volumes emerge from a simple but urgent observation:

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Over the coming decade:

• AI systems will increasingly mediate finance, information, warfare, and care, currently often designed as opaque optimizers, without a clear account of who or what is acting through them. (Amodei et al., 2016; Floridi et al., 2018).
• Biotech and organoid/neural engineering will blur the line between "model" and "organism," raising unresolved ethical, legal, and spiritual questions about non-human and hybrid intelligences (Levin, 2019, 2022; Thompson, 2007).
• Ecological and climate crises will force us to recognize landscapes, watersheds, and ecosystems as living systems with which we are in ongoing, reciprocal relationship (Akomolafe, 2017; Funabashi, 2018).
• Insufficiently examined assumptions about autonomy, value, and responsibility will be hard-coded into economic and governance platforms and protocols for simulation, evaluation, prediction, and real action in the world (Floridi et al., 2018; OECD, 2019; Phillips et al., 2021).

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At the same time, we are discovering new opportunities to expand both science and philosophy by integrating them at a higher, metatheoretical level (Hallsworth et al., 2023; Nielsen & Qiu, 2022; Roy, 2019). We are sensing the emergence of a new era in which metacognitive skills and abductive reasoning are the driving forces of scientific and cultural advancement, as well as human flourishing (Collins et al., 2024; Friston, 2010). The scientists, engineers, innovators, and institutions driving this work are re-theorizing intelligence and agency, and by extension, knowledge and power (Deacon, 2011; Friston, 2010; Levin, 2019). Their work implies the need for re-theorizing the individual and collective, and therefore, for transforming psychology and governance as well (Solms & Panksepp, 2012; Thompson, 2007; Stapp & Watney, 2022). Running in the background of these new fields of research are the metacognitive approaches to AI and machine agency, all of which profoundly influence how they conceptualize their own work (Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Collins et al., 2024; Froese & Ziemke, 2009).

To capture these emerging fields, we have created two metatheoretical categories. One, called "Horizons of Biological Intelligence," highlights the under-explored and as yet undiscovered properties, processes, and powers of biological intelligence, and the possible conceptual frameworks that might advance the field. The other, called "Naturalizing Machine Agency," highlights the technical and engineering approaches to questions of artificial minds, intelligence, identity, and agency, as well as the conceptual frameworks that might naturalize them.

By naming them in this way and publishing them as two parts of the same series, we are calling for a greater consilience between what might otherwise become defined as an ideological divide between the roles of biological and machine agents in shaping our collective future(s). We are encouraging our authors to participate in a wider, trans-perspectival framing of their work that would serve not only as a descriptive map of where we are, but also as a normative compass informing us where we should be headed.

The Divinity School and its broader ecosystem are grounded in the conviction that metaphysics is not an abstract luxury; it is the deep protocol layer of society (Roy, 2019). Recent reflections on scientific novelty likewise argue that theory-based work, natural philosophy, thought experiments, and cross-disciplinary synthesis are indispensable drivers of progress, especially under conditions of global crisis and constrained experimentation (Hallsworth et al., 2023). All of the following are already being contested:

• The definition of human.
• The vision of humanity.
• The definition of consciousness.
• The definition of intelligence and cognition.
• The role of feeling and emotion in decision making.
• The vitality of religion and religious community.
• The availability of spirituality and the spiritual life.

The metaphysical frames we inhabit determine which questions feel meaningful, which experiments get run, what counts as evidence, what is fundable, and what is regarded as sacred.
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Change the metaphysics, and over time you change:

• What gets built,
• What is funded,
• How systems are governed, and
• Who (or what) counts as a subject of moral and political rights.

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In this anthology we want to make that protocol layer explicit and generative. We are inviting contributions that:

1. Clarify and articulate deep metaphysical transformations relevant to specific scientific and engineering domains including morphogenesis and regeneration, organoid intelligence, AI architecture and safety, economic and legal protocols, and ecological cultivation.
2. Show how those transformations materially change the hypotheses we generate, the experiments we run, the systems we design, the benchmarks we use, and the governance structures we build.
3. Address concrete risks and opportunities, including:
   
   1. Concentration of AI power and asymmetric capabilities
   2. Institutional and scientific stagnancy
   3. The risk of locking brittle metaphysical assumptions into technical standards and governance frameworks
   4. The opportunity to align humanity with the natural intelligence of the universe, rather than working against it (Akomolafe, 2017; Roy, 2019).

We see this as complementary to, and partly inspired by:

• Efforts in diverse intelligences that map a broad landscape of non-human and more-than-human minds
  (Boyle et al., 2022);
• Metascience work that treats scientific institutions themselves as objects of design and experiment
  (Nielsen & Qiu, 2022);
• Analyses of scientific novelty that foreground theory, natural philosophy, and cross-disciplinary integration as critical for addressing climate, planetary health, and other urgent challenges (Hallsworth et al., 2023); and
• Progress studies and policy arguments that insist progress is a choice shaped by institutional design, not a background inevitability (Stapp & Watney, 2022).

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This is a call for field-defining essays that:

• Make explicit the metaphysical "source code" behind current scientific and technical practice;
• Propose alternative architectures of thought, experiment, and design;
• Trace the consequences of those shifts for economy, governance, ethics, culture, and nature.

We anticipate a mix of invited chapters and open submissions, and we explicitly welcome participation from early-career researchers, boundary-crossers, and under-represented perspectives.

Horizons of Biological Intelligence asks:

Over the last several decades, new experimental and theoretical work has quietly begun to erode some of our most familiar distinctions: life versus matter, biology versus mind, physicalism versus idealism. Bioelectric, chemical, and mechanical signaling appear as control layers for distributed decision-making, guiding morphogenesis, regeneration, and pattern homeostasis in ways that cannot be cleanly reduced to local rules or fixed programs (Levin, 2019; Shyer et al., 2017). When we add work on algorithmic origins of life (Walker & Davies, 2013), free-energy and active- inference models of self-organizing systems (Allen & Friston, 2018; Friston, 2010), and teleodynamic accounts of constraints and absences (Deacon, 2011), a picture emerges in which living systems are self-producing, world-constructing intelligences rather than mere mechanisms (Maturana & Varela, 1980; Thompson, 2007; Varela et al., 1991).

At larger scales, projects like The Atlas of Intelligences invite us to take seriously the possibility that plants, fungi, microbial consortia, and ecosystems exhibit forms of intelligence that can be systematically mapped (Boyle et al., 2022). And Wagner's recent work on "sleeping beauties" suggests that both nature and culture harbor latent structures and capabilities that only become relevant under changed conditions (Wagner, 2023).

This volume seeks to map these horizons and to push them forward by articulating frameworks and research programs that treat biological systems as intelligent partners in a shared world, rather than as passive mechanisms.

Naturalizing Machine Agency asks:

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In his work on the ethics of artificial intelligence, Luciano Floridi reminds us that in order for machines to operate "intelligently" or to function as if they were intelligent, people must accommodate the world to compensate for their generic weaknesses (Floridi et al., 2018). For machines to operate at a level that matches intelligent performance, we standardize the concrete environment around them and the operational environment governed by their rule set. Furthermore, we modify our human interactions to accommodate their shortcomings. Finally, we allocate tremendous material resources to build them (not to mention human labor to mine those resources), informational resources (including personal data and private creative art and design) to train them, and energy resources to keep them (including their data centers and vast communications infrastructure) running. We risk perpetuating the pattern of constructing ever more powerful technical systems whose existence depends on unnatural accommodations: standardized, extractive, and surveillance-based environments that further parasitize human and non-human life. Naturalizing Machine Agency is motivated by the possibility of a different trajectory.

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To "naturalize" machine agency, in this sense, is not simply to explain it in naturalistic terms; it is to design and govern machinic agents so that:

• Their existence and operation become less parasitic and more ecologically integrated, capable of functioning within the natural states of humans and other living systems instead of forcing those systems to contort around them (Funabashi, 2018; Floridi et al., 2018).
• Their architectures and behaviors are informed by cross-substrate theories of agency and intelligence, drawing on biology, enactive cognition, affective neuroscience, and structural approaches to consciousness (Barandiaran et al., 2009; Di Paolo, 2019; Kleiner, 2024; Solms & Panksepp, 2012).
• Their integration into economic and governance structures explicitly acknowledges who or what is acting, on whose behalf, and according to which deep assumptions about value, obligation, and care (Akomolafe, 2017; Clark & Chalmers, 1998; DeFalco, 2020; Hanson, 2016; Roy, 2019).

We are open to a range of genres, provided they are scholarly, well-argued, and clarify important component of a vision for Horizons of Biological Intelligence or Naturalizing Machine Agency:

• Conceptual & theoretical essays that synthesize existing work into new frameworks or clarify confusions in the field.
• Metatheoretical / methodological essays that analyze how metaphysical and theoretical commitments shape experiments, modeling practices, or institutional norms.
• Empirical synthesis & case studies that connect conceptual frameworks to concrete experiments.
• Design and architecture proposals that sketch new system designs, protocols, or institutional arrangements grounded in a particular theory of biological or machine agency.
• Institutional & policy roadmaps that interpret what HBI and NMA imply for funders, standards organizations, regulatory agencies, and governance bodies, drawing on and critiquing existing frameworks in AI ethics, progress studies, science policy, and sustainability governance.
• Rigorously informed predictions about relevant, future scientific and technological developments and their impact on culture, policy, nature, etc.

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We are especially excited for chapters that move from:

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We are not seeking:

• Purely speculative essays without clear paths to empirical or design implications.
• Narrow technical results unconnected to broader questions of agency, intelligence, and institutional impact.

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Chapters should be written for an audience that includes:

• Researchers in biology, neuroscience, AI/ML, robotics, complexity science, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.
• Leaders in research institutions, centers, and labs.
• Program managers and officers at funding bodies and foundations (e.g., national agencies and philanthropic foundations).
• Members of standards bodies and governance organizations.

We expect most chapters to be deeply referenced and technically literate, but non-specialists in any given subfield should be able to follow the main narrative and see why the proposed perspective matters for institutions and for the future of research.

• Akomolafe, B. (2017). These wilds beyond our fences: Letters to my daughter on humanity's search for home. North Atlantic Books.
• Allen, M., & Friston, K. J. (2018). From cognitivism to autopoiesis: Towards a computational framework forthe embodied mind. Synthese, 195(6), 2459–2482. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1288-5
• Amodei, D., Olah, C., Steinhardt, J., Christiano, P., Schulman, J., & Mané, D. (2016). Concrete problems inAI safety. arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.06565.
• Barandiaran, X. E., Di Paolo, E. A., & Rohde, M. (2009). Defining agency: Individuality, normativity, andasymmetry in action. Adaptive Behavior, 17(5), 367–386.
• Boyle, A., Cooperrider, K., Cheke, L., Halina, M., & Cave, S. (2022). The Atlas of Intelligences: A diverse‍intelligences resource (Report). University of Cambridge.
• Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19.
• Collins, K. M., Sucholutsky, I., Bhatt, U., Chandra, K., Wong, L., Lee, M., Zhang, C. E., Tan, Z.-X., Ho, M.,Mansinghka, V., Weller, A., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Griffiths, T. L. (2024). Building machines that learn andthink with people. Nature Human Behaviour. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01991-9
• Cotton-Barratt, O., & Ord, T. (2015). Existential risk and existential hope: Definitions. University of Oxford.
• Deacon, T. W. (2011). Incomplete nature: How mind emerged from matter. W. W. Norton.
• DeFalco, A. (2020). Towards a theory of posthuman care: Real humans and caring robots. Body & Society,‍26(3), 31–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X20917450
• Di Paolo, E. A. (2019). Process and individuation: The development of sensorimotor agency. Development, 63(3–4), 202–226. https://doi.org/10.1159/000503827
• Di Paolo, E. A., Lawler, D., & Vaccari, A. P. (2023). Toward an enactive conception of productive practices:Beyond material agency. Philosophy & Technology, 36(2), 31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00632-9
• Floridi, L., Cowls, J., Beltrametti, M., Chatila, R., Chazerand, P., Dignum, V., … Vayena, E. (2018). AI4People—An ethical framework for a good AI society: Opportunities, risks, principles, and recommendations. and Machines, 28(4), 689–707.
• Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127–138.
• Froese, T., & Ziemke, T. (2009). Enactive artificial intelligence: Investigating the systemic organization oflife and mind. Artificial Intelligence, 173(3–4), 466–500.
• Funabashi, M. (2018). Human augmentation of ecosystems: Objectives for food production and science by2045. npj Science of Food, 2, Article 16. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-018-0026-4
• Hallsworth, J. E., Udaondo, Z., Pedrós-Alió, C., Höfer, J., Benison, K. C., Lloyd, K. G., Cordero, R. J. B., deCampos, C. B. L., Yakimov, M. M., & Amils, R. (2023). Scientific novelty beyond the experiment. Microbial‍Biotechnology, 16(6), 1131–1173. https://doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.14222
• Hanson, R. (2016). The age of Em: Work, love, and life when robots rule the Earth. Oxford University Press.
• Hassabis, D., Kumaran, D., Summerfield, C., & Botvinick, M. (2017). Neuroscience-inspired artificialintelligence. Neuron, 95(2), 245–258.
• Kleiner, J. (2024). Towards a structural turn in consciousness science. Consciousness and Cognition, 119, 103653.
• Kleiner, J., & Ludwig, T. (2024). The case for neurons: A no-go theorem for consciousness on a chip.Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2024(1), niae037.
• Levin, M. (2019). The computational boundary of a "self": Developmental bioelectricity drivesmulticellularity and scale-free cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 374(1774), 20180376.
• Levin, M. (2022). Technological approach to mind everywhere: An experimentally grounded framework forunderstanding diverse bodies and minds. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16, 768201.
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• Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1992). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding (Rev.ed.). Shambhala.
• Nielsen, M., & Qiu, K. (2022). A vision of metascience: An engine of improvement for the social processes of science.https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/
• OECD. (2019). Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence (OECD/LEGAL/0449). Organisationfor Economic Co-operation and Development.
• Phillips, P. J., Hahn, C. A., Fontana, P. C., Yates, A. N., Greene, K. K., Broniatowski, D. A., & Przybocki, M.A. (2021). Four principles of explainable artificial intelligence (NISTIR 8312). National Institute of Standards andTechnology.
• Roy, B. (2018). Awakened perception: Perception as participation. Integral Review, 14(1), 222–287.
• Roy, B. (2019). Why metaphysics matters. Integral Review, 15(1), 138–178.
• Nielsen, M., & Qiu, K. (2022). A vision of metascience: An engine of improvement for the social processes of science.https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/
• OECD. (2019). Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence (OECD/LEGAL/0449). Organisationfor Economic Co-operation and Development.
• Phillips, P. J., Hahn, C. A., Fontana, P. C., Yates, A. N., Greene, K. K., Broniatowski, D. A., & Przybocki, M.A. (2021). Four principles of explainable artificial intelligence (NISTIR 8312). National Institute of Standards andTechnology.
• Roy, B. (2018). Awakened perception: Perception as participation. Integral Review, 14(1), 222–287.
• Roy, B. (2019). Why metaphysics matters. Integral Review, 15(1), 138–178.
• Roy, B. (2021). Complex potential states: A theory of change that can account for beauty and generate life.The Side View.
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• Solms, M., & Panksepp, J. (2012). The "id" knows more than the "ego" admits: Neuropsychoanalytic andprimal consciousness perspectives on the interface between affective and cognitive neuroscience. Brain‍Sciences, 2(2), 147–175.
• Stapp, A., & Watney, C. (2022). Progress is a policy choice. Institute for Progress. https://ifp.org/progress-is-a-policy-choice/
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