Organisms are not simply machines constructed from genetic blueprints, but rather the result of a more complex and nuanced biological process.

“it's very natural then because we're familiar with that kind of process to think that something like that also happens when you put together a living organism right when you put together a person or a whale or a tree there is some blueprint set of instructions which presumably is in the dna”

Cells possess inherent instructions that allow them to self-organize into structured biological systems without external guidance.

“in Biology actually, you know, cells come with the instructions. That's why we call this process selforganization.”

Evolutionary processes effectively turn biological glitches into useful features in organisms.

“evolutionary biology if you have some little quirk and I even how a molecule works or how it still works and it can may mean use of evolution will sharpen it up and make it into a useful feature rather than a glitch”

Living systems function organically because they maintain a deep, resonant connection between their large-scale structure and the micro-scale dynamics of their components.

“I think this idea of resonance, reverberative connectivity, is essential to the understanding of of um well, just just about everything, but certainly living things.”

Agency is a real property that organisms possess as a way to control themselves and their environment to achieve goals.

“I think of agency in that sense as well that it's it's it's something that we see agency is the ability of organisms to do stuff in their environment in their world the fact that we can start to you know take that apart and understand how they do it doesn't alter the fact that that agency is a real ”

Standard biological definitions of life are often list-based and ambiguous because they ignore the fundamental role of will or intentionality in living organisms.

“But everything from the bacteria all the way up that we've ever seen, it wants stuff and then it organizes itself to go get it. And we literally cannot talk about that. And because we cannot talk about it, we get these like listicles of like reproduction and metabolism and homeostasis and everyt”

Biological entities such as genes and organisms can be accurately and usefully described as possessing purposes and intentions, despite evolution being a non-teleological process.

“and the scientists who decry using teleological language will be quite happy talking about receptors and signals and information transfer within cells not to mention transcription and translation which are very teleological concepts”