Searching for Life: Complexity and Abundance

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The chapter explores different methods of searching for primitive life on new planets, emphasizing the need to look for complexity and abundance. It delves into the concept of building a life meter and the components required, as well as discussing the assembly index measurements and their application to Earth. The speakers also share their experiences with skepticism and the importance of studying molecules with a copy number of two or greater.

Lee Cronin is a chemist at University of Glasgow. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/lee-cronin-3-transcript

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Nature Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(09:37) – Assembly theory paper
(30:06) – Assembly equation
(43:19) – Discovering alien life
(1:01:38) – Evolution of life on Earth
(1:09:34) – Response to criticism
(1:27:12) – Kolmogorov complexity
(1:39:02) – Nature review process
(1:59:56) – Time and free will
(2:06:21) – Communication with aliens
(2:28:19) – Cellular automata
(2:32:48) – AGI
(2:49:36) – Nuclear weapons
(2:55:22) – Chem Machina
(3:08:16) – GPT for electron density
(3:17:46) – God