The Strange Philosophy that Reimagines Life, Evolution & the Universe | Daniel J.Nicholson

What if things didn’t exist—only processes, flows & constant change? In this podcast, philosopher of biology Daniel Nicholson explains how "Process Metaphysics" is radically reshaping the way we think about biology, life, physics, free will, cancer, and the universe at large.Timestamps:00:00 What is process metaphysics? Are there really no “things”?01:43 Computers vs organisms: why living beings are different04:11 Metabolic turnover and what it means for identity over time07:14 Organisms as four-dimensional processes 08:44 Symbiosis, holobionts, and where the organism begins and ends10:53 What is a human? Species boundaries and the unit of evolution14:22 Against essences: “cat-ness”, Platonic forms, and Darwinian variation16:27 Species as historical individuals20:34 Physics vs biology: why sameness works better in physics22:22 Atoms vs cells and why biological variation is fundamental25:34 The “tyranny of the mean” and problems with averages in biology28:11 Can we do science if everything is unique? Sample size of one31:06 Are there laws of biology, or just evolutionary contingencies?32:30 Agency, free will, and living systems34:20 Why organisms aren’t machines38:22 Process metaphysics, metaphysical assumptions, and scientific explanation41:19 Rethinking disease and cancer as failures of ongoing processes43:34 Population thinking and uniqueness at every biological level47:03 Economics, coordination, and collective intelligence in biology50:32 Where to start with process biology – Daniel’s book *Everything Flows*FIND DANIEL• Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology https://academic.oup.com/book/27525• “Population Thinking and the Uniqueness of Biological Entities” – Daniel J. Nicholson, Acta Biotheoretica (2025)FIND JACK• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0DGVMa1qAI1huc87xNDrgy?si=62c281d9e8274694• X: https://twitter.com/jack_roycroft• Substack: https://substack.com/@jackroycroftsherry?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageMENTIONED IN THE PODCAST• “Cognitive Glues Are Shared Models of Relative Scarcities: The Economics of Collective Intelligence” – Benjamin F. Lyons & Michael Levin (OSF preprint)