Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas 299 | Michael Wong on Information, Function, and the Origin of Life
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Dec 16, 2024 
Michael Wong, a planetary scientist and astrobiologist, dives into the origins of life and the complexity of biological systems. He discusses the debates between metabolism-first and RNA-first theories, shedding light on how interdisciplinary approaches can enrich our understanding. Wong explores universal principles that govern life's complexity and discusses the roles of functions in both living and non-living systems. He also examines the emergence of functional information and its implications for understanding evolution beyond traditional frameworks.
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Life's informational aspect
- Living things leverage information differently than non-living things.
- DNA, a malleable code, gives life unique capacities.
Information processing in life vs. non-life
- Life uses information in a full cycle for persistence, acquiring and utilizing it.
- Non-living things, like minerals, record information but don't use it for persistence.
Box of gas analogy
- A hot box of gas has many simple configurations of atoms.
- Cooling allows molecules to form, decreasing possibilities but increasing interesting structures.