COMPLEXITY
Sara Walker on The Physics of Life and Planet-Scale Intelligence
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Life is a physical phenomenon dependent on information transfer and unfolding in time.
- Information shared between objects can facilitate communication with aliens and mutual understanding.
- The podcast explores the concept of planetary intelligence from geosphere to technosphere, emphasizing creativity and innovation in driving sustainability.
Deep dives
Time as a Physical Property with Directionality
Time is viewed as an emergent property in physics, where all things exist simultaneously. An object's size in time indicates its complexity and structural history. As objects become more complex, their time extent and assembly space grow exponentially, revealing a specific past trajectory. The future existence of objects may relate to latent knowledge within the assembly space and statistical likelihood.
Information as a Material Property
Information in objects reveals shared causal structures and common physical histories. Communication with aliens relies on shared features deep in assembly spaces. Information is considered an indication of common physical structures and temporal connections that allow for mutual understanding.
The Enigma of Uploading a Human Being
The plausibility of uploading a human presents profound philosophical queries on the materiality of ideas. While information indicates shared structures and causal histories, the idea of algorithmic existence raises questions on individual uniqueness and free will emergence. The notion of porting an entire person underscores the complexity of converting human experiences into algorithmic code.
Theoretical Physics and Abstract vs. Physical Realms
The separation between the physical and abstract worlds is challenged in theoretical physics, where laws are viewed as external to the universe. The idea of a self-contained universe and laws raises questions about the relationship between mathematical systems, software, and autonomous existence outside the universe.
The Relationship Between Mathematics, Physics, and the Universe
The podcast delves into the intertwined nature of mathematics, physics, and the universe. It questions the autonomy of mathematics and its existence separate from the physical world. The discussion touches on whether aliens would perceive mathematics similarly and ponders if mathematics is a language or a universal concept. The importance of physical instantiation for mathematics and its properties as compared to linguistic statements are also explored.
Planetary Intelligence and the Evolution of Life
The episode discusses the concept of planetary intelligence evolving from the geosphere to the biosphere and then to the technosphere. It raises questions about the emergence of a planetary scale intelligence critical for long-term sustainability. The conversation delves into the idea that life and intelligence are interconnected, emphasizing the role of imagination and creativity in driving innovation. The discussion extends to the challenges in experimental science concerning the origin of life and the generation of alien life in laboratory settings.
What is life, and where does it come from? These are two of the deepest, most vexing, and persistent questions in science, and their enduring mystery and allure is complicated by the fact that scientists approach them from a myriad of different angles, hard to reconcile. Whatever else one might identify as universal features of all living systems, most scholars would agree life is a physical phenomenon unfolding in time. And yet current physics is notorious for its inadequacy with respect to time. Life appears to hinge on information transfer — but, again, what do we mean by “information,” and what it is relationship to energy and matter? If humankind can’t settle fundamental issues with these theoretical investigations, we might be missing other kinds of life (and mind) — not just in outer space, but here on Earth, right beneath our noses. But new models that suggest a vastly wider definition of life offer hope that we might — soon! — not only learn to recognize the biospheres and technospheres of other living worlds, but notice other “aliens” at home, and even find our place amidst a living cosmos.
Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.
This week on the show, we speak with SFI External Professor Sara Walker (Twitter, Google Scholar), Deputy Director of The Beyond Center at ASU, where she acts as Associate Professor in half a dozen different programs. In this conversation, we discuss her pioneering research in the origins of life and the profound and diverse implications of Assembly Theory — a new kind of physics she’s developing with chemist Leroy Cronin and a team of SFI and NASA scholars. Sara likes to speculate out loud in public conversation, so strap in for an unusually enthusiastic, animated, and free-roaming conversation at the very bleeding edge of science. And be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com.
If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.
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Mentioned Papers:
Intelligence as a planetary scale process
by Adam Frank, David Grinspoon & Sara Walker
The Algorithmic Origins of Life
by Sara Imari Walker & Paul C. W. Davies
Beyond prebiotic chemistry: What dynamic network properties allow the emergence of life?
by Leroy Cronin & Sara Walker
Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry
by Stuart Marshall, Cole Mathis, Emma Carrick, Graham Keenan, Geoffrey Cooper, Heather Graham, Matthew Craven, Piotr Gromski, Douglas Moore, Sara Walker & Leroy Cronin
Assembly Theory Explains and Quantifies the Emergence of Selection and Evolution
by Abhishek Sharma, Dániel Czégel, Michael Lachmann, Christopher Kempes, Sara Walker, Leroy Cronin
Quantum Non-Barking Dogs
by Sara Imari Walker, Paul C. W. Davies, Prasant Samantray, Yakir Aharonov
The Multiple Paths to Multiple Life
by Christopher P. Kempes & David C. Krakauer
Other Related Videos & Writing:
SFI Seminar - Why Black Holes Eat Information
by Vijay Balasubramanian
Major Transitions in Planetary Evolution
by Hikaru Furukawa and Sara Imari Walker
2022 Community Lecture: “Recognizing The Alien in Us”
by Sara Walker
Sara Walker and Lee Cronin: The Alien Debate
on The Lex Fridman Show
If Cancer Were Easy, Every Cell Would Do It
SFI Press Release on work by Michael Lachmann
The Ministry for The Future
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Re: Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment
Wikipedia
On the SFI “Exploring Life’s Origins” Research Project
Complexity Explorer’s Origins of Life Free Open Online Course
Chiara Marletto on Constructor Theory
Simon Saunders, Philosopher of Physics at Oxford
Related SFI Podcast Episodes:
Complexity 8 - Olivia Judson on Major Energy Transitions in Evolutionary History
Complexity 17 - Chris Kempes on The Physical Constraints on Life & Evolution
Complexity 41 - Natalie Grefenstette on Agnostic Biosignature Detection
Complexity 68 - W. Brian Arthur on Economics in Nouns & Verbs (Part 1)
Complexity 80 - Mingzhen Lu on The Evolution of Root Systems & Biogeochemical Cycling
Alien Crash Site 015 - Cole Mathis
Alien Crash Site 019 - Heather Graham
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