Are Viruses Alive?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Viruses are not considered alive based on traditional definitions because they cannot self-replicate independently. However, the concept of life could be restructured to include autonomously aggregating and replicating information, similar to AI. In that case, viruses could be viewed as a version of life, but not alive. The ability to continually propagate instructions for their own existence is what could define something as living. While viruses don't meet this criteria, they are considered a version of life given their expression and impact. As for AI, the challenge lies in determining at what point it can be considered alive. The speaker, having studied viruses, finds them both exciting and terrifying, leaning more towards excitement.

Chris Mason is a professor of genomics, physiology, and biophysics at Cornell, doing research on the long-term effects of space on the human body. He is the author of The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
– BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off
– Grammarly: https://grammarly.com/lex to get 20% off premium
– Magic Spoon: https://magicspoon.com/lex
– Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex
– Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex

EPISODE LINKS:
Chris’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mason_lab
Chris’s Website: http://masonlab.net/
Chris’s Company: https://onegevity.com/
The Next 500 Years (book): https://amzn.to/3k9ab4S
Reasons and Persons (book): https://amzn.to/3Lrm6a5

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman
YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips

SUPPORT & CONNECT:
– Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast
– Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
– Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman

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.
(0:00) – Introduction
(7:43) – Human extinction awareness
(16:29) – Heat death of the universe
(22:05) – Alone in the universe
(25:41) – Aliens
(33:50) – Entropy goggles
(48:04) – Genetics
(56:14) – Scott Kelly
(1:02:12) – Adapting to space
(1:12:13) – Sex in space
(1:14:46) – Colonizing planets
(1:21:25) – Culture on Mars
(1:25:51) – Commercial space flights
(1:33:09) – Podcast in space
(1:40:43) – Axiom Space
(1:42:59) – Designing space experiments
(1:49:49) – Robots in space
(1:52:30) – Space exploration
(1:56:28) – War in space
(2:00:05) – Launch toward the Second Sun
(2:06:14) – Chlorohumans
(2:11:50) – Extreme microbiome project
(2:18:17) – Space travel breakthroughs
(2:30:15) – Clones
(2:36:08) – AI age prediction
(2:41:38) – Advice for young people
(2:47:56) – Dark times
(2:52:19) – Mortality
(2:56:37) – Visiting ISS and deep space
(2:57:46) – Meaning of life