Lee Cronin: Controversial Nature Paper on Evolution of Life and Universe | Lex Fridman Podcast #404

20 thoughts on “Lee Cronin: Controversial Nature Paper on Evolution of Life and Universe | Lex Fridman Podcast #404”

• Here are the timestamps. Please check out our sponsors to support this podcast.
  
  0:00 – Introduction & sponsor mentions:
  
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  1:15 – Assembly theory paper
  
  21:45 – Assembly equation
  
  34:57 – Discovering alien life
  
  53:16 – Evolution of life on Earth
  
  1:01:12 – Response to criticism
  
  1:18:50 – Kolmogorov complexity
  
  1:30:40 – Nature review process
  
  1:51:34 – Time and free will
  
  1:57:59 – Communication with aliens
  
  2:19:57 – Cellular automata
  
  2:24:26 – AGI
  
  2:41:15 – Nuclear weapons
  
  2:47:00 – Chem Machina
  
  2:59:54 – GPT for electron density
  
  3:09:24 – God

• To say that the Universe is too big in the Future to be generated from the Present would imply that there's additional energy and matter that would contribute (other than the one that is already present in the Universe) to the generation of the Future. I disagree with this point. All the energy and matter required to generate the Future it is already present in the Universe. The Universe does not generate new states out of nothing, the Universe changes is current states and evolves from the matter it already has and evolving is predictable.

• ❤"The present is so huge that the universe could not hold the future " ❤ Love that

• I’ll keep searching for answers and in the meantime I’ll fall asleep listening to this each night

• Complexity is based on how much previous experience in direct and lateral fields required to create or understand an object.

  What holds back humans is their need for consistent sepf glorification. There would be no magazines, podcasts or audiences for unproven concepts.

  It kills me that an entire species of self proclaimed intelligence would even consider moving onto new problems before they have solved the very basic mysteries of life. We praise people like this and einstein for getting things partially correct. Just because my dog knows which truck is mine but it doesn't mean he knows how to drive it.

• Holy shit I’m stupid.

• To lex ; https://youtu.be/IogPBJyDFWw?si=S7_4ExQBWZVFxWKH
  Have fun , think of me once in a while.

• Lee Cronin is your typical high-school professor used to being listened to, used to lecture and used to be right and not be questioned. He has strong believes, outrageous and some not very inspired. But he strongly believe in what he's saying (he's affirming otherwise but the manner in which he conducts himself in the conversation, betrays that deep down he doesn't believe that he's wrong). Entitled, is the name of the game.

• Something can't exist until it's made. I'm glad this brilliant mind was here to tell me this.

• So actually he says that he can use the information from the past to recreate the past based on the present outcome (by extracting a rule), but he cannot use the same rule to construct and predict a possible future. I have to say that I strongly disagree and I cannot find a single argument which would support such a statement.
  
  He is contradicting himself at every step; the moment you say that you don't believe in randomness, you automatically imply determinism.
  
  I do must say that he has a certain fondness for poetry and metaphors. I guess he is more artistically inclined with a strong desire for affirmation, probably stemmed from a childhood trauma to prove that he is scientifically inclined.
  
  Nonetheless, I guess he still can bring value to science through inspiration if not through something else. Or maybe can bring something palpable as well.

• I don't agree with the guy once again. Let's take two atoms and accelerate them towards each other. At this point the equation is deterministic and you can predict precisely the outcome of the collision, knowing the atoms type, the speed at which they collide and the angle. You can than slowly work go towards a conglomeration of more atoms and predict precisely the outcome and slightly increase the size and complexity of the object until you being limited by the computational power, not by uncertainty.

• The moment you recognize that neuroplasticity exists, is the moment you recognize that free will doesn't.

• Time really doesn't exists. Time it's an anthropomorphic, socio-economical concept born out of the need to predict and thrive , at first, agriculturally.
  What some call time, is actually the rate of change which is not constant. The rate of change in the Universe is contextual and is a function of matter, mass, density, temperature.

• I love this man's passion

• "If you want free will…" Why should we want it?

• Lex- “what’s impressive about some of the complexity on earth”

  Me- Lee Cronins research and his explainability.

• I loved this …going to new frontiers and looking at new angles – pushing forward bravely…again my tiny bit of knowledge got kicked up a notch. Molecular organization and differentiation assemblies…am I speaking French?
  Thank you both-

• Thanks for this interview! Just putting it out there and pointing out that I enjoy these interviews far more than the barrage of CEOs that we tend to get here as of late.

• More art than science.

• The fans would also be growing at depths like a helical shape like that of dna.

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