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Terms apply. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.200 Daniel, it's good to see you. I have a question 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.160 that I have been dying to ask you. When is 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.880 physics going to unravel the deep mysteries of the universe? 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.360 Wow? Right into it? Huh. Unfortunately we don't have that 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:45.080 on our schedule exactly, and it's going to be as 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:46.160 long as it takes. 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:46.800 You know what. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.000 I need to do something important, but I keep putting 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.480 it off. I put it on a calendar and give 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.400 myself a deadline. I find that that actually makes it happen. 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:55.440 So you should schedule it. 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.480 All right, let's do it. I'm putting it on my calendar. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.480 Let's have a zoom meeting to share our ultimate enlightenment 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.240 about the universe. Have about June twenty twenty nine that 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:04.720 worked for you? 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:05.239 Uh? 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:05.480 You know? 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.440 I feel like when you come up with budgets and timelines, 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.120 you always need to multiply by at least three. So 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.720 let's do something in the twenty forties, and I think 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.040 you'll have enough time then so there it's scheduled, and 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:18.680 that was easy. 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.960 Yeah. Well, you know now I'm worried that scheduling our 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.800 ultimate enlightenment is going to lead us right into the 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:26.760 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.840 Trap, like I'm gonna forget my towel. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.040 That maybe, but more importantly, we might get the answer 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:34.800 and have no idea what the question was. 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:53.520 Yep, yep, that's a tough one. 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:54.920 Hi. 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.400 I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.960 u C Irvine, and I never forget my towel. 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.200 I'm Kelly Waidersmith, and my kids are always annoyed with 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.040 me because I'm the only mom at the pool who 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.200 always forgets the towels. And I'm a junct faculty at 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:09.000 Race University. 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.240 How can you be forgetting towels? I mean, you have 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.120 these young kids, they're always making messes. I mean everybody's kids, 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.560 not yours a particular. You gotta just learn to bring 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:17.640 the towel wherever you go. 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.960 Right, I am resistant to learning. I guess I should 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.039 know by now, but I never All the other moms 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.520 have the big bags and they've got snacks and goldfish. 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.880 My kids are always like, where are the goldfish? Everybody 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.080 else has goldfish, and I'm like, tell it to your 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.000 shrinking a couple of years kid, I'm sorry. 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.560 At least I have something to complain about, right. My 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.640 wife has one of those big bags, but she doesn't 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.279 just have snacks and goldfish in it. She's got all 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.599 sorts of random crap in there. And my kids are 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.080 always making fun of her for it until the moment 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.919 where they're like, hey, mom, wait, do you have chapstick 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.880 or do you have a spoon And she's like, of 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.000 course I do, and she digs it out of a 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.360 bag and then she's like the savior. 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.520 Mom to the rescue. 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.200 Are the best, absolutely and so Welcome to the podcast 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:08.080 that celebrates moms but also asks the deepest questions in 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.200 the universe. We want to know how everything works, where 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.680 it all came from, how it all can possibly make 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.719 sense to our squishy little brains. Welcome to Daniel and 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.400 Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:23.520 So today we're going to be talking about a topic 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:25.640 that's near and dear to my heart. I've spent many 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.440 hours arguing over this question with friends, but I'll let 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:29.599 you go. 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:31.640 Ahead and introduce it. I'm just just wanting to preface 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:32.320 that I'm excited. 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.919 On this podcast, we talk about some of the deepest 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.960 questions in the universe. How is everything made? Where it 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.200 all come from? What are the tiny little quantum particles, 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.120 how do they weave themselves together in order to explain 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.920 this existence? And where possibly did we leave our towels. 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.320 But today in the podcast, we're going to talk about 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.080 something maybe even deeper, something much more personal, something closer 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.600 to our experience, and that's the question of life itself. 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.120 What is it? How, how can we talk about it, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.880 how can we understand it? And how possibly could we 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.360 discover it on alien planets? 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.120 Oh, there's nothing better than talking about biology on a 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.640 physics podcast. Finally get into the good stuff. 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.680 With a couple of physicists, right, And so today on 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.920 the podcast, we're going to be digging into the question 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.880 what is the physics of life? And we're gonna be 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.880 talking to Professor Sarah Amari Walker, author of the recent 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.719 book Life As No One Knows It, The Physics of 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.920 Life's Emergence. How do you feel about talking about life 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:37.080 with two physicists. 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:41.440 Kelly wouldn't be my first choice. But no, I'm kidding. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.640 I mean I'm very excited to hear a different perspective 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:44.159 on the question. 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.080 Well, I hope you brought a towel, because this is 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:51.240 gonna be messy. It's always fascinating when physicists try to 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.600 walk into another field and explain things. And I feel 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.680 like often we do that because we think maybe there 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.640 is a simpler explanation, or because we think in these 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.160 like fundamental grounding in the basic principles of the universe. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.880 How would you say, that's typically receives Kelly. 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:11.480 So you say fascinating, we say maddening, because so often physicists, 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.480 you know, seem to think that physics is up here 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.840 and biology is a few levels below, and if you 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.880 know physics, you must also know biology and maybe also chemistry, 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.520 so you can just wade in and solve all the 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.800 problems that the biologists are too silly to be able 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.840 to figure out. And so often there's you know, a 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:31.280 bit of condescension in the answers. I saw Freeman Dyson 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.800 give a talk once about group selection that was absolutely infuriating, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.840 but because he clearly didn't understand what we were actually 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:43.000 arguing about. But anyway, today's conversation. You know, I read 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.720 life as No One Knows It by our author who 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.880 we're talking to today, and I really appreciated that she 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.520 did not have that condescending biology as easy attitude. She 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.640 clearly appreciated the nuances and was trying to meld it 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:56.280 with physics. 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.000 As a physicist married to a biologist, I've definitely learned 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.320 to treat biology with great respect good and not just 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.560 for the health of my marriage, but also just intellectually 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.920 because I appreciate it. And I think, you know, the 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:14.920 dirty secret about physicists walking into biology or chemistry is 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:17.680 that we became physicists not because we thought biology was 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:19.960 too easy. Your chemistry was too simple, but because it's 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.000 too hard. You know, we can think about simple objects 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.040 and put them together to try to describe the fundamental 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:27.600 nature of the universe, but now we need like ten 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.640 to the forty objects to explain like a drop of rain. 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.000 It's too complicated. I can't think about all of those 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.640 things at once. That's why I let to boil things down, 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.760 for like, one particle touches one other particle, and that's 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:39.920 my whole universe. 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:40.200 Man. 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.559 I appreciate that you're trying to clean up the reputation 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.240 for your community. But I don't buy it at all. 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.280 But I do think that biology is complicated. You know, 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.760 we got the human microbiome that didn't solve all the 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:54.800 disease related problems we thought it was going to solve. 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:56.640 Now we're working on the connect dome for the brain 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:58.800 and there's just many levels. 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.120 Man, it's complicated. We deserve respect. 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:04.560 Maybe one day we'll have an explanation for the human 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.880 brain that goes all the way down to the fundamental physics, 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.040 but not yet. And so to take us on this 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.240 journey through the physics of life, whether we can understand 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:15.280 the nature of life, the meaning of life, how to 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.040 look for life, and how maybe even to discover life 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.880 on alien planets. We had a fun conversation with Professor 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.840 Sarah Amari Walker about her new book Life As No 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:30.000 One Knows It. Here's the interview. So then it's my 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.240 pleasure to welcome the podcast Sarah and Mauri Walker. She's 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.200 a theoretical physicist and deputy director for the Beyond Center 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.920 for Fundamental Concepts and Science, as well as a professor 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.040 at Arizona State University, and she's tackling some really hard 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.040 questions about the nature of life and consciousness and free 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.079 will using physics in her new book, Sarah, thank you 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:53.440 very much for joining us today. 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.440 Yeah, I'm terrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:56.840 We're so glad to have you here. 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.880 So before we dig into the topic of your book, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:01.680 I just wanted to get to know you a little 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.760 bit better, especially because you're writing such a fascinating book. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:09.480 You're tackling really big, really hard, almost philosophical questions, but 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.440 you're using physics as a tool to do it. So 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:14.839 take us back to the beginning, like what got you 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:16.560 into physics in the first place. 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.679 I did not know I wanted to be a physicist 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.760 until I took my first physics class. So most of 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:25.240 my childhood I actually thought I was going to be 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.480 an artist. And I went to community college and I 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.440 knew at the time I liked science, so I just 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.800 took all the science classes i could, and I just 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.000 fell in love with physics. I just think it's absolutely 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.079 amazing to think about the universe in these really deep, 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.160 abstract ways and come to understand the world in a 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.240 way that is almost existentially shocking to humans in some sense, 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.080 because it's so different than the way that we thought 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.880 it was, and the set of broad regularities that physics 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.720 reveals I think are really beautiful, And I guess I 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.520 was really excited about transforming something about the way that 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.120 we think about the world and the way that physics 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:01.400 does that. 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:03.320 So I decided I wanted to be a physicist. 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.120 Awesome. So we just had an episode recently about thinking 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.960 like a physicist what that means, and had a little 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.959 disagreement with Jorge about whether physicists think differently than other scientists. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.040 And so you say you're drawn to physics in particular 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.800 because of the way they think about the world. How 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:22.800 is that different? How does a physicist think about the 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:24.520 universe different than a biologist? 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.080 Yeah, and I'm not even sure if it comes down 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.560 to training or who gets attracted to different fields. So 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.360 I actually asked this question myself. But for me, I 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.560 think a lot of the discussion about what physics is 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.000 is mostly about what physics studies and not what physics 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.520 is as a discipline. And so for me, when I 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:41.360 think about the history of physics and also what I'm 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.400 trying to do as a physicist, moving into territory that's 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.280 traditionally not thought of as physics. You know, the thread 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.719 I see there that I think is the commonality of 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.240 like what I think the core of physics is is 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:58.200 building new and abstract explanations for the world around us. 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.360 So I think physics to me is getting to like 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.320 the very root of like the most fundamental explanations, and 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.720 that process of doing that is you know, very unique 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.199 to physics, I think is a discipline relative to other sciences. 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.160 I think other sciences also do that, but I think 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:14.760 the kind of training and the way that we're taught 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.840 to think and trying to embed these sort of abstract 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:23.920 universal ideas in mathematics that are so broad, is pretty. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:25.960 Unique to what we call physics. 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.720 Now, whether it will stay that way and it doesn't 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:29.760 become sort of more universal to the rest of science, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:31.640 or even if that's the best way of doing science, 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:33.000 as you know, a whole other. 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:33.640 Subject of debate. 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.360 But for me, that's the essence of what physics is 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.559 and why I still identify as a physicist, even though 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.319 the problems I study are so different than what has 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.400 traditionally been studied in physics. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.520 When you've taken on a particularly in my mind, complicated 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.359 questions to tackle, so my training is as a biologist 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.240 and in grad school, like the thing that you stay 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.439 up late drinking and talking about is you know what 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:02.120 is life? And how do you define species? Those are 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.760 like the two questions where at the end we're all like, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.520 I don't know. Nature doesn't fit into categories, and we 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.440 all laugh and go out dancing. And so what different 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.920 perspective does a physicist have on that question? And why 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.960 do we need an answer to this question as opposed 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.120 to the hand wavy nature doesn't fit into nice categories, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:18.880 let's just move on. 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:20.680 Why do we need to do better than that? 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.319 So I love the resolution that nature doesn't fit into categories, 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.400 and so I love that that's like part of the conclusion. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.679 I think that's actually a brilliant insight, because I think 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.160 we have a tendency to put problems in boxes, because 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.440 certain disciplines might become more adept to answering certain aspects 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.320 of questions. But there are some questions on the frontier, 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.360 like what is life that you know as a biologist, 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.280 Maybe you don't need to know the answer to you 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.800 because you can study biology on Earth without ever having 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.440 a resolution to that question. But this gets to your 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.679 point that you know there are some questions like the 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.080 origin of life that require an understanding of what life is, 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.880 because that is not even a precisely defined question unless 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.479 we say that there's some category of nature quote unquote 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:04.839 that is life that we're trying to explain the origin of, 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:08.439 and the other one is alien life. Are designing completely 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.520 radically new kinds of life, which I think are not 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.480 really decoupled problems with this idea of like what other 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.840 forms could life take besides the ones that have evolved 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:17.960 on Earth, besides the biology that we know it? 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:19.800 And so I think. 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.800 Those questions, surprisingly enough, don't seem to have answers that 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.200 fall just within the discipline of biology as it's developed, 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.480 because of exactly what you're pointing out, that the boundaries 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.720 of disciplines are kind of historically contingent, and there's a 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.720 lot of things that necessarily need to come from chemistry 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:38.680 or even computer science or physics or all these other 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.000 different disciplines. And so one thing I've really come to 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.560 notice in my career is that whatever discussion we need 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.880 to have about solving that problem doesn't fit in any 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.960 discipline as it's currently structured, And in some sense we 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:51.840 might need to build a new discipline to really think 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.920 about this problem because it's beyond the boundaries of like 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.080 the current confines of knowledge that we've defined them so far. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.359 And that's exciting because it just shows you that disciplines 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:02.320 are kind of. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.040 Human centric categories of nature. We might have to rewrite them. 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.320 Yeah, I mean, we might argue, like, what is a 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:09.360 physicist anyway? 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.200 And people exactly about that, right, and just redefine that 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:13.960 term too. 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:15.200 That sounds good to me. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.560 And you begin your really fun book with this question 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.920 and the sort of shocking suggestion that somebody made that 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.520 life doesn't exist. You know that if we can't categorize it, 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.800 if we can't define it, then maybe it doesn't exist 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.240 in the end. What is your definition of life? 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:35.080 Yeah? 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.720 So in my mind I usually keep I think a 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.960 running list of maybe three to ten different definitions for life, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.640 because I think pinning yourself to one too early is 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.680 a bit premature when we don't understand what we're talking about. 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.880 So usually my process is, you know, I really want to. 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.800 Have a theory, like a theory that explains the broad 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.840 patterns and regularities that we see across living forms and 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.200 is deep enough to help us understand the original life. 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.560 That's sort of my modality of thinking about these problems, 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.440 and so I've spent most of my career trying to 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.240 figure out what the structure of such a theory would be. 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:10.280 And obviously it has to be guided by some concept 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.200 of what you think life is. So it's a little circular, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.440 but you're constantly redefining everything. So I'm often very hesitant 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.960 to pin one answer when people. 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:20.080 Ask me what I think life is. 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.440 But with all that caveat, I can give you kind 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.520 of a conceptual framing of what I think it is, 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.160 but I wouldn't want to call it a definition. And 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:32.280 I think a lot of what the theory that we're 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.240 working on in the kinds of experiments are pointing to 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.600 is that life is something about how information structures mattercross 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.080 space and time is one way I say it, But 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.600 I think in the theory that we're building, it's much 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.240 more precise to say that life is the mechanism by 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.680 which the universe generates complexity. And we have a very 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.080 specific way of thinking about complexity, and it becomes very 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.800 historically contingent, and so I guess how the universe uses 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.960 memory that builds complex things in the future might be 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:58.520 the way I say it today, and if you ask 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:00.480 me tomorrow, I would say something else, because we're still 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.200 a work in progress about trying to get to the 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.399 bottom of what it is we're actually talking about. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.200 So for a biologists, the argument almost always comes down to, well, 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.160 our virus is alive or not, so using the definition 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.480 that you just gave our viruses alive or not and why. 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.320 Yeah, So I think there's a little bit more nuanced. 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:18.879 So usually the way I talk about it is like, 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.000 are we talking about the physics of life? Are particular 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.879 instances of things that are living? And it might be like, 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.040 are you talking about gravitational physics and like the curvature 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:28.879 or space time, or are you talking about a gravitational 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.040 body that was generated by these sort of fundamental mechanisms 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:33.560 that we know that our universe works in. And I 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.400 think there are slightly different categories. So when I say 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.040 things are life, I mean anything that is the product 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.960 of an evolutionary process and requires memory and information from 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.600 the past to be able to actually make that thing 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.640 exist in the present. And I think viruses are certainly 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.720 that they require evolution to form, but the sort of 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.679 active process of generating complexity and generating novelty and contributing 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.800 to the sort of open end growth of complexity that 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.280 we've observed in our biosphere. I think things that do 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:06.880 that are alive. And I'm not sure that I would 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.239 qualify a virus as an individual agent as part of 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.520 that creative process, but it certainly is when you look 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.600 at viruses as components of ecological systems for example. So 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.760 a lot of the things with issues about life is 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.320 trying to pick a scale and say this thing is life, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.119 when really what you're talking about is a much more 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.440 abstract universal physics that even enables those things to exist 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.679 in the first place, to be selected. I think the 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.159 reason that viruses have been hard is because it's actually 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.760 a category error to try to partition a boundary and 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:36.439 around a virus and say is this alive or not 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.399 when you really should be looking at the continuity of 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.520 the evolutionary process and what it constructs. 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.840 Yeah. Fascinating. I don't know that I agree that we 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.320 need a definition of life, but I do think it's 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.600 valuable to try, Like, I think we need to have 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:53.480 the discussion in order to try to figure out what 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.159 this is. Like if we agree or discuss, you know 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.320 what life is that shapes the way we think about 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:01.879 how to look for alien life and all these questions. 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.119 So I think it's very valuable to dig into the 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.200 question even if we don't find an answer. And from 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.359 that perspective, I was really interested in the discussion you 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.359 had at the beginning of your book about, you know, 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.880