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Sara Imari Walker: An Informational Theory of Life

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Manage episode 485490660 series 3575489
Content provided by The Long Now Foundation. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by The Long Now Foundation or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.
“What is life?” In her Long Now Talk, astrobiologist and theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker explores the many dimensions of that seemingly simple question. Starting from the simplest precursors, Walker assembled a grand cathedral of meaning, tracing an arc across existence that linked the fundamentals of organic chemistry, the possibility space of lego bricks, and the materialist philosophy of Madonna. As the leader of one of the largest international theory groups in the origins of life and astrobiology, Walker has worked an interdisciplinary team of researchers to devise assembly theory: a theory of life and its origins that finds that life is the only way to create complex objects, and that the existence of complex objects is fundamentally and quantifiably rare. Assembly theory’s focus on complexity and countability allows astrobiologists like Walker to grapple with the sheer vastness of combinatorial space — the set of all things that could possibly exist. Show notes: https://longnow.org/ideas/informational-theory-life/
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267 episodes

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Manage episode 485490660 series 3575489
Content provided by The Long Now Foundation. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by The Long Now Foundation or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.
“What is life?” In her Long Now Talk, astrobiologist and theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker explores the many dimensions of that seemingly simple question. Starting from the simplest precursors, Walker assembled a grand cathedral of meaning, tracing an arc across existence that linked the fundamentals of organic chemistry, the possibility space of lego bricks, and the materialist philosophy of Madonna. As the leader of one of the largest international theory groups in the origins of life and astrobiology, Walker has worked an interdisciplinary team of researchers to devise assembly theory: a theory of life and its origins that finds that life is the only way to create complex objects, and that the existence of complex objects is fundamentally and quantifiably rare. Assembly theory’s focus on complexity and countability allows astrobiologists like Walker to grapple with the sheer vastness of combinatorial space — the set of all things that could possibly exist. Show notes: https://longnow.org/ideas/informational-theory-life/
  continue reading

267 episodes

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