#404 – Lee Cronin: Controversial Nature Paper on Evolution of Life and Universe
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2023
⏱️ 208 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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EPISODE LINKS:
Lee's Twitter: https://twitter.com/leecronin
Lee's Website: https://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin/
Nature Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9
Chemify's Website: https://chemify.io
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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.
(00:00) - Introduction
(09:37) - Assembly theory paper
(30:06) - Assembly equation
(43:19) - Discovering alien life
(1:01:38) - Evolution of life on Earth
(1:09:34) - Response to criticism
(1:27:12) - Kolmogorov complexity
(1:39:02) - Nature review process
(1:59:56) - Time and free will
(2:06:21) - Communication with aliens
(2:28:19) - Cellular automata
(2:32:48) - AGI
(2:49:36) - Nuclear weapons
(2:55:22) - Chem Machina
(3:08:16) - GPT for electron density
(3:17:46) - God
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Lee Cronin, his third time in this podcast. |
| 0:04.3 | He is a chemist from University of Glasgow who is one of the most fascinating, brilliant, |
| 0:09.6 | and fun to talk to scientists I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know. |
| 0:15.6 | And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. |
| 0:18.3 | Check them out in the description. |
| 0:19.7 | It's the best way to support this podcast. |
| 0:22.0 | We've got NetSuite for business management software, better help for |
| 0:25.0 | mental health, Shopify for e-commerce, Aislie for naps and A.G. 1 for delicious, delicious health. |
| 0:32.1 | Choose wise and my friends. Also if you want to work with |
| 0:35.2 | our amazing team or what was hiring go to Lex Friedman.com slash hiring. You can also |
| 0:39.2 | get in touch with me if you go to Lex Creamer. Com slash contact. |
| 0:42.8 | There's so many more things I could say. |
| 0:44.6 | Let me just keep going. |
| 0:46.9 | Now on to the full ad reads. |
| 0:48.4 | As always, no ads in the middle. |
| 0:50.1 | I try to make these interesting, |
| 0:51.1 | but if you must skip them, them friends please still check out our sponsors |
| 0:55.2 | I enjoy their stuff maybe you will too |
| 0:58.7 | this show is brought to you by NetSuite an all in one cloud business management system. |
| 1:05.1 | I usually do these ad reads and say whatever the heck I want, but sometimes the sponsors |
| 1:10.3 | ask politely, never required but always politely, to mention a few things. |
| 1:15.0 | Two things they ask me to mention. |
... |
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