PART TWO: Famous Inorganic Chemist on Why He Believes Aliens Exist, The Revolutionary Experiments That Could Create Life & How AI Companies Are Deceiving Us

Mayim Bialik's Breakdown

Mayim Bialik

Mental Health, Society & Culture, Wellness, Health & Fitness, Comedy, Thebigbangtheory, Spirituality, Selfimprovement, Mentalhealth

4.7 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are aliens already among us? Are we even looking in the right way to find them? Renowned chemist, molecular visionary, and University of Glasgow Regis professor Lee Cronin joins Mayim and Jonathan to explore the science behind alien life, consciousness, and the very definition of biology itself. Known for his groundbreaking work in assembly theory and abiogenesis, Dr. Cronin dives deep into the possibility of non-carbon-based life, why the Fermi Paradox might be misleading, and how we could soon detect extraterrestrial civilizations through the mathematics of complexity. As one of the world’s leading voices in origin of life research, Dr. Cronin offers bold counterpoints to other guests on alien intelligence and reveals why he believes some exoplanets may already harbor advanced technology. He explains how chemical complexity could be the key to recognizing life in the universe, and why traditional astrobiology might be looking in the wrong place. The conversation also takes a turn toward the dark side of AI: how artificial intelligence may already be used by powerful institutions for dangerous, even covert purposes and why Cronin thinks we should rethink our fear of it. From the dream of building living machines to redefining what counts as life or consciousness, this episode is a mind-bending journey into the future of science, philosophy, and alien discovery.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm I'm Biolic.
0:05.5	I'm Jonathan Cohen.
0:06.5	And welcome to part two of our fascinating and quite entertaining conversation with
0:12.7	Regis Professor and chemist Lee Cronin.
0:16.3	Jonathan, we have already tackled so much aliens of alternate life forms, carbon-based
0:23.9	versus silica-based life forms.
0:25.5	What are we going to tackle in part two?
0:27.2	Part two, we're getting into some of the hard problems that Lee is focused on in his day job,
0:32.9	where he is trying to create and recreate the origins of life, which have huge implications to our
0:39.7	life right now in humanity, including drug discovery, including helping humanity navigate
0:45.7	many of the problems we face, and also spiritual implications, helping people understand
0:51.0	where we've come from.
0:52.8	I'm also going to basically take him to task, neuroscientistic chemists, so you do not want to miss part two.
0:58.0	Here is part two with Dr. Lee Kronin.
1:01.0	Break it down.
1:04.0	For those of us, again, who grew up in a very different era of really the beginnings of understanding of like, oh, some primates use tools. What? That's
1:13.3	amazing, right? I mean, we, you know, animals like, gorillas can use sign language, right? These
1:20.5	were amazing things that happened in the 70s and 80s. And it was, you know, really the beginning,
1:27.2	at least, you know, for me, of an understanding of
1:30.1	consciousness, like, what does it mean to be a sentient being? What does it mean to be a thinking,
1:34.5	computing, feeling being, right? And in those 30 years, in those 40 years, in those 50 years, in
1:42.8	those 50 years since then, we have arrived at an evolution
	...

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