Joined: 6 Feb 2005 Age: 44 Gender: Male Posts: 24,196 Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi
10 Dec 2023, 2:21 am
Really interesting discussion of assembly theory. I hadn't heard it before but if he's right - we'd have a tool to measure the presence of life by complexity of chemistry under a mass spectrometer. What this would especially help with is issues where life is hidden in plain sight but it looks so foreign that we wouldn't normally think to consider it as that. He's also suggesting that 'selection' happens for objects as much as living organisms and accordingly everything is in the process of evolution and furthermore he seems to be suggesting that the kinds of novelty evolution creates pushes for intelligence as an outcome.
Apparently he's put this to the test with, in at least one instance, NASA samples and it seems to be holding up (at least per the conversation - can't say I've researched it deeply enough as I'm just hearing about it now).
It's a long discussion, 3:19:21, but a lot of really cool stuff in it. It's easily as interesting as some of what Karl Friston is working on.
_________________ “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin
10 Dec 2023, 2:21 am
