The laws of the universe are unable to explain these origin mysteries | Paul Davies: Full Interview
From Big Think.
Watch this video on YouTube ↗
The Big Think Interview is brought to you by Pangram, the most accurate AI detector on the market. Visit https://www.pangram.com/big-think to try it for free.
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-fi-davies-e41IyOlfj7I
Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1
Up next,
Brian Cox: The quantum roots of reality | Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO41iURud9c
Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, author of The Demon in the Machine, argues that the deepest mystery of life’s origin is how chemistry came to write its own code.
Davies traces the question from Aristotle and Schrödinger’s “aperiodic crystal” to Maxwell’s demon, Michael Levin’s two-headed flatworms, and the possibility of a shadow biosphere hiding on Earth.
0:00 Chapter 1: What is life? Definition and information
5:08 Cooking up life in the lab
14:44 Life beyond the genome
21:00 Chapter 2: Life, entropy, and the laws we're missing
23:15 Does life defy the second law?
25:35 Maxwell's demon and information as fuel
28:53 The search for a new kind of physical law
31:54 Chapter 3: Are we alone? The search for a second genesis
35:22 Where to look for alien life
43:51 A shadow biosphere on Earth?
48:14 Why ET may be AI
51:38 Chapter 4: The Goldilocks enigma: Is the universe fine-tuned for life?
54:11 Three explanations for fine-tuning
55:31 Davies's fourth way
57:58 Wheeler's delayed choice experiment
Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/origin-life-davies/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description
© Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go Deeper with Big Think:
►Become a Big Think Web Member
Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more.
https://bigthink.com/membership/
►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack
Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox.
https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/
►Listen to Big Think Interviews on Spotify
Insights from the world's biggest thinkers, now as a podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/7KRYoRD1NdF2aoQcBMyPlb
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Paul Davies:
Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, and bestselling author. He is Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, both at Arizona State University. Previously he held academic appointments at the Universities of Cambridge, London and Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK, before moving to Australia in 1990, initially as Professor of Mathematical Physics at The University of Adelaide. Later he helped found the Australian Centre for Astrobiology in Sydney.
Davies’s research focuses on the “big questions” of existence, ranging from the origin of the universe to the origin of life, and include the nature of time, the search for life in the universe, and foundational questions in quantum mechanics. He helped create the theory of quantum fields in curved spacetime, with which he provided explanations for how black holes can radiate energy, and what caused the ripples in the cosmic afterglow of the Big Bang. In astrobiology, he was a forerunner of the theory that life on Earth may have come from Mars. He is currently championing the theory that Earth may host a shadow biosphere of alternative life forms.
Davies has lectured on scientific topics at institutions as diverse as The World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the Commission of the European Union, Google, Windsor Castle, The Vatican and Westminster Abbey, as well as mainstream academic establishments such as The Royal Society, The Smithsonian Institution, and the New York Academy of Sciences. Davies devised and presented a series of 45 minute BBC Radio 3 science documentaries and a one-hour television documentary about his work in astrobiology, entitled "The Cradle of Life." Among his bestselling books are "The Mind of God," "How to Build a Time Machine," and "The Goldilocks Enigma." His latest book, "The Eerie Silence," was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2010.
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-fi-davies-e41IyOlfj7I
Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1
Up next,
Brian Cox: The quantum roots of reality | Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO41iURud9c
Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, author of The Demon in the Machine, argues that the deepest mystery of life’s origin is how chemistry came to write its own code.
Davies traces the question from Aristotle and Schrödinger’s “aperiodic crystal” to Maxwell’s demon, Michael Levin’s two-headed flatworms, and the possibility of a shadow biosphere hiding on Earth.
0:00 Chapter 1: What is life? Definition and information
5:08 Cooking up life in the lab
14:44 Life beyond the genome
21:00 Chapter 2: Life, entropy, and the laws we're missing
23:15 Does life defy the second law?
25:35 Maxwell's demon and information as fuel
28:53 The search for a new kind of physical law
31:54 Chapter 3: Are we alone? The search for a second genesis
35:22 Where to look for alien life
43:51 A shadow biosphere on Earth?
48:14 Why ET may be AI
51:38 Chapter 4: The Goldilocks enigma: Is the universe fine-tuned for life?
54:11 Three explanations for fine-tuning
55:31 Davies's fourth way
57:58 Wheeler's delayed choice experiment
Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/origin-life-davies/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description
© Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go Deeper with Big Think:
►Become a Big Think Web Member
Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more.
https://bigthink.com/membership/
►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack
Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox.
https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/
►Listen to Big Think Interviews on Spotify
Insights from the world's biggest thinkers, now as a podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/7KRYoRD1NdF2aoQcBMyPlb
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Paul Davies:
Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, and bestselling author. He is Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, both at Arizona State University. Previously he held academic appointments at the Universities of Cambridge, London and Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK, before moving to Australia in 1990, initially as Professor of Mathematical Physics at The University of Adelaide. Later he helped found the Australian Centre for Astrobiology in Sydney.
Davies’s research focuses on the “big questions” of existence, ranging from the origin of the universe to the origin of life, and include the nature of time, the search for life in the universe, and foundational questions in quantum mechanics. He helped create the theory of quantum fields in curved spacetime, with which he provided explanations for how black holes can radiate energy, and what caused the ripples in the cosmic afterglow of the Big Bang. In astrobiology, he was a forerunner of the theory that life on Earth may have come from Mars. He is currently championing the theory that Earth may host a shadow biosphere of alternative life forms.
Davies has lectured on scientific topics at institutions as diverse as The World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the Commission of the European Union, Google, Windsor Castle, The Vatican and Westminster Abbey, as well as mainstream academic establishments such as The Royal Society, The Smithsonian Institution, and the New York Academy of Sciences. Davies devised and presented a series of 45 minute BBC Radio 3 science documentaries and a one-hour television documentary about his work in astrobiology, entitled "The Cradle of Life." Among his bestselling books are "The Mind of God," "How to Build a Time Machine," and "The Goldilocks Enigma." His latest book, "The Eerie Silence," was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2010.
