#404 – Lee Cronin: Controversial Nature Paper on Evolution of Life and Universe

Lex Fridman Podcast

Lee Cronin is a chemist at University of Glasgow. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/lee-cronin-3-transcript

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