Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life? Be sure to check out Paul Davies Books (Affiliate Links) The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life amzn.to/3vXPiOH The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World amzn.to/3d6DLUC The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? amzn.to/2QrgWTV God and the New Physics amzn.to/3fc6IRV
Enjoyed this one. Don't know if I'm just imagining it but it's nice to hear the vindication in his voice that some of his 'whack' ideas are now the primary way of thinking.
Thank You for doing this. Makes my day, actually you make my "going to sleep" and that's big in my life. I always listen again at work so you get 2 views from me. Great work, you should feel proud.
So happy to get a longer format interview/discussion. Although I love every episode, often 25-30 minutes seems to leave a few stones un-turned. This is spot on.
@@mataxpp Yes. Most certainly yes. It describes the history of 'chaos' in academia; and explains how complex systems emerge from chaos. It changed my life. Prof. Davies is my intellectual hero. Therre is another book I regard as similarly foundational... Prof. Kip Thorne's 'Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy' (1994 or 5 from memory-I was given a copy in 1995). These two books will give a better than primer introduction to relativity, black holes, chaos, complexity etc.
@@mataxpp I happen to live in Adelaide, where Prof. Davies taught at the Adelaide University. I attended a public lecture he gave soon after arriving in Adelaide. He anwered audience questions after the lecture. One of the greatest moments of my life was after asking a question, he went thoughtful and said 'that is a very good question...'. PAUL DAVIES SAID I ASKED A GOOD QUESTION!!! Funny thing now though, is for the life of me I can't remember the question or the reply. lol. It was something about the twins paradox and entanglement. Relativity is screwy.
There is no [permanent] alternative to Creation. The physical universe is an alternative to Creation, and that is why it is changing and moving, for it has a beginning, a middle and an end. You are somewhere in the middle in the great span of Creation. Only a very small part of Creation is involved in manifest life. But to you, of course, it is immense and incomprehensible, as it should be. It is not possible for your intellect to comprehend the scope and the magnitude of this. For you, Creation is the physical universe. It seems to be forever, but it is really temporary. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. You have not even reached the middle spot of this expanding universe, so this is something that is confounding to your understanding. Both of these powerful quotes are from a book The One God, by Marshall Vian Summers.
@@jennyanydots2389 you’ve contributed so much to this same subject. I just can’t wait to read your books or even listen to your dissertation on the origins of life. You are a National treasure that should be cherished...said no one ever. I have a feeling your mother beat you.
@@Rudderify My sister/mom never beat me, it was all consensual son. And I appreciate your compliments, I'm glad you recognize true greatness. My BBC is heated.
I looove these interviews/discussions, so amazing :) Not to take anything away from JMG's superb videos, in case you haven't stumbled across them you should check out 'Closer to Truth' channel. Not better but equally amazing as this channel. My girlfriend loves watching soap operas and quiz shows, it's hard for me to find a way to watch stuff I'm interested in, I put my stuff on when we're going to sleep, she still complains. Such is life :)
Maybe you need a gf you can relate and really talk to, instead of just a warm body. :) Those superficial relationships are so last mid-century but sadly still so prevalent. Really worn cliche, too.
Wow I’ve only watched the first 15mins and I’m ‘hooked’, I always had this theory that life was the result of information being stored/exchanged in the most energy efficient way possible , to then hear you both talking about this same idea has blown my mind .
It's actually weird that the volcanic vents exist at all. If one or two values were slightly different, then matter itself couldn't exist in this universe. And even then, if there wasn't just a slight asymmetry between matter and anti-matter, again nothing would exist. And even then, conditions in the universe had to be just so, ever so slightly, for matter to begin to clump together. Had that been ever so slightly off, nothing would exist. This list goes on and on before getting anywhere close to life. That it made it to life and intelligence is really just icing on the cake.
fun fact(s) by tracing back conserved core genes among all extant organisms it suggests that LUCA(the Last Universal Common Ancestor) was an organism which metabolized iron ions fixing carbon through something called the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway. In other words it depended on dissolved iron to both fix carbon(chemosynthesis) and access chemical energy(respiration aka breathing) It is important to note that even today much of Earth microbial biosphere still relies on metal ions for chemosynthesis and respiration. Even the oldest metabolic machinery to use dissolved gasses rather than metal ions i.e. those organisms which use Sulfur are most abundant in and around hydrothermal systems. Even photosynthesis which we tend to associate with oxygen seems to have evolved early on within photoferrothroph bacteria which at least today utilize Bacteriochlorophylls (the group of photoreactive pigments life uses to fix carbon storing chemical energy from sunlight in various sugars. Closely elated to them there is a another important anaerobic group of organisms developed another way to fix carbon from sunlight using hydrogen sulfide also utilize Bacteriochlorophylls though notably both of these paths are in terms of carbon fixation compatible as the waste products react turning into insoluble pyrite a process which in the absence of oxygen can be a closed cycle. Aerobic photosynthesis is probably a result of a tweak to the hydrogen sulfide reaction trading out hydrogen sulfide for the much more abundant water resulting in O2 as a waste product. The catch here is that it requires more energy to break apart water molecules than it does to use other photosynthetic pathways so this is actually the least efficient way of fixing carbon of the 3 main photosynthetic pathways. This inefficiency at photosynthesis is ultimately the consequence of the very same reason that makes oxygen so good for respiration enabling multicellular life the extremely large oxidation number of Oxygen. For reference oxygen has the highest of all non Nobel gas elements 4th highest if Noble gas cations are included. The oxidation number's magnitude determines how much energy an organism needs to invest to trigger a reaction in either direction. Life doesn't seem to care if the reaction is oxidizing or reducing as in either case the reaction itself can be flipped around to provide energy one way and take energy the other way. What matters is the magnitude of the reactant which is sort of like the weight it pulls in chemical reactions. This always favors the release of stored energy i.e. the process which stores energy must provide energy obviously and a system tends towards its lowest energy state. The more effort it takes to metaphorically push it up the chemical hill the more you can get back when it falls down. A bigger push "uphill" requires a higher initial investment of energy. However as the end products organic molecules are the same this means the net effect is the quantity you get out the other side for a given amount of effort. As a consequence it seems the billion year delays between the invention of aerobic photosynthesis and the large scale oxygenation of the ocean are likely caused by natural selection favoring sulfur and iron based photosynthetic metabolisms, which are easier to perform give less energy in return, as they get to consume more resources more quickly. More importantly as the energy investment threshold for phototrophic reactions is quantized meaning a photon must have sufficient energy to drive the reaction or it will not occur. As light diffuses out more and more with depth this means anaerobic photosynthesis to be biologically sufficient both occur lower down in the water column compared to aerobic photosynthesis. This is relevant as in the open ocean far from land diffusion drives access to essential nutrients most importantly Phosphorus. The more biological reactions the more resources are depleted which means less and less nutrients get to diffuse upwards from the seafloor with depth. Thus for oxygen metabolism to win i.e. produce an accumulating amount of oxygen you need nutrient scarcity to not be a problem in order for it to build up to concentrations where its high toxicity matters. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10872-z The conditions where local oxygen accumulation is favorable thus are restricted to either extreme influx of nutrients injected into the system such as Large Igneous Provence's particularly rich in Phosphorous, and or more importantly shallow water and or costal waters where aerobic photosynthesis can succeed at or near the seafloor. As the first geochemical evidence for any significant exposed land mass is roughly 3 billion years ago it isn't surprising that the first appreciable oxygen accumulation was a brief short lives window around 2.9 billion years ago where polar glaciation was able to occur. The nest time there was any significant evidence for land seems to be right around the onset of the Great Oxygenation Event and the subsequent Huronian glaciation 2.4 billion years ago aka the 1st snowball Earth. Eventually after around 300 million years the planet was thawed and the system had by 2 billion years ago settled into a steady rate of a few percent of oxygen after a brief spike known as the Lomagundi Excursion Event, where rates climbed into double digit percentages also coinciding with the first clearly macroscopic multicellular organisms of some affinity the Francevillian biota. From that point on up until 720 million years ago aerobic life was probably restricted to shallow costal or fresh water environments with evidence for prokaryotic extremophiles colonizing the land to some degree. Among this life were the first Eukaryotes which likely appeared around 1.8 billion years ago and rapidly diversified within the aerobic biosphere. Then something happened at around 720 million years ago that changed the equation. A large amount of phosphorus came from somewhere the leading suspect being the Franklin Large Igneous Province a phosphorus rich flood basalt LIP associated with the break up of the Supercontinent Rodinia. Regardless of the cause the planet froze over once again as oxygen levels soared in a boom bust manner with a series of episodic global glaciations the first of these the Sturtian glaciation was the most significant, followed by a second Marinoan glaciation both of which involved glaciation of areas that paleomagnetic records indicate were equatorial there was then a third almost snowball glaciation the Gaskiers glaciation which extended to midlatitudes nearly as low as 30 degrees latitude. rocks dated only 9 million years younger start the first appearance of the Ediacaran biota and the last snowball style glaciation. Hmm I wrote a lot more than intended... well hopefully it is informative... Might modify this into a blog style post w/ more citations
I gotta say that I'm right there with him on information theory being a key to understanding life. Most things that store and replicate information have oddly life like behaviors. And from a universal perspective all life that exists in the universe has a direct informational chain of cause and effect that goes all the way back to the begining of the universe.
Totally agreed. I really like that way of framing the idea of life. It expands nicely beyond the limitations of trying to define life by being carbon-based or involving chemistry that uses other elements in the same way we use carbon (drawing a line thereabouts has always seemed awfully arbitrary to me), and also it neatly ties up and puts a bow on the question of whether viruses are alive. No more ambiguity. Does the matter go through chemical or physical processes involving transmission of information instead of just purely physical (either gross level or molecular/atomic level) reactions? Bam, it's alive. Then the only fuzzy line relates to "artificially" created engineered things that could fit under that umbrella, like computers. Which I think fits, I mean, I think it'd be healthiest if we'd all start framing AIs as life, with limited AI being simply non-self-aware life, life that can't make real decisions of its own. That seems to be to be a good ethical foundation for linguistically forming how humans relate to AI as it develops. I like this, I'm adopting this.
I don't think information theory is what you think it is. It's a field of mathematics established by Claude Shannon in the early 20th century pertaining to things like error correcting codes for use on noisy channels, and how much information is truly present in systems when their bits are unreliable and how to utilize it fully.
Ahhh nothing like a nice long episode of Event Horizon with John Michael Godier! The idea of celestial bodies with consciousness would be a game changer.
I mostly agree with you but in science it called anthropic principle and to rely on it to heavily is considered a bit of a cop out, like saying "it just is". Also if the universe was required to be ultra fine tuned for life then it may put more weight on certain cosmological models.
@@PhiltheMoko Thanks, appreciate your reply. But, It does seem like they're a lot of "just is" particularly in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, It seems like the life itself is doing the "fine tuning" through natural selection. Also which cosmological model would benefit from an ultra fine tuned for life?
@@jamesmitchell2704 the anthropic principle rabbit hole can pop up in the multiverse because you would expect vast numbers of non life universes that you cant observe for each life supporting universe that you can observe.
"Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. ... In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages." Thoreau put the best words to my same thoughts on this. The more we learn about the incredible depth and complexity and amazingness of the universe, of course the more reverent we'll become of it. It's just truly too vast for us to deeply comprehend. It makes sense that humans would try to interpret it through a human-influenced lens. But yeah, I don't think a bit of subjective spirituality flavors in your personal poetry/metaphors/aesthetic you adopt in your mind is AT ALL in conflict with being scientifically literate and also respecting that the rules of the universe are as mundane and basic and straightforward as they are glorious and magical. It's totally both. Humans have always interpreted the most complex, abstract, mind-blowing things by creating about them. When we have a new idea, we create words for it so we can wrap our heads and our literal mouths (or other word-organs like hands) around it. When we have emotional experiences, we create expressive art of all kinds about it. When we have spiritual experiences, which I'd say includes contemplating science and the universe, we create spiritual metaphors/lenses about it. Sometimes that looks like religion once people add rituals and moral sets to those lenses, and sometimes it just looks like a chill naturalistic spirituality where you know you're in a truly natural universe and all things can be explained rationally but also appreciate that it's incredibly cool and meaningful to be here and spend thoughts on wondering about that meaning. I think it's all healthy as long as people stay flexible and grounded and keep in mind that subjective lenses are just that, subjective lenses, and that our rituals and feelings about them are just our own personal aesthetic just like our own taste in music or food. It's all your prerogative how you want to experience the universe, including how you experience your place and purpose and unimportance and importance in it. That got rambly lol whoops, thanks for coming to my "naturalistic science-mindedness and spirituality aren't mutually exclusive, dang it" TED talk
Omg, this is the first time I heard someone credible acknowledge the connection between magnetism/magnetic fields, and quantum physics!! That makes me super happy, and super excited!
Been missing you John. Help me ponder many topics. Science is such a universal language. And you are really great at translating to a simpleton like myself.
17:45 Quite interesting to think of solar systems with their planets orbiting around the sun in that system like the nucleus of an atom with a number of electrons around each shell and the electrons orbiting around the nucleus of an atom arranged in these shells. With the orbits of these planets being like energy levels/electron shells from the nucleus of an atom, the sun.
Cant abiogenesis be explained by self replicating RNA like viruses that start out as small segments of pre-rna lattices? I mean add a few million years and some imperfect transcription and u have a eukaryotic organism....
Schroedinger's ideas on life, as discussed here, have really made me see his cat in a whole new way! Also interesting to note the parallels between the views of Dr. Davies (and Schroedinger) on a possible role of quantum mechanics in life, and views expressed by Roger Penrose about the possible role of quantum effects in consciousness.
@@jide7765 It's a pretty far-off hypothesis and admittedly is far from favoured by consensus in the field - nor have I expressed support with it. However, to call the views of a Nobel-prize winning scientist, which have been presented in peer-reviewed publications (see: Phys Life Rev. 2014 Mar;11(1):39-78) "bs" is not exactly polite nor scientifically persuasive.
@@otohikoamv "However, to call the views of a Nobel-prize winning scientist, "bs" is not exactly polite nor scientifically persuasive." Not the first Nobel-prize to bs... check Luc Montagnier about coronavirus or homeopathy.
My parents witnessed a meteorite strike the earth on a camping trip in the 70s. It was too hot to touch when they found it so they scooped it up in a coffee can. Keeping it in a fishing tank for years because of the pretty color. When I heard this story as a teen I searched for it and found it stowed away in the garage. I used an old tungsten carbide industrial planer blade and a sledge hammer to fracture a piece off for testing. I was told it was specular hematite and that is indeed what it appears to be. So my question is were my parents mistaken in their account? Is there some way this piece of hematite was ejected and returned to Earth? It does appear to have some heat marks or something that all other hematite I've seen lacks. Maybe it was just somehow involved in a tiny impact event? Was it maybe just launched from a thermal event only to reenter the atmosphere in view of some campers? Whatever the case it was always a fun story for me so I though I'd share and ask for some opinions.
I seriously enjoyed this item. I love Paul Davies, he really got me thinking about the origins of live, and the origins of the laws of nature. There are some amazing lectures from Paul on youtube that i really recommend.
We are all Jack Burton from Big Trouble In Little China, and the Universe is Lo Pan lol. "I don't get it" "Shut up Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to 'get it'!"
If the human race continued for another 50,000 to 100,000 years or longer, would we be advanced enough to create a reality as real as the one we live in?? Looking at current advancements in quantum physics, quantum biology, quantum computing, AI and virtual reality.. I definately think we could.
Or.. there was a specific Time in the history of the Universe at which things like DNA were more likely to arise, never before and never after.. and therefore Life may be less likely now.. and that explains why there are few instances of Communicative Alien Life elsewhere. Since that epoch is over. Something other than DNA might arise in the future.. but be so different or so displaced from our Time that it will make no difference to us. Not unlike the Climate eras on Earth and those effects on the Types of Life.
Just right for life? Try living in 99.9999999% of it then. And even here it is trying to kill us constantly. PS your shows are so good but umm. can you get the volume equalized? I end up turning it up to hear the guest and get blasted by your voice like.. every time (I mean I like your voice but.. just sayin)
My brain really likes when other brains talk about " our brains" and how are they made and how do they function. It's absolutely mind blowing and that the thing can observe itself.
Face it, you need infinite possibilities within limited time and space. It's the definition of impossible millions of times over and that is just for the information that already has to have the structure that it has written programming for. You need information for the structure and you need structure for the information. Then you need the same thing all over again for each and every different organism, not to mention a compatible environment.
One possibility too is that life from Earth has already contaminated Mars through countless meteor impacts. If life is found on Mars, one of the first tasks will be determining if it evolved on Mars or Earth.
I found a real love for astronomy from a random John Godier video a couple of years ago. I like to consider myself amateur astronomer now! I used to hate reading books, but I felt so compelled to somehow show my appreciation to him so I bought “the salvagers” and “supermind” as a “contribution” to him a while back and both were fantastic! Highly recommend. There really isn’t enough time to ponder the questions of the universe in one lifetime, but research and listen for hours upon hours and always be fascinated. Keep up the great work Mr. John.
If a dead seed can come to life by planting, then life can spring anywhere and everywhere if there are right conditions chemicals and source of energy. I think life is everywhere and universe is alive. Love your video, thanks 👍. Ps everything is born and everything dies 😂, that suggest that everything is alive and created for life.
If life isn't as old as the universe, then the universe can (best? only?) be understood without considering life (and especially consciousness) at all. Those would be incidental side effects.
So DNA, RNA bends Time and Space on a different scale than Gravity. But in a way does the same thing at a different scale. DNA can repeat with high fidelity Time and Space events on a molecular scale from near Time, or far Time and near Space or far Space... depending on on the right elements in a close proximity.. not unlike a Star, Helium and Hydrogen.
If the laws of the universe are eternal, immutable and in effect everywhere, then life probably is too. Since life isn't coming into new existence constantly on earth (as far as we know), there may be an early life-forming period in a planet's existence, similar to what happened here 3.5 billion years ago. When we finally figure out how life came into being, my gut tells me it will be a simple process. Maybe not an easy process -- but a simple one.
@@politicallycorrectredskin796 Since life as we know it is so persistent and varied creeping into nearly every possible environment, by inference we may expect to behave the same way throughout the universe acting through the same eternal immutable laws that rule everything. The universe does not appear to be anomalous but uniform. Life should follow that same basic pattern.
@@FluidMotionEnergy Yes! I love the simplicity of your analogy. It describes exactly what I was trying to express. Getting the first two life legos to match up and lock together may not have been easy, but once they did mesh then there was no holding them back. Then legos becomes logos. Some 3.5 billion years ago some fine mechanism done it -- but what?
@@politicallycorrectredskin796 I agree that until we have another sample of life we won't know for sure. Until then, what anyone says about life elsewhere is opinion -- not fact or truth -- that's obvious. That also means most people will take one side or the other: life elsewhere or life unique. You seem to favor the unique viewpoint, while I prefer the elsewhere viewpoint. Neither one of us is right or wrong, because neither one of us can know for sure. But I also believe that analogy alone tells us something. The fact that life arose here on earth 3.5 billion years makes it more probable that it happened elsewhere, not less probable (i.e. unique). That's not certain of course -- but it does increase the odds or hedges the bet -- IMHO.
Dear Channel. is it matter of respect to your auditiory to take care of quality of audio? such big difference between Paul Davies and John Michael Godier recorded speech. for shure, there are some equalisation medhods that could make the guest voice more readable. being not native speaker it is hard to brake through this wall. Thanks for your work, anyway. but please...
Love this channel but being able to listen via podcast would be way better than the dumb YT app, which won’t allow background playing. Is there an audio version of this show? If not there really should be. I think you could automate the whole thing, and not add any additional workload.
The universe just developed the way it did. Life developed the only way it could for the universe it arose within. The universe didn't cater to life, life catered to the universe. The universe isn't just right for life. Life is just right for the universe.
Why is the universe just right for life? Why is this universe just right for any one of its contents? My point is it could be we don't need to address a special explanation to the existence of life.
Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life?
Be sure to check out Paul Davies Books
(Affiliate Links)
The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life amzn.to/3vXPiOH
The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World
amzn.to/3d6DLUC
The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life?
amzn.to/2QrgWTV
God and the New Physics
amzn.to/3fc6IRV
It seems to be it's definitely one of the ultimate questions. I however am not optimistic we will ever solve it.
best astronomy show the web
No. Wrong question. It’s the other way round; life is fine-tuned for this universe.
We only think so because we're here.
@@giannapple exactly.
People still watch TV with all this absolute GOLD on the Internet. For free!
Become a patreon and help the team deliver more
@@steverafferty4114 i always read that as Patron as in the tequila and i can't help it hahaha
27k views over 2 days. How much money will that make in TV ratings?
Yeah i know, they re so used to their indoctrination device, it has made them addicts.
Who watches tv now with all that woke indoctrination crap. I watch gems like this instead. No woke or race indoctrination just honest science.
Getting lost listening to these interviews is never a waste of time.
Food for the soul!
@Trevor Chase come on mate, that’s clearly not what he meant.
It gets me through a lot of boring lulls at work
Hell yeah brother
“Lost” is a state of mind. A construct of human consciousness. Thank you for your response.
Enjoyed this one. Don't know if I'm just imagining it but it's nice to hear the vindication in his voice that some of his 'whack' ideas are now the primary way of thinking.
I’m a simple man. I see Event Horizon and I stop everything I’m doing.
Mmmm Coffee.
"Doctor, you need to finish the surgery!"
"NOT NOW"
I’m the most complex man so I wait a little bit and make sure I’m done with my complex thoughts before I bother myself.
Preaching from the righteous bible brother :)
;)
Thank You for doing this. Makes my day, actually you make my "going to sleep" and that's big in my life. I always listen again at work so you get 2 views from me. Great work, you should feel proud.
Thank you johan
Yeah I do the same thing.
This is an amazing interview. Maximum information density. The topic is nontrivial. 10 out of 10.
I love how the interviews on this channel make complex topics understandable and interesting for the general populace. Truly a public service.
So happy to get a longer format interview/discussion. Although I love every episode, often 25-30 minutes seems to leave a few stones un-turned. This is spot on.
One of the best guests you’ve had on, absolutely fascinating
I've been learning from Prof. Davies since he published 'The Cosmic Blueprint'. He is a living treasure.
do you think its worth reading it today? or would you recommend another book about it?
@@mataxpp Yes. Most certainly yes. It describes the history of 'chaos' in academia; and explains how complex systems emerge from chaos. It changed my life. Prof. Davies is my intellectual hero. Therre is another book I regard as similarly foundational... Prof. Kip Thorne's 'Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy' (1994 or 5 from memory-I was given a copy in 1995). These two books will give a better than primer introduction to relativity, black holes, chaos, complexity etc.
@@mataxpp I happen to live in Adelaide, where Prof. Davies taught at the Adelaide University. I attended a public lecture he gave soon after arriving in Adelaide. He anwered audience questions after the lecture. One of the greatest moments of my life was after asking a question, he went thoughtful and said 'that is a very good question...'. PAUL DAVIES SAID I ASKED A GOOD QUESTION!!! Funny thing now though, is for the life of me I can't remember the question or the reply. lol. It was something about the twins paradox and entanglement. Relativity is screwy.
I hate when work gets in the way of listening to these fascinating videos.
Really enjoyed this interview. I'm definitely going to get his books. Thanks for the episode.
There is no [permanent] alternative to Creation. The physical universe is an alternative to Creation, and that is why it is changing and moving, for it has a beginning, a middle and an end. You are somewhere in the middle in the great span of Creation. Only a very small part of Creation is involved in manifest life. But to you, of course, it is immense and incomprehensible, as it should be. It is not possible for your intellect to comprehend the scope and the magnitude of this.
For you, Creation is the physical universe. It seems to be forever, but it is really temporary. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. You have not even reached the middle spot of this expanding universe, so this is something that is confounding to your understanding.
Both of these powerful quotes are from a book The One God, by Marshall Vian Summers.
Thank you, Elina.
How I envy Michael getting to pick the brains of all these experts.
That dude was an expert at picking out the little pieces of shit that get caught in the pubes on the rim of my be whole, but not much else.
So you’re rude and an idiot. Keep that out of here please.
@@jennyanydots2389 you’ve contributed so much to this same subject. I just can’t wait to read your books or even listen to your dissertation on the origins of life. You are a National treasure that should be cherished...said no one ever. I have a feeling your mother beat you.
@@Rudderify My sister/mom never beat me, it was all consensual son. And I appreciate your compliments, I'm glad you recognize true greatness. My BBC is heated.
@@jennyanydots2389trolls are just...weird
Nice! Just in time as I got in bed.
Thank you, John.
I HAVE FALLEN INTO EVENT HORIZON!!!
Best lines
You are spaghetti now.
I looove these interviews/discussions, so amazing :)
Not to take anything away from JMG's superb videos, in case you haven't stumbled across them you should
check out 'Closer to Truth' channel. Not better but equally amazing as this channel.
My girlfriend loves watching soap operas and quiz shows, it's hard for me to find a way to watch stuff I'm interested in, I put my stuff on when we're going to sleep, she still complains. Such is life :)
Robert Kuhn will be on the show in April.
Maybe you need a gf you can relate and really talk to, instead of just a warm body. :) Those superficial relationships are so last mid-century but sadly still so prevalent. Really worn cliche, too.
GREAT episode, John! Love this channel, you are doing a great service for science education.
awesome video and questions and guest !
thanks for asking the simulation question :D
I love all of your videos. Awesome work!
thank you!
Wow I’ve only watched the first 15mins and I’m ‘hooked’, I always had this theory that life was the result of information being stored/exchanged in the most energy efficient way possible , to then hear you both talking about this same idea has blown my mind .
Are volcanic thermal vents five miles below the ocean's surface fine-tuned for life or is life fine tuned for its environment?
Exactly. And even if sentient life was rare enough to occur only once in the life time of the universe, we would still exist.
It's actually weird that the volcanic vents exist at all. If one or two values were slightly different, then matter itself couldn't exist in this universe. And even then, if there wasn't just a slight asymmetry between matter and anti-matter, again nothing would exist. And even then, conditions in the universe had to be just so, ever so slightly, for matter to begin to clump together. Had that been ever so slightly off, nothing would exist. This list goes on and on before getting anywhere close to life. That it made it to life and intelligence is really just icing on the cake.
fun fact(s) by tracing back conserved core genes among all extant organisms it suggests that LUCA(the Last Universal Common Ancestor) was an organism which metabolized iron ions fixing carbon through something called the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway. In other words it depended on dissolved iron to both fix carbon(chemosynthesis) and access chemical energy(respiration aka breathing)
It is important to note that even today much of Earth microbial biosphere still relies on metal ions for chemosynthesis and respiration. Even the oldest metabolic machinery to use dissolved gasses rather than metal ions i.e. those organisms which use Sulfur are most abundant in and around hydrothermal systems.
Even photosynthesis which we tend to associate with oxygen seems to have evolved early on within photoferrothroph bacteria which at least today utilize Bacteriochlorophylls (the group of photoreactive pigments life uses to fix carbon storing chemical energy from sunlight in various sugars. Closely elated to them there is a another important anaerobic group of organisms developed another way to fix carbon from sunlight using hydrogen sulfide also utilize Bacteriochlorophylls though notably both of these paths are in terms of carbon fixation compatible as the waste products react turning into insoluble pyrite a process which in the absence of oxygen can be a closed cycle.
Aerobic photosynthesis is probably a result of a tweak to the hydrogen sulfide reaction trading out hydrogen sulfide for the much more abundant water resulting in O2 as a waste product. The catch here is that it requires more energy to break apart water molecules than it does to use other photosynthetic pathways so this is actually the least efficient way of fixing carbon of the 3 main photosynthetic pathways. This inefficiency at photosynthesis is ultimately the consequence of the very same reason that makes oxygen so good for respiration enabling multicellular life the extremely large oxidation number of Oxygen. For reference oxygen has the highest of all non Nobel gas elements 4th highest if Noble gas cations are included. The oxidation number's magnitude determines how much energy an organism needs to invest to trigger a reaction in either direction.
Life doesn't seem to care if the reaction is oxidizing or reducing as in either case the reaction itself can be flipped around to provide energy one way and take energy the other way. What matters is the magnitude of the reactant which is sort of like the weight it pulls in chemical reactions. This always favors the release of stored energy i.e. the process which stores energy must provide energy obviously and a system tends towards its lowest energy state.
The more effort it takes to metaphorically push it up the chemical hill the more you can get back when it falls down. A bigger push "uphill" requires a higher initial investment of energy. However as the end products organic molecules are the same this means the net effect is the quantity you get out the other side for a given amount of effort.
As a consequence it seems the billion year delays between the invention of aerobic photosynthesis and the large scale oxygenation of the ocean are likely caused by natural selection favoring sulfur and iron based photosynthetic metabolisms, which are easier to perform give less energy in return, as they get to consume more resources more quickly. More importantly as the energy investment threshold for phototrophic reactions is quantized meaning a photon must have sufficient energy to drive the reaction or it will not occur. As light diffuses out more and more with depth this means anaerobic photosynthesis to be biologically sufficient both occur lower down in the water column compared to aerobic photosynthesis. This is relevant as in the open ocean far from land diffusion drives access to essential nutrients most importantly Phosphorus.
The more biological reactions the more resources are depleted which means less and less nutrients get to diffuse upwards from the seafloor with depth. Thus for oxygen metabolism to win i.e. produce an accumulating amount of oxygen you need nutrient scarcity to not be a problem in order for it to build up to concentrations where its high toxicity matters.
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10872-z
The conditions where local oxygen accumulation is favorable thus are restricted to either extreme influx of nutrients injected into the system such as Large Igneous Provence's particularly rich in Phosphorous, and or more importantly shallow water and or costal waters where aerobic photosynthesis can succeed at or near the seafloor.
As the first geochemical evidence for any significant exposed land mass is roughly 3 billion years ago it isn't surprising that the first appreciable oxygen accumulation was a brief short lives window around 2.9 billion years ago where polar glaciation was able to occur. The nest time there was any significant evidence for land seems to be right around the onset of the Great Oxygenation Event and the subsequent Huronian glaciation 2.4 billion years ago aka the 1st snowball Earth.
Eventually after around 300 million years the planet was thawed and the system had by 2 billion years ago settled into a steady rate of a few percent of oxygen after a brief spike known as the Lomagundi Excursion Event, where rates climbed into double digit percentages also coinciding with the first clearly macroscopic multicellular organisms of some affinity the Francevillian biota.
From that point on up until 720 million years ago aerobic life was probably restricted to shallow costal or fresh water environments with evidence for prokaryotic extremophiles colonizing the land to some degree. Among this life were the first Eukaryotes which likely appeared around 1.8 billion years ago and rapidly diversified within the aerobic biosphere.
Then something happened at around 720 million years ago that changed the equation. A large amount of phosphorus came from somewhere the leading suspect being the Franklin Large Igneous Province a phosphorus rich flood basalt LIP associated with the break up of the Supercontinent Rodinia. Regardless of the cause the planet froze over once again as oxygen levels soared in a boom bust manner with a series of episodic global glaciations the first of these the Sturtian glaciation was the most significant, followed by a second Marinoan glaciation both of which involved glaciation of areas that paleomagnetic records indicate were equatorial there was then a third almost snowball glaciation the Gaskiers glaciation which extended to midlatitudes nearly as low as 30 degrees latitude. rocks dated only 9 million years younger start the first appearance of the Ediacaran biota and the last snowball style glaciation.
Hmm I wrote a lot more than intended... well hopefully it is informative... Might modify this into a blog style post w/ more citations
@@JohnMichaelGodier love your work man. Puts tv to shame for real.
I gotta say that I'm right there with him on information theory being a key to understanding life. Most things that store and replicate information have oddly life like behaviors. And from a universal perspective all life that exists in the universe has a direct informational chain of cause and effect that goes all the way back to the begining of the universe.
Totally agreed. I really like that way of framing the idea of life. It expands nicely beyond the limitations of trying to define life by being carbon-based or involving chemistry that uses other elements in the same way we use carbon (drawing a line thereabouts has always seemed awfully arbitrary to me), and also it neatly ties up and puts a bow on the question of whether viruses are alive. No more ambiguity. Does the matter go through chemical or physical processes involving transmission of information instead of just purely physical (either gross level or molecular/atomic level) reactions? Bam, it's alive.
Then the only fuzzy line relates to "artificially" created engineered things that could fit under that umbrella, like computers. Which I think fits, I mean, I think it'd be healthiest if we'd all start framing AIs as life, with limited AI being simply non-self-aware life, life that can't make real decisions of its own. That seems to be to be a good ethical foundation for linguistically forming how humans relate to AI as it develops.
I like this, I'm adopting this.
I don't think information theory is what you think it is. It's a field of mathematics established by Claude Shannon in the early 20th century pertaining to things like error correcting codes for use on noisy channels, and how much information is truly present in systems when their bits are unreliable and how to utilize it fully.
I have no proof. Just a feeling. But I believe the reason why I’m alive why I exist is to learn and to grow.
Wow, last time I was this early my wife left me for Raoul the cabana boy. LMAO
You know you're awesome when you're introduced by an announcer with a British accent.
that was excellent, open minded and forward thinking science right there ..
A half moon cookie, cold glass of almond milk, and Event Horizon. Hell yeah.
That sounds just right.
Great guest, great questions, fascinating discussion. Thanks.
And I love the intro music too so please keep that. And I listen to each episode multiple times - so much rich info
I could listen to this guy for 13.8 x 10^9 years...
Ahhh nothing like a nice long episode of Event Horizon with John Michael Godier! The idea of celestial bodies with consciousness would be a game changer.
I always wonder why the question is why is the universe right for life when for life to exist it would have to be right for the universe.
I mostly agree with you but in science it called anthropic principle and to rely on it to heavily is considered a bit of a cop out, like saying "it just is". Also if the universe was required to be ultra fine tuned for life then it may put more weight on certain cosmological models.
@@PhiltheMoko Thanks, appreciate your reply. But, It does seem like they're a lot of "just is" particularly in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, It seems like the life itself is doing the "fine tuning" through natural selection. Also which cosmological model would benefit from an ultra fine tuned for life?
@@jamesmitchell2704 the anthropic principle rabbit hole can pop up in the multiverse because you would expect vast numbers of non life universes that you cant observe for each life supporting universe that you can observe.
incredible interview and i'm high off that gas
I'm on that same wave length. Premium Unleaded . Gassed up. Great interview
Thank you guys for all the work you put into this channel. I appreciate it so much. :)
Thank you for watching
The music at the end of the videos is so soothing and relaxing. Perfect music to begin and end these awesome videos with!
Omg Thank you! This is going to be perfect tonight with my headphones and the lights out. The BEST!!!!
I feel like I am one of the few people who hear things like this and become MORE convinced there is a God. I don't understand why that is.
"Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. ... In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages."
Thoreau put the best words to my same thoughts on this. The more we learn about the incredible depth and complexity and amazingness of the universe, of course the more reverent we'll become of it. It's just truly too vast for us to deeply comprehend. It makes sense that humans would try to interpret it through a human-influenced lens. But yeah, I don't think a bit of subjective spirituality flavors in your personal poetry/metaphors/aesthetic you adopt in your mind is AT ALL in conflict with being scientifically literate and also respecting that the rules of the universe are as mundane and basic and straightforward as they are glorious and magical. It's totally both.
Humans have always interpreted the most complex, abstract, mind-blowing things by creating about them. When we have a new idea, we create words for it so we can wrap our heads and our literal mouths (or other word-organs like hands) around it. When we have emotional experiences, we create expressive art of all kinds about it. When we have spiritual experiences, which I'd say includes contemplating science and the universe, we create spiritual metaphors/lenses about it. Sometimes that looks like religion once people add rituals and moral sets to those lenses, and sometimes it just looks like a chill naturalistic spirituality where you know you're in a truly natural universe and all things can be explained rationally but also appreciate that it's incredibly cool and meaningful to be here and spend thoughts on wondering about that meaning.
I think it's all healthy as long as people stay flexible and grounded and keep in mind that subjective lenses are just that, subjective lenses, and that our rituals and feelings about them are just our own personal aesthetic just like our own taste in music or food. It's all your prerogative how you want to experience the universe, including how you experience your place and purpose and unimportance and importance in it.
That got rambly lol whoops, thanks for coming to my "naturalistic science-mindedness and spirituality aren't mutually exclusive, dang it" TED talk
Always good to hear from Paul. Thanks.
Omg, this is the first time I heard someone credible acknowledge the connection between magnetism/magnetic fields, and quantum physics!!
That makes me super happy, and super excited!
Abiogenesis! the great filter..
Love reading Davies’ books!
Been missing you John. Help me ponder many topics. Science is such a universal language. And you are really great at translating to a simpleton like myself.
17:45 Quite interesting to think of solar systems with their planets orbiting around the sun in that system like the nucleus of an atom with a number of electrons around each shell and the electrons orbiting around the nucleus of an atom arranged in these shells. With the orbits of these planets being like energy levels/electron shells from the nucleus of an atom, the sun.
I’ve believed the analogy is appropriate. Maybe using this they could determine the location of the 9th /10th planet.
Great interview. Goldilocks dilemma is on the way. Can't wait to read it!
Waiting for new video on John Michael godier......
And event horizon......🥰🥰🥰🥰
Cant abiogenesis be explained by self replicating RNA like viruses that start out as small segments of pre-rna lattices? I mean add a few million years and some imperfect transcription and u have a eukaryotic organism....
Great interview, loved it.
Good to see this channel gaining recognition - 200k subs! Been here since beginning, you deserve much more.
Now that was an hr very well spent! Making parts of a model and listening to Event Horizon. TFS John, GB :)
What model were you building? That sounds like a perfect combination
@@EventHorizonShow Hi John, It is a1/24th Airfix Hawker Typhoon, very intense kit but nice and detailed. GB :)
Let's go!!!!!
Schroedinger's ideas on life, as discussed here, have really made me see his cat in a whole new way!
Also interesting to note the parallels between the views of Dr. Davies (and Schroedinger) on a possible role of quantum mechanics in life, and views expressed by Roger Penrose about the possible role of quantum effects in consciousness.
"views expressed by Roger Penrose about the possible role of quantum effects in consciousness."
Please, not that bs...
@@jide7765 It's a pretty far-off hypothesis and admittedly is far from favoured by consensus in the field - nor have I expressed support with it. However, to call the views of a Nobel-prize winning scientist, which have been presented in peer-reviewed publications (see: Phys Life Rev. 2014 Mar;11(1):39-78) "bs" is not exactly polite nor scientifically persuasive.
@@otohikoamv
"However, to call the views of a Nobel-prize winning scientist, "bs" is not exactly polite nor scientifically persuasive."
Not the first Nobel-prize to bs... check Luc Montagnier about coronavirus or homeopathy.
I can't wait for your new video every week! Greetings from South Africa.
Love the show, is Event Horizon available on podcast apps? Will it be available at some point? Would love to listen offline via Podbean.
That was absolutely wonderful, thought provoking, fascinating and educational all throughout. One of the most enjoyable things I ever listened to.
Really enjoyed this one, Paul Davies was a great guest.
Please never stop uploading 🖤
Nice long interview thanks John I can enjoy this at work good stuff as always!
Just cant get enough of your videos. Play both of your channels constantly. Keep them coming.
My parents witnessed a meteorite strike the earth on a camping trip in the 70s. It was too hot to touch when they found it so they scooped it up in a coffee can. Keeping it in a fishing tank for years because of the pretty color.
When I heard this story as a teen I searched for it and found it stowed away in the garage. I used an old tungsten carbide industrial planer blade and a sledge hammer to fracture a piece off for testing.
I was told it was specular hematite and that is indeed what it appears to be.
So my question is were my parents mistaken in their account? Is there some way this piece of hematite was ejected and returned to Earth? It does appear to have some heat marks or something that all other hematite I've seen lacks. Maybe it was just somehow involved in a tiny impact event? Was it maybe just launched from a thermal event only to reenter the atmosphere in view of some campers?
Whatever the case it was always a fun story for me so I though I'd share and ask for some opinions.
Very interesting. Will ask John to look at this.
I seriously enjoyed this item.
I love Paul Davies, he really got me thinking about the origins of live, and the origins of the laws of nature.
There are some amazing lectures from Paul on youtube that i really recommend.
32 people cannot handle the answer to the question "where did the laws of the universe come from?"
The Universe has no obligation to make sense to us~
We are all Jack Burton from Big Trouble In Little China, and the Universe is Lo Pan lol.
"I don't get it"
"Shut up Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to 'get it'!"
Good way to start the day 😊
Great discussion. More please.
This makes me laugh, the universe is finely tuned for death, only by an extreme tiny chance has life manged to eek out an existence.
Scan Yes, we always require an answer but in some cases maybe there is none. The universe is an extremely hostile place to life, as we know it.
I could listen to him for hours. Excellent show
It’s like this channel is at the forefront of natural selection’s effect on UA-cam. Truly amazing content.
It's strange hearing John use the phrase "world in which we live" at the beginning of a video instead of the end.
It actually felt weird saying it. Seemed out of order.
a new event horizon?!?! time to get high
Really enjoyed this one. Thank you!
If the human race continued for another 50,000 to 100,000 years or longer, would we be advanced enough to create a reality as real as the one we live in?? Looking at current advancements in quantum physics, quantum biology, quantum computing, AI and virtual reality.. I definately think we could.
Or.. there was a specific Time in the history of the Universe at which things like DNA were more likely to arise, never before and never after.. and therefore Life may be less likely now.. and that explains why there are few instances of Communicative Alien Life elsewhere. Since that epoch is over. Something other than DNA might arise in the future.. but be so different or so displaced from our Time that it will make no difference to us. Not unlike the Climate eras on Earth and those effects on the Types of Life.
Just right for life? Try living in 99.9999999% of it then. And even here it is trying to kill us constantly. PS your shows are so good but umm. can you get the volume equalized? I end up turning it up to hear the guest and get blasted by your voice like.. every time (I mean I like your voice but.. just sayin)
Suddenly all is well...
My brain really likes when other brains talk about " our brains" and how are they made and how do they function. It's absolutely mind blowing and that the thing can observe itself.
Worked in the "in which we live" in under 2 minutes in
Good catch.
Face it, you need infinite possibilities within limited time and space. It's the definition of impossible millions of times over and that is just for the information that already has to have the structure that it has written programming for. You need information for the structure and you need structure for the information. Then you need the same thing all over again for each and every different organism, not to mention a compatible environment.
One possibility too is that life from Earth has already contaminated Mars through countless meteor impacts. If life is found on Mars, one of the first tasks will be determining if it evolved on Mars or Earth.
I found a real love for astronomy from a random John Godier video a couple of years ago. I like to consider myself amateur astronomer now! I used to hate reading books, but I felt so compelled to somehow show my appreciation to him so I bought “the salvagers” and “supermind” as a “contribution” to him a while back and both were fantastic! Highly recommend. There really isn’t enough time to ponder the questions of the universe in one lifetime, but research and listen for hours upon hours and always be fascinated. Keep up the great work Mr. John.
Glad I could help! Always stay curious.
If a dead seed can come to life by planting, then life can spring anywhere and everywhere if there are right conditions chemicals and source of energy. I think life is everywhere and universe is alive. Love your video, thanks 👍. Ps everything is born and everything dies 😂, that suggest that everything is alive and created for life.
If life isn't as old as the universe, then the universe can (best? only?) be understood without considering life (and especially consciousness) at all. Those would be incidental side effects.
Always stoked to hear more fascinating discourse about this universe in which we liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.
So DNA, RNA bends Time and Space on a different scale than Gravity. But in a way does the same thing at a different scale. DNA can repeat with high fidelity Time and Space events on a molecular scale from near Time, or far Time and near Space or far Space... depending on on the right elements in a close proximity.. not unlike a Star, Helium and Hydrogen.
This was awesome, love it!
Great interview.
If the second law of thermodynamics is true, how if the formation of even the first protein possible let alone intelligent life?
This show is just amazing, so great content and guests, and John's interventions have perfect timing. I'm so glad I found this!
Paul Davies!
Oh, THAT Gentleman! 👏✨
Best interview you've done yet! That was really great, thank you.
If the laws of the universe are eternal, immutable and in effect everywhere, then life probably is too. Since life isn't coming into new existence constantly on earth (as far as we know), there may be an early life-forming period in a planet's existence, similar to what happened here 3.5 billion years ago. When we finally figure out how life came into being, my gut tells me it will be a simple process. Maybe not an easy process -- but a simple one.
Like legos, one brick at a time
@@politicallycorrectredskin796
Since life as we know it is so persistent and varied creeping into nearly every possible environment, by inference we may expect to behave the same way throughout the universe acting through the same eternal immutable laws that rule everything. The universe does not appear to be anomalous but uniform. Life should follow that same basic pattern.
@@FluidMotionEnergy
Yes! I love the simplicity of your analogy. It describes exactly what I was trying to express. Getting the first two life legos to match up and lock together may not have been easy, but once they did mesh then there was no holding them back. Then legos becomes logos. Some 3.5 billion years ago some fine mechanism done it -- but what?
@@politicallycorrectredskin796
I agree that until we have another sample of life we won't know for sure. Until then, what anyone says about life elsewhere is opinion -- not fact or truth -- that's obvious. That also means most people will take one side or the other: life elsewhere or life unique. You seem to favor the unique viewpoint, while I prefer the elsewhere viewpoint. Neither one of us is right or wrong, because neither one of us can know for sure. But I also believe that analogy alone tells us something. The fact that life arose here on earth 3.5 billion years makes it more probable that it happened elsewhere, not less probable (i.e. unique). That's not certain of course -- but it does increase the odds or hedges the bet -- IMHO.
Nothing is "fine-tuned" either way. Neither could exist without the other.
If the universe is finely tuned for life, then why is 99.99999% of it inhospitable? 😛
some kind of life might actually thrive in space....who knows?
That was a tongue-in-cheek comment.
Well the universe was here b4 life so id say life is suited for this unverse, thru adaption and symbiosis
Dear Channel. is it matter of respect to your auditiory to take care of quality of audio? such big difference between Paul Davies and John Michael Godier recorded speech. for shure, there are some equalisation medhods that could make the guest voice more readable. being not native speaker it is hard to brake through this wall. Thanks for your work, anyway. but please...
Thank you Igor.
Love this channel but being able to listen via podcast would be way better than the dumb YT app, which won’t allow background playing. Is there an audio version of this show? If not there really should be.
I think you could automate the whole thing, and not add any additional workload.
We are working on a podcast membership option that will also include all of John’s videos as podcasts as well.
The universe just developed the way it did. Life developed the only way it could for the universe it arose within.
The universe didn't cater to life, life catered to the universe.
The universe isn't just right for life. Life is just right for the universe.
I learned to say the same thing three times in different words from a wonderful person named Anton! ;)
42
Why is the universe just right for life? Why is this universe just right for any one of its contents? My point is it could be we don't need to address a special explanation to the existence of life.
StoneTempleGlyph Yes, it's most likely that it just is. Just how it's turned out. We humans do always search for explanations, though.
**overlooking the internet**
life was a mistake! (and a blessing)
Great video man