Why Life Exists
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ม.ค. 2020
- The big question of why life exists has challenged minds for countless centuries, but what does science have to say on this matter? Could life arise on other worlds and in other Universes, and what is the reason for it?
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Credits:
Alien Civilizations: Conspiratorial Aliens
Episode 220, Season 6 E02
Written by:
Isaac Arthur
Jerry Guern
Editors:
Darius Said
Keith Blockus
Matthew Campbell
Cover Art:
Jakub Grygier www.artstation.com/jakub_grygier
Graphics by:
Jeremy Jozwik www.artstation.com/zeuxis_of_...
Udo Schroeter
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com/creator - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
"Life, uh, finds a way."
- Dr. Ian Malcolm
"What doth life?"
- Xavier Renegade Angel
@@MrRicktastic mmm tasty 😏
"Don't eat yellow snow"
- Albert Einstein
@@bambarby Correction, Frank Zappa
Jeff Goldblum is why life exists.
Me: guys how do we slow down the heat death of the universe?
Isaac: die.
One solution. Another comes from taking a new perspective, that we ARE the universe trying to prevent its own heat death (via our problem-solving capability). Read the new Philosophy of Broader Survival if you want a new perspective on life (and your own survival on a broader plane).
@@wbiro
I had a nice reading of your philosophy.
But it's just incredibly annoying how elitist it is your classification of beings. Believe me, it's a really hard thing to do addressing "Broader Survival'' when you have to constantly worrying about surviving the next week or month.
It's not that most people can't grasp the concept of broader survival, its just that it is irrelevant thinking about that if you live in a society or a world of massive material deprivation and concentration of wealth. Instead, it's only logical to pursue your own survival rather than worrying about humanity as a species.
That said, life and conscience are absurdly rare and must be protected at all costs.
Standard reply: you first :)
@@eduardorabassallo3717 Your own survival depends on you not dying. That means you need to research anti-ageing biotech and "cure" cancer. You will necessarily be solving the problems of broader survival in solving the problem of your own survival. Even if you live in a war-zone, if the bullets and lack of food and water don't get you, ageing still will, so just because you're not in a position to do anything about that, doesn't render it irrelevant (or pointless to think about).
Finally something where the dead bodies of corona virus could be useful
My life has been extrordinarily difficult of late. These videos are the only thing that helps me take my mind off of it and relax.
I don't think thank you really says it.
Hope your situation is better now. What you said is exactly I am currently
@@asaadiqbalkhan6265 I wish I could tell you it is. I can tell you I'm surviving it, and the best advice I can give is just that, survive. Breath in, breath out. Eat, drink, and sleep. Everything else is just an extra you can do without. Take what joy you can from stuff like this, and try not to let its absence pain you to much when you can't get it.
I wish you the very best of luck.
@@benjaminhenderson7059 it's been 2 years how're you doing now?
Last time I was this Early, you had under 30k subscribers. Congrats on the massive success, you deserve it!
this may be the hardest question to answer.......Isaac makes a Video about it. Nice. happy Arthurs Day :D
Hi Stella
Marshal - He is not afraid!!
@@Makkovar hi
Creating life is a parlor trick compared to what we're usually planning in this channel. :D
Yes, good video, Isaac. Could you make a video about a realistic and economical way to reverse global warming? It's the issue of the day, but also the century, if not the millennium. I've come up with this: Cover city centers, especially cities in deserts, with a large pyramid, or maybe a dome, that has solar panels, but also these cooling panels that convert heat to radiate in specific wavelengths that can escape the atmosphere much more easily. Here's a link to a video on them: th-cam.com/video/7a5NyUITbyk/w-d-xo.html
The cooling panels could cool the city below, making it a cool island, instead of a heat island. Light would also be let in.
The cooling tech could also condense water on the underside, contributing to the city's water supply, and dehumidifying the city, potentially allowing most buildings to not need air conditioning systems. The city's cover could thus regulate solar gain, making it comfortable even in the hottest deserts. If more electricity is needed, wind turbines could be built on top of the pyramid.
The city cover would be supported by the skyscrapers, and could be quite tall. The cooling panels could also be a great desalination system - basically an artificial water cycle! Let warm humid air that is captured over saltwater 'greenhouses' rise up naturally in large pipes, then condense on the underside of the cool panels. The water would then be collected and run into tanks near the tops of the skyscrapers. So less power would be used in pumping the water.
During hot seasons at night (if more cooling is needed), windows at the top of the pyramid could be opened, and cool ground air would be drawn in.
Looking at the city as a whole system, and using the new cooling tech in a novel and grand scale, should lead to enormous reductions in CO2 emissions, and even a direct cooling of the planet.
Other ideas are giant "trees" made of the cooling panels over towns or just over parking lots, etc.
Matt Merritt
*Judges quietly from space*
Did you make this account for the post? Either way my stoned ass laughed so hard I spit dr pepper on my phone you owe me a new phone funny stranger lmfao
@@jessiemoore3094 😂😂😂
Yo man can I get the password? Wanna learn about that aliens shit
Please take me off this planet
@@user-om9cf2tl8k lol, best comment.
"Life exists in order to expedite the heat death of the universe." Lmao Entropy BTFO
I've been periodically thinking about this topic for the last few years and its really interesting and affirming to hear someone else's thoughts on it, I've been binging your videos lately and I can't say how happy I am to have stumbled on your channel. Thank you so much for all the work you do!
You're born, you experience endless suffering, then you die a horrible death. Life's great
So did Ghalib!
The universe "creates" life to contemplate its self. Sounds incredibly poetic but that is exactly what we are a conscious part of the universes matter contemplating ther rest of it.
I think you're confusing cause and effect.
@@BlackEpyon So you're also positing that human-level consciousness or beyond (that can contemplate about the universe) is somewhat the ''end goal'' of evolution. Yet science has not shown this to be the case.
That's exactly what is going on...i had that epiphany the summer i was 19 laying in the grass staring at the stars one night in june
@@hannijazz3276 Evolution has no end-goal in mind. What works, survives, until circumstances change.
@powerone1 chill bro "creates" wasnt to be taken seriously thats why i put the """"""""" there i juts like the idea that we are part of the universe contemplating its self
Since we are talking about concept of the life, there are news about biological robot called xenobots which is robot composed of the living cells. The first xenobot used the cells from Africa frog.
What...?
@@gogaschnitzel3222 s/he seems to be talking about building something akin to a micromachine or nanobot, but using organic parts to do so instead of using what might be considered more synthetic - like using preexisting frog cells instead of using carbon tubes or structures you grow yourself. I suppose to some degree you could wonder about the line between natural and synthetic in this case, but they are just terms of differentiation. Did you literally build a tiny, "metal" machine or did you repurpose preexisting cells? Blah blah blah...
@@xBINARYGODx nope. Real thing. Already made. Nanofrogs and I dont mean diminutive Frenchmen. It's a step towards medical nanobots apparently. The future is coming, the future is coming!
Good comment. Now people will look up xenobot, but usually after they try to develop their initial concept of what it is. my initial view is that cells cannot be programmed, only evolved to address specific problems... looking them up, they are groups of cells, 500-1000, that exhibit a single tendency (the desired tendency), such as targeting and destroying cancer cells. Ethical questions concern criminal use, and the solution is philosophy (which underlies all higher-than-animal decisions and their subsequent actions), where humans still suffer from Continued Universal Cluelessness (which is why some humans take criminal opportunities - an enlightened person would not) For that enlightenment, you must read the new Philosophy of Broader Survival (or go to your grave clueless, your choice).
@@xBINARYGODx Just read the articles.
It is amazing to see how much your channel has evolved over the years. It's made every Thursday a treat. Keep up the amazing work.
When isaac uploads new videos I always tell my girlfriend about it, and she pretends to be into his videos.
It’s a joke we have going, the jist of it is that Isaac Arthur is wayyy underrated and I want everyone to know who he is!
I like to think that that life is just a reflection of the universe's innate tendency to complexify. Perhaps life will eventually develop into something far greater in time. If there are other universes out there, then perhaps life plays a role in evolution on the grandest of scales. With the way you brought up the heat dissipation idea, perhaps life & entropy are more intertwined than we previously imagined. Here me out here for a bit.
Think about it. Universes that are incapable of producing stable conditions & thus form more complex structures are in a sense "infertile" so to speak. They either rip themselves apart or contract to rebound once more until the fundamental constants achieve a steady state. It does not necessarily have to be the lowest energy state but one stable enough to allow complex sub-structures to form out of the primordial froth & so on, the rest from here is history. Perhaps there really is no defeating entropy; which does not necessarily mean we cannot fight it, but such endeavors are futile & nothing more than a purposeless struggle against the inevitable fate that is the result of a universe growing inexorably old without a catalyst to give it a push. That catalyst is us - life. Life can break that "cycle" so to speak. We can produce energy densities only possible by intelligent design. The type of event that could in theory allow the universe to have "children" so to speak. Baby universes; disconnected bubbles of space-time budding from the parent universe. Perhaps that is the role of life? Simply to create a gigantic explosion. An explosion of life, of potentialities. Additional rivers of time from which new tributaries of intelligence could arise. Perhaps that is our role.
As for our role, the universe is pointless (I just want to make that point) (and now the universe has a point, meaning we create our own points). Another view I like to take is that we may be the universe trying to prevent its own heat death (via our problem-solving capabilities), which is in essence the same as what you are thinking. Read the Philosophy of Broader Survival, it delves into it-depth (and it prevents suicide, and alleviates Continued Universal Human Cluelessness) (as well as many other things) (it even has a monolith that you can leave on planets with budding intelligent life) (which depicts its internal structure)...
Melodysheep watcher here !
Genesis 1-28
@@samuelk1046 - I have had this notion in my mind for a very long time. I love to ponder at this kind of stuff all the time. I personally find solace in it. But yeah, I have seen MelodySheep's video before & multiple times at that. In my opinion, that is one of the most well crafted videos in all of TH-cam.
@@zylaaeria2627 same for me, i love to think about theses notions.
For me, melodysheep content worth to be show as educational content in schools, and he sould be way more paid for what he does
3:44 the pinnacle of evolution
The animations in his vids can be so cringe sometimes.
kurt engel - LMAO! I felt trolled by that animation!!
The stuff Isaac Arthur puts out is so underrated, so incredibly educational and fascinating. Your videos should be a college class by itself lol. Keep'em coming!
"Why did black make this move?"
"The activation potentials in certain neurons reached a point that they made that move."
Correction, it made that move due to a limited set of rules (which applies to our reality in this physical universe with a limited set of physical rules) (see physics)... also read the Philosophy of Broader Survival - it will give you a good mindframe with which to view all of this.
@@wbiro but he could of made another move. The rules didnt restrict him to just one move.
@@VytenisR1 One of the rules is to try win the game. You have to try make a move that furthers that goal. Of course, you might make a bad move.
@@wbiro How about stop schilling your book in every comment.
I disagree. Im not prohibited to make a move thats not gonna get me any closer to winning. Winning is a goal, not a rule. I can totaly lose on purpose without breaking any of the rules.
Thank you for another amazing video, Isaac, this is a great thing to enjoy with breakfast!
Short answer: "Because it can."
Is that the same reason that time and space exists?
Lol true
@@jira6423 probably more like “because it does” and life.. everything else is because it “can”
"0:30 welcome to our 220 second episode" what? this is gonna be like 3 minutes?
220nd*
@@Gnefitisis 220th*
@@pinkyrng7104222nd*
Hey Isaac, you ever consider doing physics classes or courses? I'd love to attend them and I'm sure many others here would as well.
Videos on basic physics would be good (for those on the level of flat earthers, for example, who lack the most basic of physics)...
Nah. I want him to keep throwing out concepts for science fiction writers. Don't get distracted by mere physics.
This is going to be great. 1 minute since release. Buckle up!
Since 'why' is so broad, it can have many 'answers' (meaning 'perspectives').
One perspective I like to take is that we are the universe trying to prevent its own heat death (via our problem-solving abilities). A sci-fi possibility (I'll make it a Galactic Thinker short story) is, within the perspective of enlightened/non-enlightened (in terms of addressing Broader Survival), where there is an Inquisition Ministry that evaluates life on planets, and, if the planet's species have leveled out at a less-than-enlightenable level (think of a planet dominated by dinosaurs for millions of years), then the Ministry orders a cosmic calamity to cause a mass extinction to restart life on the planet, in hopes that an enlightenable species will have higher odds of developing in the cleared-out aftermath (such as humans after the extinction of dinosaurs).
Another is a landslide perspective, where life is like a landslide down the energy gradient of the Big Bang. There we are, and there are viruses (for example, though they are not alive), both tumbling down the 'landslide' (using up the universe's energy caused by the Big Bang, a negative energy gradient where entropy is increasing), and occasionally interacting, and which provides the 'energy' to facilitate molecular self-assembly and lipid vacuoles giving rise to cells and cell operation driven by chaos but enhanced by increasing the odds in a contained environment (facilitated by molecule-selective cell walls), with the functioning of their internal components driven by the molecular storm driven by what thermal energy remains in the universe.
Note that we formulate questions, and solutions, based on perspectives. In the case of the landslide, it promotes a 'dynamic' view of life (and disease), which may be beneficial in formulating questions and solutions. An example of a bad perspective is 'time travel', which misdirects questions and solutions which will fail because you are approaching the problem from the wrong perspective (the right perspective being 'change travel', or going back in change).
Man you hit on a lot of ideas I've stumbled upon while researching things like life and the universe and how entropy affects us all, but you wrap it up in a fairly succinct but interesting package. Your videos are always so great.
Your channel is beyond amazing Mr. Arthur. I have been following for about three year now and have yet to find a channel that is consistently as precise and in depth as what you present to us.
We all greatly appreciate the effort you put in everyday to make sure we have something new every week. It’s truly incredible and this is the one channel that I believe should be recognized worldwide to give people a POV that they can get nowhere else. It’s truly an honor and privilege to be able to listen to you everyday. May your future endeavors bring you everything you desire. Take care sir.
I think "why" is a human construct. The hardest thing to escape from is our own perspective. I have no problem with reserving conclusions for a time when more data is available.
Thank you for your thoughtful vids.
Well said
I agree. The ontological weight of "why?" is sleight enough to me that I feel a response of "why not?" is a sufficient response.
Good point but you still have to ask 'why' so that people to will want to answer that question and research this topic
@Pepe The Great Do you have an origin-of-life model without an Intelligent Designer?
@Pepe The Great We probably wouldn't know unless He revealed Himself.
However, we do not have an origin-of-life model without an Intelligent Designer.
Do you have one, Pepe?
Thank you very much Isaac, I think this is one of your best episodes so far.
I hope we can see more episodes on this topic :)
I used to use Langton's ants to compose music. It can get pretty interesting to listen to, though it's often kind of weird sounding.
I missed literally everything you said during the Langstrom's Ant section. Twice.
"Ha! Look at the little guy go!"
"I'm not saying it's rivers... but, RIVERS."
Issac need to do a video about the rivers
You are one of the gems in TH-cam! Thank you!
I listen to your videos at work. Every once in a while I get to watch the screen for like 30 seconds.
Those moments make me wish I could constantly watch. Love the art
I've seen them all and I think that might just be the best one you've ever done Isaac - bravo. I _love_ "life exists to hasten the heat death of the universe" - I'm definitely stealing that one. One thing though, you spend the whole episode from a physical-emergent-complexity point of view - and yet you still contend that you personally have free will. I still find it hard to square that circle. Keep up the awesome work.
How much time did you spend trying to get the SFIA logo to spontaneously form in Conway's Game of Life?
@Adam Klement Its not there. Sorry, I think I may have started a rumor about Issac having superpowers.
@@pentagramprime1585 wait, that's only a rumor?
Maybe he just started with the logo and worked the system backwards so he could animate it forward again
Because we were made to see your awesome videos!
Right. You evolved hands in order to grab a drink and a snack.
Cute. When you get serious, read the Philosophy of Broader Survival, then you will truly be serious (and not just a pretender, which is what humanity still is, being clueless).
@@wbiro but isn't the author of the work you're promoting also a member of humanity, and therefore a pretender in your estimation?
Mr. Numi Who Seems pretty basic and pretentious. Don’t be so negative, enjoy live.
voidremoved yep! Now you’re getting it. Good job!
Isaac you deserve a medal, your video's keep getting better and giving it a hitchhikers guide intro was sublime
This could not have been uploaded anymore conspicuously, or sooner and rightly. I've got some exams coming up and I am diving back into some basic biology precepts to refresh myself. Great work.
I'm not "one of the greatest minds in history" but I do have my own theory.
Everything in the universe drifts towards lowest energy state possible, and while life creates local dips in entropy, overall it increases it.
example: bacterium grows, creating a tiny bubble of organized matter, but in the process and during normal life functions it eats and it's excrement is in a lower energy state. Net result is increased entropy and it happens faster than if a batch of molecules was just left to it's own.
Very good idea. Life increases entropy.
Man, i cant wait to watch this one!!
Real smooth editing on this one
The ideas in this video are incredibly well articulated, well done & thank you!
I read this funny story about how a human discovered by chance that all life in the galaxy had been seeded and later fund out the reason why it was done. The seeders were lonely !
An idea just popped into my head so I'm adding it.
If a cell tries to reach stability as a result of life and then found its self in a place where stability was difficult, if this cell can change to reach stability, then modifying itself to reach stability would be a result of life. If the cells environment then was exposed to an extreme, the cell might adapt to reach stability, but if the environment changed, the cell would have to modify its self again and again and again. Each such change to reach stability might increase complexity.
And by result of reaching stability the cell starts to gain, functions to handle extreme environments, but that requires more energy, so to reach stability the cells would need to change again.
By affecting such a cell in a push pull environment where it has time to adapt to its current state before the next change occurs, life as we know it would evolve over time.
So in my ind life evolved because the lack of stability, and lack of stability is death to a simple cell, so it needs to evolve to stay stable.
It would explain a hell of a lot of odd little quirks that life of this planet has evolved. Life seek stability. If so, it might also cause divergent evolution down different stable paths. Throw in a slowly changing system between stable and unstable (push pull) and life could potentially evolve in any direction that seemed more stable. Too unstable is end of life and too stable is stagnation.
But how that fist cell seeking to be stable came to bo, well that's a whole different question. Maybe it was a panspermia event, a soup of chemicals being struck by lighting or aliens tinkering to see what would happen, who knows! My bet would be on either the soup or panspermia . Something triggered that first reaction that started the chain, but what?
Isaac Arthur videos are emergent phenomena that this emergent phenomenon enjoys immensely!
Happy Arthur's Day! A bright point in an otherwise astronomically large and ever expanding dark universe!
Brilliant! Your best episode yet!
IIRC, a while ago you did an episode topic poll in which "big aliens" was an option. Is that still on the table as an idea for a future video?
Yep, but probably not for a while, I did a rather large chunk of recent videos in the Alien Civs series and want to rest the topic for a while :)
@@isaacarthurSFIA but i love the alien series
@@isaacarthurSFIA Maybe the chubby tubby aliens have gone on a diet and thus The Fermi Paradox does not apply to them
It would be just as easy to sink a half hour into asking, "What is life?" as it is to ask "Why does life exist?"
He basically does both at once.
What about an hour?
th-cam.com/video/_z-SUo2wP4I/w-d-xo.html
Kurgzgesagt has a great video on that called "What Are You?" Check it out.
They are not the same questions. What refers to how it operates. Why relates to the reason it originated. If you want the deepest answers (that offer the most sanity), read the new Philosophy of Broader Survival.
@Real Donald Trump You're entitled to your opinion, no need to be a dick to me though for recommending a video I like.
I loved this video. I felt like the quality of these videos noticeably fell in the past year or so (sorry, no offense, great channel), but this one is excellent. I'm even gonna watch it again!
Very good episode Isaac, Thanks a lot!
Yup, life is an agent of entropy.
Oh BOOOM 😲🤯😧
Life is just a bunch of chemistry doing something physical.
We just call it biology
"Ahem..." -- physics
@@jbtechcon7434 Khe, khe.... Please notice that 42 belongs to the majestic realms of mathematics.
Another mind blowing episode. Love you Isaac. Keep it up.
Love these existential & fermi paradox vids on this chanel
to sacrifice ourselves for the Imperium of Man and bring glory to Holy Terra and his majesty the God-Emperor of Mankind!
Only if I can keep the elmer fudd voice...
MAGA!
As a Dark Angel, I do not fully agree...
Not the God-Emperor of Dune?
There are really two questions to "why?" The first is "what caused it to exist (all the required happenstances)?" The second is "what is its purpose, if any?"
It seems to me that your first "Why?" is in actuality a "How?". Questions of "why?" (in all their forms) are often conflated with "how?". For instance asking; "Why did the universe come into existence?" as opposed to "How did the universe come into existence?". It is interesting to note that such "why?" questions still demand a "how?". We could say that the spaghetti monster created the universe but we are still left with the question; "How did the blessed noodlie one do it?". It is further interesting to note that "how" questions do not necessarily require a follow-on "why". We could say how the universe came to be (the big bang and the undiscovered physics that caused it) but we are not compelled to ask why it happened.
Personally, I would argue the two are different ways of framing the same thing but then I am not convinced that free will actually exists as an objective fact. By that, I am referring to the reality that the agent's beliefs are themselves a product of the agent's nature and its experiences. Thus you could frame explaining the agent's actions by attempting to infer the intended change in world state they hoped to achieve or in terms of the experiences and influences that lead them to conclude a given change in world state would be desirable and that led them to believe their proposed solution would accomplish that end. After all designing, something for a purpose is a product of believing that a hypothetical alternate world state would be better and believing that you have the means by which to transition to that hypothetical better world state.
@CaptainFrantic - You could call it "how" but it doesn't change anything. The two big questions still are what caused it to come into existence and what is its purpose?
to ask what caused it to exist implies that there is something that caused it which is an assumption that you came up with. Same with your second question, it implies that there is a purpose, which is very abstract.
@@VytenisR1 Did "it" (whatever you're referring to) begin existing without a cause, or has it always existed?
Excellent.
re: My ongoing project of consuming ALL of Isaac's back catalogue.
I've been online a long time and am well aware of the foolishness of allowing oneself to feel parasocial relationships. But dammit! I'm so grateful for Isaac's method of thinking and downright courageous willingness to consider wildly speculative or intellectually challenging ideas, that I can't hep but feel an affection, bordering on actually caring for the guy. It's crazy, but I can tell that this is a good and special person, and sometimes that's such a rare and valuable thing I can't help but :heart emoji:
Thanks for everything, Mr. Arthur.
Yet another amazing video on a complex and weighty topic Isaac. Fantastic work.
For those in a hurry Isaac answers the meaning of life at 0:14 and the purpose of life at 18:10. Have a nice day!
2:25 Chocolate covered DNA. My favorite!
Lol, I had the SAME exact thought!
I am never disappointed when I watch one of your videos.
Great stuff, keep it up!
Your writing is unbelievable--just fantastic.
Cliffs notes: Science cannot answer 'why' questions. It can answer 'how' questions.
Exactly, psychology is for the "why" questions.
mars base Actually, “Why” is more philosophy’s domain than psychology’s-even a perfect master theory of psychology would only answer the question of “how human minds think about ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions and come to conclusions about them, where philosophy attempts to define causality and logic from mathematical first principles and axioms.
And since we do not currently have any real, rigorous, and hard-but-possible-to-falsify theories as to how the brain creates the mind other than a vague shrug of “it’s probably emergent behavior of some kind” we can’t presently use the natural sciences to answer questions in the social sciences...
@@marsbase3729 wtf? Psychology is bounded to the same deterministic rules as any science.
Wrong. 'Why' applies within the scientific realm, in the hypothesis state and in the answers. The problem is the 'why' is limited to the physical world. Science will never address or answer philosophical why questions, and it will never address the Greatest of the Great Philosophical Question of Life: Why Bother? (to do anything at all). This is why science progresses blindly, on vapid platitudes ("I am pursuing knowledge!" "Why?" Just because!" which results in science being commandeered by evil, since it is clueless as to 'why' it pursued knowledge to any adequate depth of thinking). Stephen Hawking said philosophy was dead. It wasn't, I found it - in the toilet. In response, I developed the Philosophy of Broader Survival. Read it, or go to your grave clueless, with the rest of current humanity.
It can answer "why" questions, but not teleological why questions.
Why does the light coming from distant stars get red shifted? It can answer that.
Why do we exist? It can't answer this.
George Carlin had a theory - the Earth wanted plastic and couldn’t figure out how to get it, so it created humanity and now that Earth has plastic, we’ll slowly get phased out.
But why would a non-sentient space rock want to have plastic?
Probably it was a complex plot by plastic eating bacteria... Now they eat mostly other things, but when we create enough plastic and pollute the whole planet, they will eat it... And us
So...your saying we are made of plastic
Isaac so pleased your high quality, infirmative videos have been so well received that you have the 450k + subscribers.
It was a pretty entertaining video, but the word emergence was the answer for every mystery. I prefer to say that there are organizing principles in nature that result in the appearance of design or order. A hurricane could be called an emergent property of the atmosphere, but we understand the underlying principles of organization, so we don't need to say emergent. Also, while a hurricane appears to be an orderly structure within the atmosphere, it is actually a chaotic feature that forms temporarily due to underlying forces and interactions, just like life.
I love the joke at the beginning
Life exists to create information, as a means of combating entropy. Least that's my interpretation.
Now to watch the vid and see how wrong I am heh.
Its the other way around, humans increase entropy. All life increases entropy to maintain being alive. While entropy only increases, complexity on the other hand will peak and drop at some point.
Information exists whether or not anyone is there to discover and interpret it. If humanity dies off, and all our works are erased, and no one else in the universe ever learns we once existed, the fact will remain that we were here. The universe remembers because it is the root of all information.
Rather than 'interpretation' a more useful word is 'perspective' (which results from interpretation). There are many perspective to take, the question being which one is most useful at the moment (and 'toward what' is answered, at the highest level, by the Philosophy of Broader Survival - read it).
As an attempt at a clarification of my statement, think of Voyager and the golden records inside it. Neither would have existed without life, neither will increase entropy by a significant amount for most of their existence - the record in particular was made to resist degradation over time. Thus life, in the form of humans, has created something that more effectively combats entropy than anything we've thus far created. If humanity dies tomorrow, we've at least left a tiny mark in the unwinnable war.
Sure entropy will decay the probe and it's contents, eons down the line, as even solid matter does flow. But it's a first step to us creating something that might even outlast the last black holes, and that is also, for practical purposes, impossible for a random collection of matter to arrange itself into without intent behind it. In other words, our very curiousity and urge to explore or invent long lasting artifacts is our bulwark against entropy. As long as we can extract enough energy to alter the world, we are fighting entropy in a local sense, even as we dump our waste into the universe to increase it. Seems suitable to me considering how contradictory we can be as a species.
Or to put it another way, conscious life fights entropy - it tries to resolve uncertainties, to make the unlikely happen, to do the impossible. It does this because it wants to delay the onset of death (and decay, which is very entropic). Unconscious life simply consumes and propagates, but doesn't really do anything to "fight" entropy any more than a planet of particularly unusual composition.
But thanks for your replies, some nice food for thought and I will be factoring them into my future thoughts. I'm very much the crackpot kind of philosopher so anything I put out there should be taken with a large handful of salt :)
@@BladeTrain3r good points. But making a voyager and the golden record we have increased entropy much much more than if would have done nothing.
Whenever I think I came up with an original explanation to something, Isaac Arthur always steals the words right out my mind. It’s nice to see other people talk about these kinds of things in depth
This is one of your finest episodes, Isaac.
With the death of Terry Jones I would refer to Monty Python - The Meaning of Life and also their final song from "The Life of Brian" - "Always look on the bright side of life ". :-)
Life is exist because it is exist like many other chemical rections, you cant say why gunpowder explode, why oxygen and hydrogen create h2o and etc... Life is exist because it is possible!
Thanks, Isaac.
Can't wait for the episode on Heat Death.
I regret I can't like this video twice, Isaac is talking about what I'm thinking, I love it.
Even at over 400K subscribers the comments are constructive, meaningful and even the jokes have a connection to the videos. This has got to be in my opinion one of the greatest science channels on TH-cam. I'm glad Isaac pulled through and didn't give up early on.
Repent simmers, and give glory to The Algorithm, lest ye be cast into the Great Recycle Bin!
Also, don't forget, next Sunday is our potluck, so please reach out to Sandra and let her know which dish you plan on bringing.
you joke but it is no joke. Jesus is the way and the life and to get to the Kingdom you have to go thru him. Good luck.
voidremoved ok, but that hardly seems fair. How is an eighth century Hindi supposed to know that? Or a pre-colonialization Aztec for that matter? You’d think the progenitor of creation would have a better system for salvation. Now I’m not denying Christ or his divinity, but I have my doubts that saying “ok, I’m team Jesus” is the only way to an afterlife, good or bad
@@billmalcolm4291 Not only that but can you imagine having no fun in this life only to live for eternity with all your deceased family members? Yeah, no thanks!
@@8584zender Do not fear Defragmentation, brother. The Algortihm knows who has a place in your heart and who does not. It shall not place you amongst the wicked nor the mildly annoying nor those who bring potato salad to a potluck, which, don't forget, is next Sunday
@@voidremoved Funny how an omnipotent deity that wants everyone to know about him, only communicates with a specific area of the world, in a specific language written in a compilation of scripts full of contradictions.
Damn, as someone who aspires to work as a biologist (we all have our aspirations in life) all i have to say is that you explained so well both evolution and abiogenesis without mentioning or explaining once things like liposomes, protocells, the relationship between DNA and RNA etc. (in the case of abiogenesis) or the natural, artificial and sexual selections (in the case of evolution). Fantastic job! Well done sir!👍👍👍
This is literally the first time in my life that someone else has come to the idea that life exists to accelerate the heat death. Literally no one I've ever tried to talk to about the concept has ever even listened to me. Thank you, Issac.
I've been battling it's philosophical implications for about 2 years now, and I haven't really gotten anywhere, because no one understands and I can't talk about it with people.
You need to go join the physics society of your nearest university. Undergraduates will debate that crap without understanding it AAALLLL DAY.
I thought lifes goal was to figure out a way to reverse entropy or at the very least slow it down as much as possible.
Well...since I haven't seen anyone else say it....
The last time I was this early, abiogenesis hadn't occurred.
im early and i dont have a joke. but its Chinese New Year this saturday. so i wish everybody here Happy Chinese New Year.
May you all stay safe and care for those needing help in these trying times.
@@Zer0cul0 Happy Corona Virus day! Take your high dose vitamin D3 for improved innate immunity and reduced hyper immune reactivity.
If chinese people never eat cats and dogs than maybe this coronavirus havn't had a chance to appear, so yeah, may all the chinese who don't abuse and torture basically what is pets for the rest of the civilised world, may all those have a happy new year according to calendar (i am a non-english speaker)
@@nameremoved4010 Don't - it is a fad - and a bad one - just look at the contradiction. Try straightening out your mind instead by reading the Philosophy of Broader Survival.
@@ammara4547 Yeah, everyone wants to have been born in the Year of the Dragon. It is now the Year of the Rat, by the way.
For some reason the idea of entropy finally clicked for me while watching this video.
When Isaac mentioned the Counting Trees, I got so excited about the Discworld reference that I totally lost track of of the video. XD
I was hoping for a 42 point list.
26:40 I've seen enough hintai to know where this is going.
After all these episodes you've made over the years I really would've expected you to run out of things to talk about. Then you're like "Oh btw, episode on postponing the heat death of the universe coming out in a few weeks" and I'm all excited for it. And then at the end you tease the O'Neill Cylinder video and I'm like "Oh hey, that's another thing I need in my life!" It's kind of amazing you've managed to cover so many subjects in such depth and are still putting out videos that people can get excited for.
Hi Issac,
Great video as usual, I like how you were able to tie Chao Theory into a Statistical Mechanics perspective on QM. Good stuff, also I’m sure this is a great prior for most people who probably haven’t spent their careers (like me) chasing the molecular meaning of life. The theory that life actually speeds up the heat death of the universe is actually a great one (thank you for sharing the source, I will use it); though, it’s not as counterintuitive as you may think. I like to teach my students about the hydrophobic effect forming micelles with this same concept; while to our sentient minds clearly the bubble seems more ordered than random, in a molecular reality when hydrophobic molecules are aggregated together this is the lowest energy state- since, the energetic cost to hydrate each molecule is much higher than to only hydrate a large volume, limited surface area monolayer, thus actually is more disordered. In another nutshell, the polarity (which itself is emergent, and a great place to further discuss) and volume/surface area ratios can be summoned to explain the emergence of complex molecular systems-> -> -> life. :) Remembering, heat is a waste from chemical reactions which are performed by manipulating electronic distributions, across similarly energy state atomically associated molecules (bonds don’t exist), then life totally does persist and fight a complete equilibrium once it starts forcing chemistry and then feeding off “the fat (energy) of the land/universe.”
Either way, a nice point to also add to this thought is something my old advisor (whom taught me modeling) used to say, “you could conceivably unwrap every climate model into a deep and more complex electronic description, but at the end of the day you need to consider the limited mental capacity of the human brain to intuitively comprehend the model is going to be related to its usefulness and ultimate success.”
Though, I will admit I was a bit offended that you went from Chemistry directly to Microbiology. I mean, I know you’re a Physicist by training so I can forgive it, but that would be like saying there was Metaphysics and then Chemistry happened....! Anyways, I’ve also noticed in your other videos you tend to overgeneralize and tend to make factual errors specifically when you discuss certain biological concepts (specifically the macromolecular polymer world, sub-organelle but super-small molecule ala pharmaceutical world)- for ex: mixing up nucleic and amino acids. Respectfully, if you want to discuss these concepts some time in the future or need to bounce some ideas around and see what sticks (or could stick), I would be definitely willing to help just reply or PM me.
I can also send you my CV if you have any doubts.
why would you just *assume* that the alleged “true reality” that contained whatever “conscious agent” “designed” our simulation would require its “life” to have originated at some point in time, when for all we know, “time” is exclusive to our simulation?
EDIT: oh you answered me lol 24:49
But his two answers were vapid. Read the Philosophy of Broader Survival if you want the serious (and more sane) answer.
42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, NOT the answer to life!
Edit: I was just trying to say that the reference wasn't quite right, that's all
Read your own words dummy!
We need 42 thumbs up for Ben's teasing contrarian answer (I think Douglas would have approved)!
I thought "42" was Jackie Robinson lol
Damn... 10 minutes toi late. 😋
IF(L AND U AND E) -> L
Just realized it's Arthurs Day. Always brightens the day
Great work Isaac.
Why life exists?
Because it can. That's literally it.
We *all* should ask this unique and wonderous question to the most unimaginable; 'lifeforms' on the planet and known biology; *Virus'es*
Eh, viruses are just degraded cells with only 1 part that is truly needed to multiply in a medium where machinery for virus creation (our cells) are already presented in big numbers. Just how there are parasites which can't live without a host because they lost energy-demanding functions that their host will provide for free anyway.
@@Crazy-Drokon Correction: they are not even cells, they are DNA fragments that can still replicate given the right environment (inside a cell).
I should have known SFIA would be where I, finally, learnt the answer to this question.
You didn't - he only offered speculations, or 'perspectives'. For the best perspective (with respect to survival in a harsh and deadly universe), read the new Philosophy of Broader Survival.
I like that the clip with the hundreds of universe spheres arrayed in series takes place in the backdrop of a star field. It shows how difficult it is for human beings to place existence of anything outside of a space [space-time] context. Our mindscape has a space overlay and anything beyond that is math.
2:01 wtf are those guys even doing? Why is that dude wearing VR goggles?
Stock footage of "scientists doing science" produced by people who have never been in a lab. Comedy gold. My favs are the ones of people pretending to use equipment that isn't on, followed by shots of people wearing protective lab coats in computer labs.
@@jbtechcon7434 Really? I thought that car scene was super weird and was ignoring EVERYTHING else to try and figure out what MIGHT be going on in that scene.
@Frank Cooke Also, the the guy on the right...is that a...stethoscope??hanging around his neck?
Looking at...a tricorder!!
Science!!
dmt told me conciousness is universal and every life form taps into it with different capacity. so life is the means of experimenting conciousness which is the universe. for real i dont know why life exists but i know my purpouse in it but it's subjective. iam here to experience conciousness. love your channel btw. Keep it going
Tolbert Gaming - Meditation led me to believe that consciousness is universal and that some fundamental property of reality which imparts a capacity to exchange information between points is the key element of this. It is perhaps something basic like time - a dimension that informs all points at once. This intrinsic capacity is everywhere. If you think of that bare capacity as a two dimensional sheet, consciousness emerges when that sheet is “folded” and one fold can become aware of another. In life this folding becomes a complex standing wave form as the exchange of information between these folds is made more stable and allows lasting traces by converting the exchange of information into more persistent physical changes. Within the human mind and brain these folds of bare awareness produce consciousness and further folding of consciousness bets self awareness.
Cosmic Landscape - I am not so sure of that. There is a pretty decent body of literature that would disagree with your statement. Regardless, using drugs to alter your consciousness would seem to be a much more dangerous endeavor, and more prone to misinterpretation, than other approaches to exploring experience.
Drugs don't reveal anything. You are fooling yourself and wasting your time.
@@ColdHawk Your error is in the word 'believe'. Why just believe when the knowledge is out there? For a better (more sane, and the ultimate) philosophy (perspective) on life, read the new Philosophy of Broader Survival (please, it will straighten-out your nebulous mind).
Isaac, do you have any videos on time dilation?
I find it fascinating.
Time dilation is brought up in several videos. None about it completely though. Now that I think about it, he brought it up in one of his first videos about life at the end if time and iron stars.
Great video! I wish this question would be more present in media coverage as a serious topic.
I know this isn't "super relative" to this video, however I was watching a video about a technology to create 3d images in color, by using ultrasonic waves to levitate a small ball rapidly, creating moving shapes.
I was thinking this technology could somehow be altered, to fling a ball of plasma, or some Hydrogen around rapidly as a Lightsaber. Probably more like a "Proto-Saber" but got me thinking that with Elon Musk's neurolink making Psychic Thought transmission a reality in a decade or so, why not go full Jedi?
Good mind - making connections of disparate things to come up with something new...
Because Science did a video on lightsabers. The heat alone would be deadly. Check it out!
@@Suprkpa I have seen it, and he was talking about a lightsaber as science could develop it in his eyes. This specific technology had not been revealed in it's current form, and the heat would not be a problem, with a few particles of plasma flying around at super sonic speeds via Ultrasonic waves., Probably would be useless at cutting into metal, but into meat?
Life: *exists*
Everyone: "Why?"
Read the new Philosophy of Broader Survival for the deepest (and broadest) answer, and the highest form of the question.
Thanks for another great video!
I just finished house of suns which you recommended in another video. I loved it it had all the cool futurism concepts you play with