Kind: captions
Language: en
You know, there's this mystery about
time. What's time? We have now
and now
>> and now.
>> Yeah.
>> And and you what does that what does
that mean? Well, according to the laws
of
nature, the one law that has an arrow of
time that tells us that is this second
law of thermodynamics. So, it's really
important because we're going to propose
that there's a second arrow of time.
[Music]
Hey everyone, I sat down with two
brilliant minds from the Carnegie
Institution for Science, Mike Wong and
Bob Hazen. Mike is an astrobiologist and
Bob is a minologist. They're proposing
that we scientists have missed a
classical law of nature for centuries.
Something they call the law of
increasing functional information. I
know that may sound like a word salad
and we're going to get into it and break
it down, but it basically explains how
things in the universe, life, minerals,
even societies and language evolve to be
more complex over time if they meet a
few conditions.
Hearing about a new law of nature sounds
extraordinary, but not all laws are the
same. Some are fundamental and applied
just about everywhere like Newton's laws
of motion. And some are more
constrained, like the law of refraction.
Although I started out skeptical, we dug
deep, and I think there's actually
something to this. Give it a listen
yourself. Hear what they have to say,
and maybe it would change the way you
see things. Now, if you think this
podcast is extraordinary, please go
ahead and rate us. And you know what?
Leave a comment and tell me what you
think about their new law of nature. And
maybe you have a law of nature of your
own. And also make sure to subscribe so
you never miss an episode. Your support
means everything and helps us to reach
more curious minds just like yours. Now,
let's get at it. Bob and Mike, welcome
to Particles of Thought.
>> So good to be here.
>> Hakee, it's great to see you.
>> Awesome. You know, first off, man, I've
been watching you for years, right? I
watched your videos from back in the day
uh on mineral evolution. I followed in
your footsteps and became a Robinson
professor at George Mason University.
And I taught the course you created,
Great Ideas in Science. And what I will
say is
number one, you have an amazing name,
Hazen.
Love that.
>> You do.
>> Yeah. And if I owned a dispensary,
you're such a thoughtful guy. If my
dispensary developed an amazingly
thoughtful strain, I would call it Bob
Hazen.
>> That's a what a compliment.
>> Well, I feel like we got a lot in common
and it's a real bond and it's great to
be here.
>> Thank you, sir. Thank you. And you, sir?
>> Yes.
>> You and I have something in common that
my colleagues have called out to me
before and you know about me before and
I'm going to tell you what that is.
>> Okay?
It is called swag.
But let me tell you what I mean by that.
When I say it, I say a scientific wild a
guest guess, right? And and my
colleagues tell me like, you know,
you're you're not scared to throw out
your wild ideas, right? You guys are pro
are proposing an actual new classical
law of the universe, which takes a lot
of courage, and you're young in your
career.
>> That's right. Where do you get your
swag, my friend? Where do you get it?
>> Oh my goodness. Well, I think I get it
by just thinking about our job as
scientists. Uh, science runs through,
you know, hypothesis generation and then
rigorously testing those hypotheses. And
a lot of people when they think about
science, they think about people in the
laboratory, they think about people at a
computer, they think about people at the
telescope doing the data gathering and
the hypothesis testing. But you also
need to generate the hypothesis in the
first place. And so science really is
about putting forth bold ideas and then
going about the hard work of of trying
to verify that this thing could actually
be true about the universe. And so think
about what we do as scientists and think
about the joy of coming up with new
ideas and then going about that process.
It fuels me with a lot of uh passion and
also just having great colleagues to do
it with. I mean just having fun in the
lab in the office um is something that I
I enjoy doing. I I love throwing my
ideas ideas out there. Some of them
could be wrong and that's totally fine
because that's how science progresses
too.
>> It is. But listen, man, as a guy who's
been in the trenches, our default
setting is on skepticism. And even when
you're absolutely right, you present
your ideas and your colleagues
eviscerate you. And you know, I I I hear
people in public talking about science
and I and I feel like, you know, when
they say, "Oh, climate change ain't
real. Big bang isn't real. Evolution
isn't real." I get in my mind I'm
thinking that the average person thinks
that every 30 years ago all the
scientists get in a room and we decide
what's the big lie we're all going to
agree on right but that's not the case
any even when you're right they
eviscerate you and yet you have the
courage to present you you're putting
yourself out there with this new idea
we're going to get to it in a second but
man I'm impressed that you have that
courage so let's get into it you are
proposing a new law of nature
We're proposing a law of increasing
functional information which is a law of
evolving systems. So basically it says
that in any system that has three main
attributes. Number one that it's made up
of many different interacting
components. Two that has mechanisms for
generating many different configurations
of those components exploring all the
possibility spaces of those combinations
of components. and three experiences
selection for function. A metric that we
can measure and quantify about a system
called functional information will
increase over time.
>> Sounds like speed dating. You bring in a
bunch of people.
>> There you go.
>> They interact.
>> Yeah.
>> You get different configurations and in
the end babies.
>> Well, there's usually a selection
process that goes on before the babies.
But but you're right, ultimately babies.
Okay, so that's the function.
>> All right, gentlemen, humor me again a
little bit. There's some house cleaning
of language I need to do and then we're
going to go in deeper. And here's what I
mean. You are proposing a new law of
nature. Now,
one of the things that physicists love
to talk with their students about is
these words, law, theory, fact. And I
often ask my students, rank them from
most information to least amount. And
they typically rank them fact, law,
theory. And I say, no, it's the exact
opposite. Right. So, you chose the word
law.
>> Yeah.
>> And you know, there's a ton of laws and
some of them are, you know, not very
well known. Like if you want to
calculate magnetic fields, you use this
thing called the bioavar law that only
physicists know.
>> Not me. Maybe you.
>> Yeah. Only physicists know, right? and
and you only do it in classrooms. You
don't do that in the real world.
>> Uh but you chose law.
>> Yeah.
>> So, let's let's dig into what you mean.
>> Yeah.
>> And tell us other laws that are similar
so that we have a context in which to
place this new law.
>> Yeah. So, so first of all, just you
know, a fact is like I have a balance. I
determine the mass of this object.
That's a fact. So, that's sort of
trivial. I mean bunch of facts can help
you though to determine a law which is a
mathematical statement. It basically
says here's an equation that explains
how some aspect of nature works. And
then a theory is a predictive larger
overarching structure like Darwin's
theory of evolution by natural selection
which describes explains and puts into a
larger context a bunch of ideas and that
can incorporate facts and laws and all
that sort of thing. Yeah. So, so we're
talking about a law of nature. There's a
mathematical description about how one
part of nature works. And there may be
about 10 or 12 existing laws,
macroscopic laws, big word. It just
means what we experience. Now, you wake
up in the morning, your alarm clock goes
off. You have to get yourself out of
bed. You're working against gravity. You
go to the bathroom. You, you know, you
have hot running water. You make
yourself a cup of coffee which cools.
And then all those actions you've just
experienced all those macroscopic laws
of nature. Let's let's talk just real
quickly. So you know the first ones
about 400 years ago Isaac Newton comes
up with the laws of motion. It's three
statements that just tells you how
masses and forces interact. So you can
lift up a coffee cup or you can roll a
bowling ball or you can drive your car
or send off a rocket. That's Newton's
laws of motion. Newton also uh came up
with this law of universal gravitation.
And the story about you know the apple
falling from a tree and hitting him on
his head was probably apocryphal. But
nonetheless, Newton made this very
impressive insight that that act of the
apple falling from the tree was the same
process can be described by the same law
of nature as the moon falling around the
earth. And so one thing that we look for
in natural laws are these equivalencies
that bind seemingly disperate phenomena
under the same framework. And so and so
that's what makes a law a law is that it
it is a universal statement that can
apply to many different situations, many
different phenomena at once and capture
them under this umbrella, this very
simple, elegant statement. Um, and so
that's something that we recognized
early on when we were working on this
idea that natural laws are are are built
upon these conceptual equivalencies. We
call them this idea that this thing
unifies disperate phenomena.
>> Yeah. A great example of that is the
laws of electricity and magnetism. You
know, you you shuffle your fetal across
a woolen carpet in the winter time, you
get a shock or you get static
electricity. Well, that seems very
different from the magnet that sticks to
your refrigerator or an accompass
needle. But it turns out physicists
figured out that these are two aspects
of the same force called the
electromagnetic force. And that allows
us to make electric generators and
electric motors. And it even explains a
little bit how how light works and and
the the way that light travels 186,000 m
per second. All that's tied in to this
idea of unifying electricity and
magnetism as two aspects of a conceptual
equivalent idea. And then there are laws
of energy. One of the most important
laws of energy is that energy is neither
created nor destroyed but can be
transformed between many different kinds
of energy. So we've got kinetic energy
of things moving. But you also have the
potential for that kind of energy when
you put a ball like at the top of a
hill. And then you can transform that
potential energy into kinetic energy by
just giving a little flick and then it
falls down the hill.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Oh yeah. And then there comes the one
that's really important to us at Hakee.
This idea of the second law of
thermodynamics. It's a big name. It just
means the second law of energy and it
has to do with how energy and in fact
all systems in the universe change
through time.
You know there's this mystery about
time. What's time?
>> Right? We we have now
and now
>> and now.
>> Yeah.
>> And and you what does that what does
that mean? Well, according to the laws
of
nature, the one law that has an arrow of
time that tells us that is this second
law of thermodynamics. So, it's really
important because we're going to propose
that there's a second arrow of time. But
let's get to the the second law. Isn't
that cute and confusing? psychologics is
really the first arrow.
Well, be that as it may and sorry about
that. That's But if you can think about
the universe starting off in a very
uniform state
>> right at the beginning, very uniform.
And so it's very ordered. Everything's
very consistent. It's just like it's
like
>> you think about a giant crystal where
every atom is in the exact same
position. Well, this is a time when
things were really uniform.
>> And then as the universe expands after
the big bang, you start to see
structures.
>> Yeah.
>> You start to see protons and neutrons,
which are those heavy particles that
make the nucleus of atoms.
>> Then you start seeing atoms.
>> Then you might see molecules. You see
gravity clumping things into stars. You
see planets forming. You start seeing
structures. Things are getting more and
more structured. And all the time it
means that you're increasing the
disorder of the universe even as locally
you get these very clumpy things.
>> Yeah. Let's talk about things increasing
and and decreasing and why the second
law of thermodynamics is different from
all of those other laws that we just
talked about, you know. So, so take
Newton's law of motion for instance. You
know, I'm going to take this beautiful
prism thing that I don't even really
understand what it is, but I'm going to
toss it between my hands,
>> and that's a change through time, but
you don't know if I played that tape
forwards or backwards. You know, there's
really no difference between the two.
You know, take on the other hand making
an omelette. You know, you've got this
egg, you crack it, you put in the frying
pan, and it you mix it up and scramble
it and it fries. If you played that tape
backwards, it would look really, really
odd. And the same thing goes with the
complexification of the universe. A
great example of this is the evolution
of life on Earth. Life started out as a
microscopic common ancestor and then
blossomed into all of the macroscopic
forms that we appreciate around us
today. And if you played that tape
backwards as well, it would look very
very odd. And that's an arrow in time.
>> So it's almost as if you're saying every
irreversible process is a narrow of
time.
>> Well, yeah. A lot of irreversible
processes can boil down to the second
law of thermodynamics which gives us an
increase in entropy over time. So that
you know making an scrambled eggs right
that can be you know described by the
second law of thermodynamics. you took
this very ordered nice egg and then you
completely scrambled it and you cooked
it and and you you're not going to go
backwards from that.
>> But we also see increases of patterning
of orderliness of complexity and
functionality through the universe and
and that's something that we're trying
to add to this pantheon of natural laws
that describes that kind of increase
through time in the universe.
So you just described a set of natural
laws that are fundamental across a lot
of what happens, right? You know,
Newton's laws of motion, these laws of
thermodynamics,
they happen everywhere, right?
Everywhere. And now you're adding a new
law.
>> We are. We're suggesting that there is a
second arrow of time which is reflected
in the fact that we see
locally on the surface of Earth on the
surface of other planets.
We see an increase in local order and
complexity and patterning. the
diversity. Minerals,
they show an evolving pattern where you
start with just a few different kinds of
minerals
long ago in the history of the universe.
Today on Earth, we have more than 6,000
different kinds and form in all
different kinds of environments.
>> We see the same kind of increase in
diversity in the formation of atoms. You
start in the universe with hydrogen and
helium, which are the two simplest
atoms, and now we have the whole
periodic table of the elements. and you
certainly see it in life.
>> So, let's let's name your new law. Let's
state it.
>> Okay. It's the law of increasing
functional information. And I think we
should probably begin by describing what
functional information is. This is the
metric that we're using to describe
evolving systems. So, it's a metric like
mass or charge or energy or entropy.
These are things that you can observe in
the universe and you can calculate from
your observations.
>> So let me let me just stop you for a
second there. So just like you pointed
out that in Newton's gravitational law
it was mass in your law the key
parameter is functional information.
>> That's right. And it and it increases.
>> That's right. In any system that
satisfies three primary criteria. So uh
first an evolving system has to be made
up of many many different interacting
components.
>> Okay.
>> Then there have to be mechanisms for
generating numerous configurations of
those components trying out new
possibilities. And then finally those
many different possibilities have to be
sub subject to selection for function.
>> Yeah I see. So, so if we go back to the
other law that has to do with evolving
systems, which is the second law of
thermodynamics, it states that in a
closed system,
entropy increases. What we typically
call disorder, which is a bad
definition. What What is your this this
idea of entropy? How does it play into
or are your laws related? Yeah. The
second law. Oh, well, entropy plays into
everything because there's nothing we
can do
without increasing entropy. We're
talking here. We're our hearts are
beating. You know, we're breathing. Our
brains are trying to put together
sentences that are coherent. And every
one of those things causes either
electrons to move or chemical bonds to
form and break or something else. And
every time that happens, anytime you do
anything,
there is some energy that dissipates out
into space and increases entropy. So
entropy is always increasing no matter
what. So it's it's the law. Okay? It's
the second law of thermodynamic. It's
the law. We can't and our ideas are
completely and totally consistent with
it.
>> Okay? What we're saying is that arrow of
time, that description of entropy always
increasing no matter what we do. Going
to sleep, we could be sitting here
saying gibberish. We could be speaking
in languages that no one understands.
>> Entropy is still increasing.
>> But
functional information is different.
>> It only increases
if you apply selective pressure. So, so
am I making sense? are my sentences.
What if I scramble the words and say
garbled? It it would have no functional
information because I'm not
communicating. But the entropy still is
increasing. Still is increasing. And
then I say something coherent.
>> Entropy is still increasing. But the
function let's draw some let's draw some
boundaries here because in your new law
you have these three constraints. In the
second law of thermodynamics
there is in a closed system. So when you
say that entropy may all always increase
some wa some listener may say oh what
about a refrigerator right you're doing
work and you're reducing the entropy
inside the refrigerator
>> but
>> on the outside
you're dissipating this energy right
that hot air that's coming out
>> and so you're increasing entropy in the
room even though you're decreasing it
inside the box of the refrigerator. So
the constraint is really important. So,
one more time, let's go over your three
constraints just so that we make it
really clear to the listener that
>> you're not saying that in intergalactic
space where there are no large
condensations of matter that this is
taking place. Right.
>> That's right. That's right. And we use
the the term bounded law to describe
exactly what you're talking about,
Hakee, that there are certain
constraints that make a law valid for
describing that particular phenomenon.
Okay.
>> So once again our constraints uh there
are three. First an evolving system has
to be composed of many many many
different interacting components.
>> Yeah. They could be protons and neutrons
to make atoms. They could be atoms to
make minerals. They could be molecules
that make cells. They could be cells
that make you and me. And it could be a
whole bunch of us sitting around
together talking about ideas that make a
social structure or language. So these
are all components. And and the second
constraint is that there need to be
mechanisms for mixing those components
into many different configurations,
right? And and so this is where I think
the second law kind of enters the
picture because a lot of those processes
that allow you to sample different
regions of configuration space require
the dissipation of energy, require the
entropy of the universe to go up.
>> And sure, because stars mix up protons
and neutrons.
>> Yeah. and earth because of water and
rock and mixes up new combinations of
elements.
>> And here we are sitting thinking about
ideas and mixing up new combinations of
words. You you got to have a process
where you're trying lots of different
things
>> because if you just sit there and don't
do anything new, you're not going to
evolve.
>> Right.
>> Right. So in a in a sense if you were
looking at the evolution of complexity
on the moon in comparison to the earth
you would say that the earth is more
evolved.
>> Yeah. Earth is moon is just sort of
frozen there. It just sort of sits there
and does very little. Once in a while an
asteroid will hit it and then you get a
little bit stuff going on and there may
be a little bit of seismic activity
that's you know earthquakes and stuff
going on. But the moon is largely frozen
but earth is the most dynamic place you
can imagine with plate tectonics and the
mixing of the crust and the mantle and
the atmosphere and the oceans and life
and all the things we do. It's it's an
astonishing place for trying new
combinations. So let's get to that third
constraint of the selection mechanism.
>> Selection selection for function, right?
>> Selection for So if when minerals form,
what's the function?
>> I love it. I love it. You got, you know,
you're right. How can you just write
there? It's it's Well, for a mineral, I
mean, I'm minologist, you know, I
collect minerals. I go to museums. So
the function of a mineral is not to fall
apart,
>> believe it or not. It's just to persist.
So it doesn't evaporate. It doesn't
melt. It doesn't transform into
something else. It means you can collect
it. You can put a specimen on your shelf
or it can make a solid foundation of a
continent so you can build your house on
it. I mean so so literally it's just
persistence.
>> Uh and it's context dependent right
because if under different temperatures
under different pressures
>> absolutely you get different minerals
you change the conditions you change
which minerals persist.
>> So here's the question then. So would
you define could you compare two
minerals and say one is more evolved
than the other
>> if just because they they they are
formed under different constraints like
what determines the time factor?
>> What a great question and it's
absolutely true. There are many many
most the vast majority of combinations
of atoms simply don't form crystals.
They don't form minerals. They they just
fall apart or they evaporate or they
transform into something else. And this
tiny tiny tiny fraction of all possible
atom configurations that actually forms
stable minerals some minerals diamond
you know forever once it forms
allegedly. I know okay you're right you
can you can mess up diamonds pretty bad
if you want to but uh but then there are
other minerals that form
>> through weathering processes at the
earth's surface. Some of the minerals in
soils and stuff that they can be pretty
transient. There's some minerals that
will very quickly alter in the
atmosphere to other minerals like an
iron. Iron is a mineral.
>> But if you put iron outside on a wet hot
day, it'll gradually start to rust and
change into a more stable mineral, a
rust mineral, which we call hematite.
>> So it's it's absolutely true. There's
kind of
>> a gradation. Some minerals last longer
than others. But all minerals that you
find in a museum or you can put in a
museum drawer represent the tiniest
minuscule fraction of all possible
arrangements of atoms, most of which
will never form minerals because they're
simply not stable.
>> The simplest thing to recognize is that
the fewer configurations that a system
can take on and still perform that
function, the higher the functional
information of that system. Right? So,
the smaller the fraction of all the
possible ways you could arrange say the
atoms in this coffee cup,
I've just spilled coffee, but pretend I
didn't.
>> You rearranged the
>> I rearranged the atoms, but but this
coffee cup is meant, if I'm not being
too wild with it, to hold coffee. Now,
very few of the arrangements of these
atoms can actually achieve that function
>> or living systems. Right? If I rearrange
your atoms Thanos style, you're not
going to be living anymore. Right.
Right.
>> That's right. Yeah.
>> So, which has more functional
information, a forest or a forest that
is on fire?
>> Oh, yes.
>> Well, it this is where the context
dependency comes on. So, what what is
the function that you are trying to
quantify the metric functional
information? It always has to be
relative to a certain function that that
we're choosing because we're interested
in that aspect of the system.
>> So let me give you an example and let me
give you a simple example.
>> Hold up. Hold up. You just went into
quantum mechanics territory, right? Cuz
basically you're saying that functional
information is observer dependent.
>> This the answer to the question is that
function is is relative but not in the
Einsteinian sense just in the sense of
everyday experience. So we have this
beautiful nova mug and it it holds
liquid. Now imagine these atoms you know
say it's about a mole of something
silicon and oxygen.
>> It always is. Right.
>> Yeah. So and and so you've got trillions
and trillions and trillions of different
ways of organizing these atoms and only
a tiny tiny fraction of those
organizations
>> holds a liquid. Has a nice handle so you
don't burn your hand. You know it
doesn't shatter every time you set it
down. It's you know this is really
nicely engineered
>> and says nova. It says Nova. That makes
it even more special. So, so the
function of this cup is is to hold
coffee and advertise Nova. That's cool.
All right. Now,
>> if it's a really windy day, we're
outside. We're doing this interview and
got a sheet of papers here. Oh, now it's
a paper weight.
>> Okay. So, now it functions as a paper
weight. I could arrange these atoms in a
lot more different ways than this and
probably some that are more efficient as
a paper weight. So now the functional
information as a paper weight is less
than the functional information as a
coffee cup. And and suddenly, you know,
there's a fly and I need I want to get I
want to swat the fly and so I use this
and I smash down. Well, this makes a
lousy fly swatter.
>> So the functional information is a fly
swatter is is
>> you know so but but so it's all context.
It's this the mass is the same.
>> The charge is the same. The magnetic
field is the same. I mean, all these
other physical variables that we we've
grown up with and we've learned about,
they're constant. They don't change.
>> The function is contextual, though. And
the functional information is dependent
on what we decide
>> is important. And that's really weird
for a scientist.
>> Does it require a consciousness then?
Because because quantum mechanical
observation, the measurement problem,
right, doesn't necessarily require a
consciousness.
>> Not at all. No. No. Because if the
function I mean sure for us to say that
the function of a mineral is to be
stable for a billion years then we're
deciding but the mineral that's stable
for a billion years whether we look at
it or not is has a higher functional
information than the the mineral that
evaporates after 10 seconds. You know, I
mean, it's just so so the question,
Hakee, the one that really gets at us
all the time is, okay, are we imposing
on nature something that isn't intrinsic
to nature, or in fact, is nature telling
us something. Functions really are
important. It isn't just the mass. It
isn't just the charge, which are fixed,
which are independent of the context.
>> Maybe context really is important. Maybe
in life the fact that a certain enzyme
works
>> and its mutant variety doesn't maybe
that's important.
>> Clearly it is.
>> Yeah. So context is
important.
>> So so a question for you. Does that
apply to the entire universe as a whole
or is that you know for example would
earth be one system Mars be a separate
system the sun be a third system for
which this law would hold?
>> It applies locally to a system where
there's a selection. So selection can
occur at a star or a planetary scale but
selection can also occur in just one
warm little pond
>> or maybe in a single
>> cup of coffee. M
>> so selection can occur at many different
scales but in every case it follows this
law.
>> So selection define selection.
>> Yeah. So we think that there is
selection in the universe for a couple
of different things. So first is
selection for static persistence. This
describes an entity's ability to just be
exactly as it is without bending to
decay and entropy for some time.
>> Yeah. Sounds like a rock. But there are
also systems that persist that are
dynamic. You can imagine, for example, a
hurricane where it's very dynamic. It's
spinning around. It's constantly sucking
in new water, some new atmosphere
energy. So, the actual atoms don't
persist because they get
>> pushed in and they get rained out,
cycled out. But it's still a very
dynamic system that persists for as long
as you put energy and mass into the
system.
>> And life is a dynamic system as well.
But it's not just selected for its
dynamic persistence the way a hurricane
is. Life is also subject to this third
selection pressure for novelty
generation. And why is this? It's it's
because novelty is your ability to
experiment with new configurations and
discover new functions and ways of being
that can further enhance your dynamic
persistence. One great example of uh
novelty generation in action is the way
that bacteria actually tune their
mutation rates such that they mutate
faster in more stressful environments or
do horizontal gene transfer, taking
different snippets of DNA from the
environment more rapidly in hospital
settings where there's all these
antibiotics trying to kill them. They're
trying to experiment with new ways of
being to survive and persist
dynamically.
>> But there's also just novelties like
creating an eye. So suddenly you can see
and that allows you to do things that
that sightless organisms can't or to fly
or to walk or to swim or to crawl. All
those things are novelties because they
open up new configuration space.
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>> A lot of this sounds like Darwinian
evolution. What What's the difference
between
>> Well, in many ways, it's like Darwin
because Darwin said three things that
are very much like we said. Mhm.
>> He said first many many more individuals
are born than can survive,
>> right?
>> And he said those individuals display
different traits. So what are we saying
here? There's lots of different
configurations and you generate lots of
them and then there's a selection for
those individuals best able to survive
and produce offspring. So Darwin's
theory of natural selection is a
beautiful example of what we're talking
about, but it's very specialized. I
think one of the things that we're
trying to do with our project is to
expand our concept of evolution from
that Darwinian paradigm and say that we
can see commonalities across all of
these disparate systems, one of which is
life, but many of which are abiotic
systems, things that aren't living.
>> So, we're totally cool with I mean
Darwin's was brilliant and he came up
with this idea long before us and some
people would say, "Wow, our idea smells
all like Darwin." It's just we're we're
we're saying it say it it applies to
atoms. It applies to molecules. It
applies to minerals and atmospheres and
oceans and planets
>> um which are non-living and that
Darwin's specific to living systems.
>> But what about the universe as a whole?
It has many different components. There
are uh you know lots of different
configurations and you can say that
gravity is a selection mechanism
perhaps.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. and and and so
this gets into the detail of what we
mean by functional information versus
other kinds of information out there. So
just as you have many different forms of
energy, potential, kinetic, thermal,
radiation, you know, there are different
ideas for how to quantify information.
One of them is what's called
complexity. It's basically the number of
bits you need to describe an object of
interest. Right now we think that the
kmagra of complexity of the universe is
static just as there's a law of energy
that says the total amount of energy in
a system should remain constant over
time. Right? The the universe is just
made up of many different interacting
particles and should take the amount of
the same amount of colograph complexity
to describe where those things are and
what their positions and velocities are
at any given time. But just as there's a
second law of thermodynamics that talks
about this increase in entropy as the
total energy of the universe remains
constant, we hypothesize that the
functional information increases over
time as the cologer of information of
the universe remains constant
>> and that increase can be that increase
can be at a local scale but also be
considered like the whole solar system.
I mean you can imagine
different configurations
of all of these systems be it at a
atomic scale you know an individual
mineral crystal grain or it could be at
a planetary scale or it could be at a
larger scale. Well, entropy is not
reversible unless you put in energy and
or you know you put in work and then you
know it it increases elsewhere. But in a
evolution of a solar system, you start
off with like dozens of planet decimals
and then you end up with a few planets,
right?
>> You're selecting
>> but it seems like it became less
functional information to me. Well, it
certainly
becomes
with greater numbers of planets and
fewer planetes,
but the planets themselves then have a
combinatorial richness
that's not present in the individual
planetmals, these these planet these
tiny spheres. So, a sphere that's 10 or
20 or or 100 miles across just can't do
the same things that planet Earth can
do. We have plate tectonics. We have
oceans and atmospheres. We have life,
>> right?
>> And that's only possible when you evolve
to these other states.
>> All right. You gave a a good example in
the green room that you know the
skeptic, which every scientist is, and
probably half our viewers are going to
still think that it sounds like you're
describing your functional information
arrow of time is similar to Entropy's
arrow of time. But you gave an example
of a hole in a cup.
>> Yeah, this is this is something just in
our conversations just came to mind. Now
imagine the function of this this cup in
its very specific arrangement of atoms
is to hold the liquid, a hot liquid, you
have a handle, you don't burn your hand.
Now imagine if this was very thinner.
There's a little hole in it. So it's
almost the perfect mug except it's got
that hole so it leaks. So its function
is not very good. and you say, "I'm
going to fix this. I'm going to use a
little bit of epoxy. I'm going to plug
that hole." Right? And so, you put that
epoxy, but you put it in a slightly the
wrong place. Now, you're going to
increase entropy because as that epoxy
sets, it's going to cool. It's going to
break bonds and form bonds. It's going
to do all those things. Every one of
those little actions, energies radiate
out into space. But you haven't fixed
the mug. It's still got zero functional
information because it leaks.
>> Yeah. Now, say I do it a little better
job and I actually plug the hole with
that same piece of epoxy. Same increase
in entropy because the epoxy has to set.
You know, bonds are forming. You're
basically radiating heat out into the
universe. But now the cup has functional
information at the same time. So
functional information always
involves an increase in entropy. Always.
You can't get away from the second law
of thermodynamics.
>> So let me let me replace this. Let me
let me some summarize. So the second law
of thermodynamics always happens whether
you put the epoxy
>> on the hole where it actually plugs it
and it fulfills its function or if you
put it somewhere else on the cup and it
does not fill its function. This exact
same thing happens with the second law
of thermodynamics. But the exact same
thing does not happen in the increase of
functional information. So they're
separate.
>> They're separate. And that's why we say
that our law of increasing functional
information must be consistent with the
second law of thermodynamics but does
not follow inevitably from it.
>> Ah
>> and that's why it's not just a corollary
or a lema of the second law of
thermodynamics. It's something new. And
the thing that's amazing Hakeim that's
amazing to us is once you start
realizing how this law works and as
these three absolutely critical boundary
conditions you it has to be made of a
lot of particles like atoms or molecules
or cells or people or whatever. So that
it has to and there has to be a
mechanism to generate lots of different
possibilities because if it just sits
there you're not going to evolve if you
just sit there. And then there has to be
a selection pressure, a selection
mechanism. You have to say, I'm gonna
buy this cup because it works. I'm not
going to buy that cup because it has a
hole in it and someone didn't repair it
very well. So So there's a selection
mechanism and and universe does this
selecting in many many cases for us. So
it's it's a it we see it in atoms, we
see it in molecules, we see it in
minerals, we see it in atmospheres, we
see it in oceans.
>> Let's talk about minerals. All right. So
you brought up the fact that you know
the processes of forming planets
increases the number of minerals right
that that that exist and then when life
comes around and life adds a lot of you
know carbon moving around oxygen moving
around you get a whole lot of other
minerals
>> huge
>> but in the example of plugging the hole
having a consciousness
increases a efficiency so the question I
have is are we just talking about
functional information? Are we talking
about functional information density and
where does efficiency play into this? So
where we think about that and this is
why this particular proposal for a law
it describes it explains
but also quantifies.
So you have to say what are you
quantifying and maybe even even predicts
and and so
where were we going with this?
>> Like for example like for example an
arrow head a stone arrow head
>> has more functional information than the
rock that it was formed from.
>> But the the fact that it's a
consciousness doing it right that's
different from a stone falling down a
cliff and changing its shape because it
has no function when it gets to the
bottom. Right? So it it seems to me that
there are different ideas here that that
are beyond just functional information.
There's functional information density.
Then there is an efficiency at
functional information creation.
>> So Hakee, you're really hitting on a
critical point here. It's partly how
rapidly can you generate new
configurations
and how rapidly can you select amongst
those configurations. The thing that's
so amazing about the conscious brain is
that rather than having to go to a
workbench or or a furnace or a a potter
and say, "Let's let's try a million
different designs and see which one
works." You can imagine them. M
>> that's why consciousness is so amazing
in the evolutionary because for the
first time in the cosmos rather than
having to actually make the mineral
having to make the atom having to make
the cell configuration we can imagine
them and we can apply the selection
process and now computers can imagine
configurations these are called genetic
algorithms
>> and they can design configurations of a
airplane's wing or a ship's hull or or
an electric circuit
millions of times a second and select.
So that's why computers and AI can do
this so much faster than even we can. So
it has the rate of new configurations
and the rate of selection. So there are
those three criteria for an evolving
system. And just to recap again, many
different configurations, a way of
generating sorry,
>> many different components that can go
into making your evolving system, many
different uh there there are mechanisms
for creating many different
configurations of those components and
then selection pressures that pick and
choose amongst those. And so what Bob is
saying is that in computer algorithms
these days, you can very rapidly
increase the competatorial exploration.
That's that's criteria number two. As
well as applying the selection pressure,
that's number three. You can also think
of places in the universe or times in
the universe where you have some of
those criterion absent. So like right at
the beginning of the big bang or right
right at the first, you know, the dawn
of the universe, you don't have a lot of
different components. You also don't
have very many mechanisms for operating
on selection, right? Um and so during
that first phase of the universe's um
history, there wasn't a lot of evolution
happening until you had stars, which are
great mixing bowls of uh protons and
neutrons to create and fashion the
elements of our periodic table.
Cosmologically speaking, going very very
far into the distant future where the
universe is near what we call heat
death, you lack criteria number two, the
ability to generate new configurations
uh and experiment because you no longer
have the free energy to do so. The the
second law of thermodynamics is not
really on your side at that point.
>> Right?
>> You know, you can think about this in a
very much more local scale. Think about
Earth. If we have a period of an ice age
when the whole surface of Earth freezes
over, well, you're shutting down all of
those water and rock interactions that
creates new environments for minerals.
So, you're not going to make a lot of
new minerals on the moon today. Moon's
essentially shut down. There's no
dynamic surface. You're not generating
new configurations of atoms and
molecules, so you don't make new
minerals. So, our law, it's a bounded
law. It only works when you have lots of
components that are interacting.
>> You have you're generating lots of
configurations. Now remember that can
either be physically mixing up atoms and
earth or mixing up new ingredients when
you're trying to bake an apple pie or
something like that and testing them
where you have to actually physically
make the thing. And now we have our
ability, our minds can imagine
configurations and select and computers
can generate millions of configurations
every second.
>> Well, you know, we've put our minds and
our computers to this problem of stars
evolving and we understand that the sun
may fully engulf the earth. Yes.
>> And all of your minerals in your brains
>> gone,
>> gone, gone. So what happens to your
arrow of time, right? that that so in
the universe the entropy of the so you
can apply the second law of
thermodynamics to the universe as a
whole right and and some people want to
apply some elements of quantum mechanics
to the universe as a whole but your law
seems like it uh is not a universe as a
whole type of of of law it is it is
under those constraints that you applied
it's it's in a close it's in a
particular system
>> it's a law of evol evolving systems
>> in a local environment.
>> Yes, exactly. Right. But you know at at
once we were talking about the
constraints upon this law. It is also a
very expansive law and that it broadens
our minds about what kinds of systems
are evolving systems. Classically we
think of evolution as being limited to
the biological realm. How life evolves.
Darwin taught us the principles of
biological evolution. But through the
law of increasing functional information
and noting that those three
requirements, many components, ways of
generating configurations from those
components and selection for function
apply not just to biological evolution
>> but to the evolution of abiotic systems,
minerals, atoms, isotopes that expands
our minds. Is is there a way to use this
observationally to distinguish uh
organic uh living systems even if the
life is no longer present from
>> oh yeah
>> systems that have not had life.
>> In fact this is one of the predictions
that our law has made. We predicted that
the molecules that life uses these
things like that make your cells
membranes the outside you know your skin
lipids there's the name. Yeah. and that
the different kinds of molecules that
are involved in metabolism and so forth
um that these molecules are selected for
their functions. And so life puts a lot
of of energy um into this this
manufacturing of lots of copies, for
example, the sugar glucose. When you
look at a tree, 50% of that tree is is
this common sugar molecule glucose. So
you're making a lot of glucose and
you're not making other things. But in
deep space where there's a lot of carbon
and their reactions that make these
carbon-based molecules, in fact, they
they form some a class of meteorites are
sort of black and and you can extract
this gunky black stuff from it. Turns
out they're all organic molecules. And
some of them are the exact same
molecules you find in life. You know,
things like amino acids and and
molecules called bases and sugars,
things like that. But
>> they're not alive. and you make this
mass of different kinds of molecules.
>> So is that a yes or no? Can you
>> Yeah. So you can actually tell you can
tell them apart because you're in one
case you're selecting for functions. So
you make lots of a few things
>> as opposed to a whole bunch a little bit
of a whole bunch of different things.
>> And even if you take those molecules and
you bury them in rocks and you bake them
for billions of years and all you've got
is little fragments left and fragments
of fragments. The distribution of those
fragments from life is completely
different than the distribution of
fragments that you might find in a
meteorite that falls to Earth that has a
lot of carbon in it. And we've used this
now. We made the prediction and and have
discovered really a new way of life
detection
>> based on those fragments. Is it a
meteorite meteoritel like distribution
of fragments? Not alive. If it's a
liflike distribution,
it's very different.
>> Try to put it another way is that I like
to think of life as a process, right?
And so you can detect the process that
life occurred through many different
ways that it imprints itself on the
environment. One of those, as we've been
discussing, is the ratios of these
different carbon isotopes. Life's
processes tend to prefer one over the
other. Another major process of life is
evolution. There's an evolutionary story
that biases the distributions of all
different kinds of organic compounds in
a living system away from what geology
or a meteorite would create on its own.
So the difference between the contents
of a of a something that fell from space
and something that's been evolving on
Earth for billions of years is an
evolutionary story. And that's at the
heart of our missing law.
>> Yeah.
>> So let's talk examples. How can this
play out or or be tested? Ah
>> well one of the ways we've tested it and
this has been published now and and
people kind say oh that's pretty
interesting is what's the increase in
functional information of earth's
minerals okay so think about earth's
minerals we now evolve they go through
stages you start with just those very
very first minerals that were formed
around stars about 25 of them
>> and then you go and you have the
earliest nebular minerals minerals.
That's when planets are beginning to
form about 100 minerals. And then when
planetes come together, you get about
300 minerals. Early Earth forms a
thousand. When plate tectonics get
going, about 3,000 minerals. When life
comes along, 6,000 minerals. It sounds
like you're increasing the number of
minerals. So functional information.
Yeah. So functional information should
go down, right? Because as you get more
solutions,
it sounds like, well, that's a smaller