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Nick Lane – Life as we know it is chemically inevitable

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Nick Lane – Life as we know it is chemically inevitable

Dwarkesh Podcast

Oct 10
Dwarkesh Podcast

Dwarkesh Podcast

Oct 10
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

Nick Lane has some pretty wild ideas about the evolution of life. He thinks early life was continuous with the spontaneous chemistry of undersea hydrothermal vents. Nick’s story may be wrong, but I find it remarkable that with just that starting point, y...

Highlights

This podcast explores the profound implications of Nick Lane's theories on the origin and evolution of life, focusing on how fundamental biochemical processes may dictate the trajectory of living systems from their earliest forms to complex eukaryotic organisms.
02:50
Mitochondria generate a large voltage across their membrane through proton pumping.
21:49
The laws of the universe may inherently favor the chemistry leading to life.
41:28
Trapping RNA in protocells enables gene-level selection and evolvability
45:03
Two sexes evolved to improve selection against harmful mitochondrial mutations
1:08:16
Feelings must be physical if they evolved, but we don't know what to measure.

Chapters

Mitochondria: the singularity that unlocked complex life
00:00
Planetary forces that drive life into existence
08:26
Eukaryotes are the great filter for intelligent life
23:36
Mitochondria are the reason we have sex
42:16
Are bioelectric fields linked to consciousness?
1:08:12

Transcript

Dwarkesh Patel: Today, I'm chatting with Nick Lane, who is an evolutionary biochemist at University College London. And he has many books and papers which help us reconceptualize life's four billion years in terms of energy flow. And helps explain everythi...