Lee Cronin - Living Process Flourishes if We Make the Present “Thick” (Stewarding the Flame, Ep 2)

This installment of the Stewarding the Flame series is an interview with Lee Cronin, Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, founder and CEO of Chemify, and one of the world's leading researchers in the origins of life, systems chemistry, and Assembly Theory.

Lee argues that life is best understood as an evolutionary process that carries memory from the past into the future. Rather than viewing biology as the beginning of life, he suggests that the processes underlying evolution begin long before the first cell exists.

We explore what makes life, life, how Assembly Theory may help explain the transition from chemistry to biology, why understanding causation is essential to understanding the living process, and what it means to build a "thicker" present that gives the greater process of life the best chance to continue flourishing.

The interview is the second installment of The Trajectory's newest series, Stewarding the Flame, where we explore what intelligence is and ask what "flame" life possesses that non-life does not.

This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:

-- Stewarding the Flame - How to Build an Ideal Future for Intelligence: https://danfaggella.com/stewarding/
-- Michael Levin – Making the Process-of-Life Flourish in Bio and Beyond (Stewarding the Flame, Ep 1): https://danfaggella.com/levin2/
-- Nick Bostrom – AGI That Saves Room for Us (The Trajectory Series 2: Worthy Successor Series, Episode 1): https://danfaggella.com/bostrom1/
-- Henry Shevlin – The Life Force Beyond Biology (Worthy Successor, Episode 31): https://danfaggella.com/shevlin1/
-- Nicolas Gisin - Indeterminism in Physics and Intuitionistic Mathematics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.02348

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/A-mVvyX_zQ4

See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/cronin1

...

About The Trajectory:

AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?

From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.

Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls:
https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle

Stay in touch:
-- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw
-- X: x.com/danfaggella
-- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory
-- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai