Show notes
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Michael Wong recently discussed theory of evolutionon TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSrf7ErdHWA — in this conversation, we go deeper on the law of increasing functional information and what it means for life, complexity, and the future of science.
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INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE — where Nobel Prize winners, physicists, and bold thinkers explore the biggest questions in science.
Is there a second arrow of time? Astrobiologist and planetary scientist Dr. Michael Wong joins Brian Keating to explore the law of increasing functional information — a proposed new law of nature that may explain how complexity evolves across minerals, biology, AI, and the cosmos.
Dr. Michael Wong of the Carnegie Institution for Science has been working with a cross-disciplinary group of scientists — the "Missing Law Group" — to propose something bold: a new law of nature. Their law of increasing functional information argues that evolving systems, whether biological or not, tend toward greater complexity and function over time. In this conversation, Brian and Michael unpack what functional information actually means, how it differs from Shannon entropy, and why it may describe something fundamental about the universe we live in.
From the formation of minerals in stellar atmospheres to the evolution of life on Earth, Michael walks through how this framework applies across planetary science, astrobiology, and even cancer research. Brian pushes on the hard questions — the Fermi paradox, the boundary conditions of the law, its relationship to the second law of thermodynamics, and whether it truly qualifies as a "law" at all. Sean Carroll blurbed the book and later called it out on his podcast — Brian asks Michael about that tension directly.
They also get into panspermia, the contingent role of cosmic collisions in shaping Earth's evolutionary history, the search for biosignatures on Mars and beyond, and what the rise of generative AI looks like through the lens of selection for function. This is a wide-ranging, technically honest conversation about one of the most ambitious proposals in contemporary science.
Key Takeaways:
00:00:35 There May Be a Second Arrow of Time — and It Points Toward Complexity
00:01:35 The Law of Increasing Functional Information Explains How the Universe Evolves
00:07:15 Functional Information Measures How Well a System Performs a Specific Function
00:11:30 Three Universal Selection Pressures Drive All Evolving Systems 00:18:00 Mineral Evolution on Earth Is a Measurable Proof of the Law in Action
00:22:00 The Law Is a Tendency, Not a Guarantee — It Doesn't Resolve the Fermi Paradox
00:27:00 Life and Non-Life Contain the Same Building Blocks — the Difference Is in the Distributions
00:32:15 Cosmic Collisions Didn't Derail Evolution — They Opened New Possibility Spaces
00:50:00 Cancer Behaves Like an Evolving System — and That Could Change How We Treat It
01:05:15 AI Is a New Form of Evolving Life — and Without Stronger Selection Pressure, It's Dangerous
Featured Guest ➡️
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📚 The book: Time’s Second Arrow (co-authored with Robert Hazen) : https://www.amazon.com/Times-Second-Arrow-Evolution-Nature-ebook/dp/B0FJ2ZJL53
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#physics #astrobiology #complexity #evolutionoflife #briankeating #intotheimpossible
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