Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

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Caleb Scharf: The Ascent of Information (#163) Jun 29, 2021

Show notes

Caleb Scharf was born and educated in England. He received his B.Sc. in physics from Durham University, and his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Cambridge. Following postdoctoral work in X-ray astronomy and observational cosmology at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, he has been a research scientist at Columbia University in New York. He is currently the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center. His research interests include the study of exoplanets, exomoons, and the nature of environments suitable for life.

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About Caleb's new book, THE ASCENT OF INFORMATION

Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants.

One of the most peculiar and possibly unique features of humans is the vast amount of information we carry outside our biological selves. But in our rush to build the infrastructure for the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, we’ve failed to ask exactly why we’re expending ever-increasing amounts of energy, resources, and human effort to maintain all this data.

Drawing on deep ideas and frontier thinking in evolutionary biology, computer science, information theory, and astrobiology, Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create—all of our emails, tweets, selfies, A.I.-generated text and funny cat videos—amounts to an aggregate lifeform. It has goals and needs. It’s an organism that has evolved right alongside us.

This symbiotic relationship with information offers a startling new lens for looking at the world. Data isn’t just something we produce; it’s the reason we exist. This powerful idea has the potential to upend the way we think about our technology, our role as humans, and the fundamental nature of life.

00:00:00 Intro
00:04:37 How did you come up with the title and cover?
00:07:09 About Boltzman Brains
00:12:32 Is it possible to erase information? Does it live on forever?
00:16:32 What is the Dataome?
00:20:32 Is there an upper limit on the amount of information?
00:28:45 Will AI have imagination?
00:33:46 What are the initial conditions require to create information?
00:39:55 Where are the alien dataomes?
00:50:31 What would you put on your billion year monolith?

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Top Alien Hunter: “No, aliens aren’t here!” (#162) Jun 26, 2021

Show notes

Seth Shostak directs the search for extraterrestrials at the SETI Institute in California—trying to find evidence of intelligent life in space. He is also committed to getting the public, especially young people, excited about astrobiology and science in general.

Seth is the host of “Big Picture Science,” the SETI Institute’s weekly radio show. The one-hour program uses interviews with leading researchers and lively and intelligent storytelling to tackle such big questions as: What came before the big bang? How does memory work? Will our descendants be human or machine? What’s the origin of humor? Big Picture Science can be found in iTunes and other podcast sites.

http://sethshostak.com/

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The SETI Institute was incorporated as a 501(c)3 California Non-Profit Corporation on November 20, 1984. The inaugural officers of the Institute were CEO Thomas Pierson and SETI scientist Jill Tarter. The Institute began operations on February 1, 1985.

Prior to the inception of the SETI Institute, NASA was funding a small project in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. John Billingham, Chief of Life Sciences at NASA Ames Research Center and Bernard (Barney) Oliver, formerly of Hewlett-Packard invited Tom Pierson and others into discussions about maximizing the effectiveness of the funds, and ways of putting more money into the research and less into institutional overhead. These discussions led to the concept of a dedicated non-profit research organization focused on research and education around the factors of the Drake Equation. This vision was realized in the 1984 incorporation of the SETI Institute.

https://www.seti.org/

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Michael Saylor The Physics of Bitcoin https://youtu.be/CaN_CDKqXOg?sub_confirmation=1

Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo?sub_confirmation=1

Jill Tarter https://youtu.be/O9K9OBd3vHk?sub_confirmation=1

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