299 | Michael Wong on Information, Function, and the Origin of Life

Living organisms seem exquisitely organized and complex, with features clearly adapted to serving certain functions needed to survive and procreate. Natural selection provides a compelling explanation for why that is so. But is there a bigger picture, a more general framework that explains the origin and evolution of functions and complexity in a world governed by uncaring laws of physics? I talk with planetary scientist and astrobiologist Michael Wong about how we can define what "functions" are and the role they play in the evolution of the universe.

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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/12/16/299-michael-wong-on-information-function-and-the-origin-of-life/

Michael Wong received his Ph.D. in planetary science from Caltech. He is currently a Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Scienceʼs Earth & Planets Laboratory. He is in the process of co-authoring two books: A Missing Law: Evolution, Information, and the Inevitability of Cosmic Complexity with Robert M. Hazen, and a revised edition of Astrobiology: A Multidisciplinary Approach with Jonathan Lunine.

• Web site
• Carnegie web page
• Strange New Worlds podcast
• Wong et al. (2023), "On the Roles of Function and Selection in Evolving Systems."
• Wong and Prabhu (2023), "Cells as the First Data Scientists."

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