What is life and how does it work?

What is life and how does it work? - with Philip Ball

Рет қаралды 127,612

Күн бұрын

Discover a leading-edge new vision of biology that will revise our concept of what life itself is, and how to enhance it.
Sign up as a member to watch the Q&A for this talk, and get early ad-free access to all our talks: • Q&A: What is life and ...
Buy Philip's book here: geni.us/HWnEn8V
00:00 Intro - what is the secret of life?
04:09 Is the human genome a blueprint or a musical score?
7:58 Crick's central dogma of biology
12:03 What scientists got wrong about genes and proteins
18:50 Why evolution chose disordered proteins
22:27 The process of gene regulation
27:03 Why life doesn't work like clockwork
30:29 The growth of intestinal villi
32:18 Why do we have five fingers?
34:55 Causal emergence
38:09 Do all parts of us have their own agency?
42:46 How does this affect genetic approaches to medicine?
48:09 Why do organisms exist at all?
Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. There is no unique place to look for an answer to this question: life is a system of many levels-genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and body modules such as the immune system and the nervous system-each with its own rules and principles.
In this talk, discover why some researchers believe that, thanks to incredible scientific advancements, we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined.
Philip Ball is a freelance writer and broadcaster, and was an editor at Nature for more than twenty years. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media and has written many books on the interactions of the sciences, the arts, and wider culture, including 'H2O: A Biography of Water', 'Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour', 'The Music Instinct', and 'Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything'.
Philip's book 'Critical Mass' won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. He is also a presenter of Science Stories, the BBC Radio 4 series on the history of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford and as a physicist at the University of Bristol. He is the author of 'The Modern Myths' and lives in London.
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Пікірлер: 246

@TheRoyalInstitution Ай бұрын

If you liked this one you can watch more of Philip's talks on our channel here - What is a mind? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q7GKiqlmxtO-fZs.html - Is it time to kill Schrödinger's Cat? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i6h5athly9jMkZ8.html

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@AndreyBogoslowskyNewYorkCity Ай бұрын

I’m painting 20 hours a day seven days a week and this is the purpose of my life by the wheel of God so I believe Well in my high school. I had this kind of teachers in art and in general and also also political leaders who were telling me yes just imagine you are 15 years old and adults. Yes, very powerful and influential people are telling you you were born to do something great so my art teachers were telling me God will punish me if I will not fulfill my destiny and it looks like my destiny is to be an artist because I always persisted in painting and drawing creating sculptures as well, and I disregarded my education Friendships or any kind of relationships because I don’t care I care only to create. I can speak about creation as a dance as a joke like a theater show like Shakespeare said the world is the stage. Yes that’s what he said. The world is by the stage, but in Hinduism, the universe is a dance of Krishna. Do you understand the concept? It’s a 7000 year-old concept that the universe is not a material solid item like a thing you can hold in your hand. No, the universe is a process, so everything I speak and everything you think and do is a process but at the same token the car you’re driving is also a process. The guy is a process solar system is a process. Milky Way galaxy is a process everything around you is a process but definition of a process it’s a vibration, I recently came across the concept the universe all the matter is made out of light so it’s a different vibration yes quantum physics nonexistence of subatomic particles. They are just vibrations so the atom is made out of vibrations so you and I do a bunch of vibrations like music like radio waves I think it’s very funny, I can’t get over that. I don’t exist here. I am talking to you, but I don’t really exist. I think it freaks me out.

@AndreyBogoslowskyNewYorkCity Ай бұрын

😅

@HipolitoHernanz 12 күн бұрын

The vet came out of the examination room and said: Mr. Schrodinger, about your cat, I have good news and bad news...

@xlntnrg 8 сағат бұрын

@@HipolitoHernanz It was alive but then it got curious...

@robbiekavanagh2802 Ай бұрын

I'm so grateful to have access to free education like this

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

Agents with agendas (goals, targets, purpose) is teleological, syntropic! Teleological physics (syntropy) is dual to non teleological physics (entropy). Syntropy (prediction) is dual to increasing entropy -- the 4th law of thermodynamics! Syntax (form) is dual to semantics (substance) -- languages, communication or messenger RNA. All languages (messages) are dual. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- the DNA backbone or hydrogen bonding. A is dual to T. C is dual to G -- DNA base pairs. Clockwise (mammals) is dual to anti-clockwise (trees) -- the Krebs energy cycle. The Krebs energy cycle is dual. The double helix should actually be called the dual helix -- the code of life is dual. The code or language of life is duality -- syntax is dual to semantics. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant.

@1331423 Ай бұрын

@@hyperduality2838 some of those things were words, I suppose.

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

Free Education in this case is "merely" poetry. Just sit back, loosen the brain cells with some alcohol, and enjoy! ...& don't forget to feed the algorithm.

@deadfisher0000 Ай бұрын

@@hyperduality2838 Sir this is a Wendy's

@kencory2476 Ай бұрын

What a perfect model of a scientist: Floral shirt, tweed vest, mismatched jacket, unruly hair, loose glasses, impeccable language. Love it.

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

Randomness (entropy) is dual to order (syntropy). Agents with agendas (goals, targets, purpose) is teleological, syntropic! Teleological physics (syntropy) is dual to non teleological physics (entropy). Syntropy (prediction) is dual to increasing entropy -- the 4th law of thermodynamics! Syntax (form) is dual to semantics (substance) -- languages, communication or messenger RNA. All languages (messages) are dual. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- the DNA backbone or hydrogen bonding. A is dual to T. C is dual to G -- DNA base pairs. Clockwise (mammals) is dual to anti-clockwise (trees) -- the Krebs energy cycle. The Krebs energy cycle is dual. The double helix should actually be called the dual helix -- the code of life is dual. The code or language of life is duality -- syntax is dual to semantics. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant.

@imrematajz1624 Ай бұрын

and the unmissable solo earrings...just to break the impeccable symmetry.

@robdev89 Ай бұрын

Stop looking at exterior and listen 🧠

@cranegantry868 Ай бұрын

No. He is just a typical badly dressed English.

@Elena0210 Ай бұрын

Amazing speaker, what a joy to listen to him

@AreHan1991 Ай бұрын

Philip Ball is remarkably clear thinking and well spoken, in an engaging and sometimes funny way. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and learned a lot!

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

Good that you feel that way. Now you too can wax poetic during a small gathering!

@ExtantFrodo2 Ай бұрын

Not mentioned in the description is a very educational book he wrote called "Designing the Molecular World" (or "Designing for the Molecular World" I don't recall offhand), but I learned more about actual chemistry and how things work at the nanoscale enough to get a visceral intuition for it. Yes, I HIGHLY recommend it.

@Ripen3 Ай бұрын

Thanks :-)

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@kindlin Ай бұрын

@@hyperduality2838 Stop spamming this. What even is the point of all that gibberish? Probably nothing....

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@@kindlin Certainty (predictability, syntropy) is dual to uncertainty (unpredictability, entropy) -- the Heisenberg certainty/uncertainty principle. Syntropy (prediction) is dual to increasing entropy -- the 4th law of thermodynamics! Teleological physics (syntropy) is dual to non teleological physics (entropy). Your mind is syntropic as you make predictions to track targets, goals and objectives. From a convergent, convex or syntropic perspective everything looks divergent, concave or entropic -- the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Convex is dual to concave -- mirrors, lenses. Duality means that there is a 4th law of thermodynamics! Mind (syntropy) is dual to matter (entropy) -- Descartes or Plato's divided line. "The brain is a prediction machine" -- Karl Friston, neuroscientist. You are built from DNA which is based upon a language or code -- Duality! Male is dual to female synthesizes children or offspring. Thesis is dual to anti-thesis creates the converging or syntropic thesis, synthesis -- the time independent Hegelian dialectic. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- the Krebs energy cycle. Mammals are dual to trees, plants -- the Krebs energy cycle is dual. The duality of the Krebs energy cycle (via the Hegel dialectic) is why mammals and higher life forms exist. You are a product of duality! -- It is hardwired into the physics and biology. Energy is dual to mass -- Einstein. Dark energy (negative curvature) is dual to dark matter (positive curvature). Space is dual to time -- Einstein.

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@@kindlin Natural selection is based upon random mutations or entropy -- Darwinism. The concept of randomness requires its opposite or opposame to exist. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung. If you accept randomness or Darwinism as true then you are unconsciously using duality according to Carl Jung as randomness is dual to order. Order, structure or patterns (syntropy) in biology (DNA) are a product conserving duality -- DNA or the code of life is therefore dual as energy is dual, and you are built out of energy. Everything in physics is built out of energy (duality).

@YTantirungrotechai Ай бұрын

His book 'designing the molecular world' published in 1990s was my favorite popular science book. It captured excitement in chemistry during that time. Many topics have gone on to get recognition by the nobel committee.

@andycordy5190 Ай бұрын

Like so many great RI lectures, rather than trying to answer the big question, the speaker probes at why we need to ask it. Many of the subjects raised here are new to me but I feel as though this talk was aimed at me. Brilliant.

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@arshadshafaei6032 17 күн бұрын

I am just wondering how much human being like this great guy can be able to qualify themselves in a specific discipline in such a wonderful skill and ability.It's unbelievable, isn't it?

@relwalretep Ай бұрын

Am so glad for my membership that I can watch this, and other presentations of the RI.Thanks so much xo

@TheRoyalInstitution Ай бұрын

We're so glad you're enjoying your membership - thanks for supporting us!

@Ripen3 Ай бұрын

Im not a member?

@communismisthefuture6503 Ай бұрын

@@Ripen3prove it

@riteshsinghchoudhary115 Ай бұрын

@@Ripen3that’s why you are seeing it now.

@TheRoyalInstitution Ай бұрын

@@Ripen3 Members get early access without ads to all our lectures, as well as exclusive access to the lecture Q&As, and help to support our charitable mission.

@ericjohnson6665 4 күн бұрын

"Life is cognition all the way down." Yes! I Totally agree. And it is that "cognition" (dare we say "mindedness"?) that is the basis (apart from the physical mechanism) of "life." It is this cognition that would have to have been added to our first global common ancestors, in order for them to come alive. (Which is why life cannot happen by accident as cognition is not a property of matter, it has to be added to it.)

$@fracster$

@fracster Ай бұрын

Terrific lecture. One of the best on YT.

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

Depends on your needs. Adding to superficiality, absolutely feels good and gets clix (ad revenue). Trying to learn about biology? One of the worst, most mis-leading on any platform.

@EeekiE 25 күн бұрын

@@OlehenryIt was mostly beyond me, but I have literally just finished reading The Selfish Gene which this guy referenced and claimed Dawkins was affronted by the idea that we can act against selfish genes, which is just categorically not true at all. First of all Dawkins celebrates that we can, and that it’s good, and separately makes the point that it’s as if genes have handed over the reigns to brains as they have foresight and adaptability. Then he name drops Dawkins again at the end, giving the impression (to me at least) that Dawkins was confounded by the paradox of the organism before quote-mining from the intro of a paper that then goes on to explain how it’s not a paradox, with the answer/clue coming from how parasites work, and the idea of the extended phenotype. It feels a bit dishonest to me.

@Olehenry 25 күн бұрын

@@EeekiE Ball & Dawkins are in the same business, and both feel compelled to straw-man simplistic arguments in order to bolster "his" mysterious hypotheses. I find Ball to be utterly romantic & superficial WRT his understanding of biology, eg: the immune system. Whereas Dawkins has a far stronger grasp of biology & computation, eg, his writings displaying integration of these fields without constantly hand-waving away interesting but confusing outcomes and defaulting to "see, see? that's gotta be agency!". While I am always saddened when Dawkins does anthropomorphize (to gain clicks/views/book sales?), Ball is far worse and this talk clarifies that he thrives on knocking over hastily-constructed straw clowns. Keep reading & thinking, & best in your journey!

@Dudleymiddleton Ай бұрын

A fascinating, absorbing, brilliantly presented lecture! Thank you for sharing.

@mikem820 Ай бұрын

Fascinating! Wish kids would study this instead of playing combat videos all day

@thomaskerkhoff579 24 күн бұрын

One of the best operational descriptions of complex processes yet. BRAVO

@johnfox9169 Ай бұрын

What a fantastic lecture!! I shared it with many people 😊

@whistlepro2328 2 күн бұрын

Philip Ball is my new god

@blackbandit1290 4 сағат бұрын

I bought Philip Ball's book just 3 weeks ago from my local bookshop thinking at the time it might be a good read! Wow, was I proved correct. I'm half way through the book and YT handed me this video, what a wonderful coincidence, or was that planned by someone or something? Is that life in action?

@harveytheparaglidingchaser7039 Ай бұрын

My favourite lecture of all time. Thank you

@safarscience6835 Ай бұрын

Wow...such an amazing lecture. Thank you Ri for uploading this❤

@hansmachado9163 Ай бұрын

Beautifully said! THANK YOU!

@lshwadchuck5643 10 күн бұрын

I bought the book. It's so worth owning! It answers questions I've had for twenty years. Of course, by answers I mean he gives a state-of-the-research update on what is currently understood, or hypothesized. Cognition all the way down explained, step by step!

@vazshawn999 Ай бұрын

A Stimulating lecture 💯

@Traisas Ай бұрын

This talk was amazing. Thank you!

@Namaerica Ай бұрын

Brilliant exposition of a complex subject.

@helmutgensen4738 8 күн бұрын

What a brilliant communicator of these wonders of life - thank you so much for taking me along on your pioneering discoveries Philip Ball! esquire!

@orestisnousias2796 Ай бұрын

Just awesome! Magnificent talk, and an exquisite book from a brave brave scientist!

@Elena0210 Ай бұрын

❤❤❤ what an amazing lecture, so inspiring! Incredible speaker. I’m a huge fan of this channel, thank you so much for sharing these brilliant lectures with us. Forever grateful…

@ogi22 Ай бұрын

And this is how a "watchmaker's argument" crumbles... Wonderful talk. Thank you Royal Institution! Sharing knowledge is simply wonderful and I'm so happy I can watch a lecture over a thousand kilometers away almost instantly. What an amazing time we live in 😏

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@robbiekavanagh2802 Ай бұрын

Thank you Philip, Thank you Ri!

@LearnedSome Ай бұрын

Excellent!

@Ripen3 Ай бұрын

I love this guy

@stephenhfoster Ай бұрын

I have concluded that quantum physics is for those who find biology too strange.

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@hectormanuelgutierrezvasqu6439 Ай бұрын

amazing and eyes opening lecture

@yokumato Ай бұрын

Great lecture, worth repeating it. Plenty of insights to ponder about.

@TimBeardsley Ай бұрын

Wonderful talk, very clear explanations of some of the biggest conundrums in biology and thoughtful proposals on solutions to them.

@RoxanneM- Ай бұрын

Malleable. An adaptable system. I was waiting for this talk from Philip Ball. Brilliant! Thank you so much for downloading it.

@loeffelm Ай бұрын

Very good, thank you

@marwanmaatouk6446 Ай бұрын

Brilliant lecture... 👏

@krzysztofrzetecki4539 Ай бұрын

Great, amazing lecture!!!

@davidroseman3287 Ай бұрын

Thanks!

@Veeger Ай бұрын

Thanks Phil. I wonder what you did with your proto brains? The image of the cell was mind blowing. Enjoyed and educated!

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@BennyHaerlin 22 күн бұрын

Mindblowing! And so lifely...

@garydecad6233 Ай бұрын

Outstanding lecture.

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@jamesfound7265 9 күн бұрын

The idea of "consciousnous all the way down" motivates me to take another look at Schopenhauer and his stress on "will" as a principle of existence. I also like the reminder that science tends to study what is it able to measure.

@cyber5515 5 күн бұрын

The spliceosome process, that produces protein variants via ribosomes, looks a lot like object-oriented programming. This is where we have a base code object (eg. code to implement an array object), and rather than rewrite it to do something different, we write additional code that overrides (replaces) functional parts of the base code object, or adds extra functions to the base code object, in order to make it do something different (eg. to make the array object into a sorted array object).

@theprimalpitch190 Ай бұрын

Love it! I'm sure there's a good answer but he didn't mention it: Why don't we have villi everywhere?

@sandponics Ай бұрын

I already know how life works, I wake up in the morning, I do stuff during the day, then I go to sleep at night.

@0The0Web0 Ай бұрын

That was a fascinating illustration how design looks that is not teleologic

@sanny27 Ай бұрын

What an enjoyable talk. I loved the joke with the Holy Roman Empire. Never thought of that before.😂

@Sam-we7zj Ай бұрын

causal spreading and causal emergence. mind blown!

@KenJohnson14072 Ай бұрын

any mention of Rosalind Franklin?

@myopenmind527 Ай бұрын

If there is a Q&A can you attach a link in the description. TYVM.

@Afrika_Percussie Ай бұрын

Really beautiful and profound overview of modern biology that navigates away from the old and machinelike models of explanation. Scientific and hopeful!

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

Sorry for the suggestion: "Scientific sounding..." and hopeful. Absolutely optimisitic!

@Afrika_Percussie Ай бұрын

@@Olehenry Scientific means for me at Bottom: in service of truth and wisdom. Some scientist don't meet this standard. Vice versa I am allergic of people misusing scientific jargon to dress up, an intuition, feeling or hope. I didn't get my allergy from this talk!

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

@@Afrika_Percussie Agreed, Ball does not misuse technical terms to dress up his intuitions. This was pure poetry, anthropomorphic (humanized, from a Philip Ball perspective at age 65?), which indeed navigated away from mechanistic "it is what it is" and toward "surely there's a purpose in there". But why re-define science? You can have *both* useful science and simply, emotionally-satisfying poetry. I won't take his poetry to a call for funding, and you find little satisfaction in reading from a published, peer-reviewed journal article. Both personal preferences. But the intentions of any person can/should? be divorced from the outcomes of hir work. Otherwise you're leading anyone so enamored by wisdeom argued from authority, which is a road always paved with good intentions. Hope that is food for thought. Peace.

@Afrika_Percussie Ай бұрын

@@Olehenry I think you can't make the distinction between science and imagination (or poetry) as clean-cut as you it to be. Thinking is neccesarily also driven by values. Good thinking acknowledges this fact.

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

@@Afrika_Percussie Agreed that humans are inherently unable to carve a fine line between science and imagination (or poetry) during thinking, and thus the details (of a proposal for funding, eg.) are vitally important. Also agreed as to the impossibility of separating values from the thinking, post-thought analysis, and future planning. Introspective thought of a previous thought (eg: reviewing Ball's claims) can reveal misleading statements, and in this regard, good thinkers acknowledge this and act on it. Which I have done. Why? I predict that young budding thinkers of scientific quality will be confused, slowed unnecessarily, and probably become lazy in understanding mechanism of action because Ball confuses his intuitive make-believe with what we call scientific laws, mechanisms of action, ie Physics & Chemistry. His weaknesses at these levels are bleeding through in his effort to motivate and educate, to a young person's detriment. IMO. Maybe you are pleased by the poetry because your work will not stand on the scientific shoulders, nor contribute to the body of biological knowledge. So by all means, continue to cheer. But please consider the unintentional harms to a young mind when an authority figure is confounding hir misunderstanding of principles with narrow (Ball's perspective), vague (make-believe), and sweeping generalizations (spirituality?) about these biological phenomena. (It happens a lot at the elementary, middle-, and high-school levels, then continues at the university level, undergrad up through grad school. And it's confusing our young people.)

@rox4884 14 күн бұрын

Sorry, not interested if you mention Crick and Watson without the name if the woman whose work they took without her permission. Rosalind Franklin should have gotten a mention. "...after he saw the DNA structure in Rosalind Franklin's x-x-ray diffraction photos."

@litsci1877 Ай бұрын

Amazing - I thought the image at 10:33 was just Philip playing the oldies, a picture from David Goodsell's wonderful book. David did well.

@mchammer1836 25 күн бұрын

This guy is an f'ing riot!

@ashleyobrien4937 Ай бұрын

It's easy to see why so many people out there might be completely overwhelmed with the mind boggling complexity of life and then just resign themselves to the impossibility of it all occurring through through a set of very distinct elements and their properties and just saying "god did it" .But then of course you'd have to honestly ask an even more impossible thing and that is of course well then where di "he" come from ? and just like that, I know which one is more plausible. (Apart from all the other obvious stuff of course). It's like opening the back of your phone or computer and you just say "good grief !!! what the...."

@41linestreet 10 күн бұрын

Very sad you didn't mention Rosalind Franklin in the discovery of the molecule. She was a brilliant scientist and very often oferlooked in how important her own discoveries were in the discovery of the double helix model

@haldanesghost Ай бұрын

Working in origin of life and getting to the bottom of this issue, it’s frustrating and sad to see that the naive (perhaps even stupid) mistakes in thinking about life talked about here run in full force, even celebrated… Little if any people here seem to understand that the task at hand is to understand how does living organization emerge, accrue, and keep going all the way to now… where that very organization is what is enabling us to look back at itself. Thank you for having this talk published. I needed to have this enter my ears from *not me* yelling at the wall in frustration because all I hear around me is an impressively vacuous desire to “find a self replicating moleucle”. How is it not manifestly obvious that no such thing exists? And if it does;it ain’t relevant to life. You, dear reader, are not your mother’s “copy”. It’s as if Xerox machines managed to spin up a cult. Life is actually very easy to define… Alexander Pope did it in a snippet of a poem: “not chaos like together, crushed and bruised; But as the world; harmoniously confused. **Where order in variety we see; And where, though all things differ, all agree.**”

@jeffbertjeffbertson4805 Ай бұрын

Pink was an interesting color choice for the graph at 37:00

@danwylie-sears1134 Ай бұрын

"What is life" is easy, if you're only asking for a set of criteria that distinguish life from non-life. We can look at life, and describe it at a level that simplifies and generalizes enough to generate a set of criteria. The hard question is why meeting that set of criteria actually enables a system to be _life,_ in the sense of all the nifty stuff about life that make it worth distinguishing from non-life. The important thing about the simple set of criteria is that it does enable something to be life. Something is life if (and only if) it's a chemical system (so a computer simulation is a simulation _of_ life, rather actually than being life, even if it does all the interesting stuff) with a genetics that can support its metabolism, and a metabolism that can support its genetics. Metabolism and genetics are two different forms of information-processing. A bunch of DNA by itself, that just stores information isn't a genetics. To be a genetics, a bunch of molecules need to include some that store information, some that copy information, and some that connect information to something else. Likewise, a network of chemical reactions isn't a metabolism if they just either happen unconditionally, or unconditionally don't happen, with catalysts (enzymes) for each reaction just either being present or absent. Metabolism is a set of reactions where catalysts are active or inactive, present or absent, conditionally. Such conditionality is a form of information processing, just as much as replicating, transcribing, and translating genetic information is. When both forms of information processing are present, it becomes possible for them to interact in amazing ways that enable the higher levels of what makes life _life._

@petersq5532 Ай бұрын

the answer to the question why the small cannot describe the e complex is the phenomenon of aquired trait. at a certain level of complexity and size new traits appear which cannot be forseen by just studying at a given level. of discipline categories seems to arbitrary but the boundaries happen to be at the inflexion point where these new traits emerge in the e system: quantum physics, physics, chemistry, biochemistry , molecular biology .... psychology, social behaviour

@ashleyobrien4937 Ай бұрын

This idea of "floppy proteins" is new to me, but I can see where it would be useful, in the way it is able to interact with a wider number of "targets". Proteins generally are thought of as having a "tertiary structure" that is, the way the fold up on themselves and adopt a certain shape, or 3D structure, for example enzyme lock and key theory. All the amino acids that they are built from have electronics charges on parts of the molecules that causes them to bond (eg. hydrogen bonds) in specific ways

@ericjohnson6665 5 күн бұрын

A nice rendition of the mechanics of life, but what makes the engine go? How is it that life is able to adapt/problem solve? I suspect the answer lies outside of chemistry/physical reality. We call it "mind" yet know not what it is. Thus, it's much easier to talk about chemistry.

@MrCampfires Ай бұрын

At 19:25 while talking about non-coding Genes making intrinsically disordered proteins, he states this process is not a mistake; it's something "evolution has... chosen... in order to make more complex organisms." I'm having lots of trouble wrapping my head around that statement. Seems he's given almost divine power to the process of Natural Selection.

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

Because he's a poet, not a teacher/mentor for understanding the subject matter.

@MrCampfires Ай бұрын

@@Olehenry He seems like a smart guy, though. But, I think he took a tooth-fairy type jump over discussing why most of our genome is made up of non-coding genes

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

@@MrCampfires Agreed w/ both thoughts. Why does he make use of the tooth-fairy throughout? I was always puzzled by analogies from smart people in grad school -- we don't want analogies, we want the facts & best hypotheses! (Well, I did anyways). 🧚🏼

@JoannaHammond Ай бұрын

I do hate how Rosalind Franklin is barely ever mentioned when talking about watson and crick.

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

Male is dual to female. Randomness (entropy) is dual to order (syntropy). Agents with agendas (goals, targets, purpose) is teleological, syntropic! Teleological physics (syntropy) is dual to non teleological physics (entropy). Syntropy (prediction) is dual to increasing entropy -- the 4th law of thermodynamics! Syntax (form) is dual to semantics (substance) -- languages, communication or messenger RNA. All languages (messages) are dual. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- the DNA backbone or hydrogen bonding. A is dual to T. C is dual to G -- DNA base pairs. Clockwise (mammals) is dual to anti-clockwise (trees) -- the Krebs energy cycle. The Krebs energy cycle is dual. The double helix should actually be called the dual helix -- the code of life is dual. The code or language of life is duality -- syntax is dual to semantics. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant.

@nathanmadonna9472 Ай бұрын

Philip Ball knocked it out of the park with this presentation. I had no idea a human cell is that complex. "Horrendously complicated" sure sums it up. AI is gonna turbo charge human understanding in biology.😃

@palfers1 Ай бұрын

What year was this talk given?

@AmerAlsabbagh Ай бұрын

In brief, the streetlight effect caught the scientists again!

@christopherlocke Ай бұрын

I believe it was Douglas Hofstadter who said something along the lines of: there is so much structure inside a genome, that it only makes sense inside of and hence implies the existence of a cell. From that point of view, the gene-centric view of life / evolution can still make sense. Natural selection operates on units of information afterall, and genes are the main thing passed on from generation to generation (putting aside cultural transfer).

@sjoerd1239 Ай бұрын

The environment has very much to do with how genes take effect and can affect the DNA that is inherited. The environment has very much more to do with traits than just cultural transfer. Evolution still makes sense in terms of reproduction because without successful reproduction the species dies out. At the same time, development of the brain and cognitive capacity for the need to reproduce can be useful for things besides reproduction.

@arthurwieczorek4894 Ай бұрын

My answer to the 'paradox of the organism' is as follows. Just as there is such a thing in nature as conservation of momentum, so there is such a thing as conservation of structure. The structure I have in mind is DNA. An organism is DNA's way of conserving itself.

@EeekiE 25 күн бұрын

Google “the paradox of the organism” and you’ll find the paper written by Richard Dawkins that coined it. It’s called: Parasites, desiderata lists and the paradox of the organism It’s freely viewable online. This chap quote-mined part of the introduction, giving the impression that it was some unanswered paradox that confused Richard, which this guy just so happens to have the answer to, but the entire point of that very same paper is that it’s only an *apparent* paradox, and it then goes on to explain why it isn’t one. It’s really disingenuous. He did exactly the same thing when he said Dawkins was ‘affronted’ by the idea that brains could defy selfish genes, but The Selfish Gene book he’s referencing makes the point that it’s a *good* thing, and that genes seem to be increasingly handing over control of the organism to brains which have foresight and adaptability in a way baked in genetic instructions can’t. This guys great insight to what ‘affronted’ Dawkins is exactly what Dawkins himself said in the very same book this guy is referencing. Super disingenuous.

@fbkintanar Ай бұрын

4:28 "Well, some people have questioned whether this blueprint or instruction booklet metaphor is really the right way to think about the genome." The best understood parts of the genome are the protein-coding parts, or the exomes. Perhaps that part is more like the Bill of Materials for the protein components of life. Other pats of the genome are important for gene regulatory networks (or condensates), but I don't think you can read off the details of gene regulation from the 30 billion CGAT data. If people ever figure out how gene regulation works, epigenomically exposing different exomes in every cell type, that might be akin to the software the makes the protein and non-protein hardware operational. At best the genome might contain something like a manual for (part of?) the programming language. It contains all the keywords and constructs, but not the variable names or data structures. So the genome doesn't seem to be like an orchestral score either, which is like a comprehensive description of what final output is to be performed. It might be like a store of the notes and symbols that metabolism can use to fill up an empty staff. How exactly the score gets assembled by genome, epigenome, transcriptome, translatome, etc. into functional proteomics, gene regulatory networks and metabolism is still unclear.

@hakighz1952 Ай бұрын

The link to the book is not working

@histonftm 2 күн бұрын

If youn can get over his lisp it is a very good lecture.

@pithicus52 Ай бұрын

Early in the lecture, his black box is missing two inputs and two outputs. He needs energy and materials as inputs, and waste energy and materials as outputs. Later he says that gene control is both digital and analog. But he kept using the word "fuzzy" which makes me wonder if fuzzy logic is a better way to think about it.

@real_pattern Ай бұрын

the central point of the central dogma is that the information encoded in the DNA is not changed by downward flowing information, eg. proteins do not change nucleotide sequence.

@marcodallolio9746 Ай бұрын

Nice move, but we all know what really matters sits outside of the technically true but not that meaningful "central point of the central dogma", ie the assumption that information only flows one way, which has had huge implications for our understanding of life in the last half a century, in short genetic reductionism and genetic determinism, precisely the positions Ball is arguing against here

@real_pattern Ай бұрын

@@marcodallolio9746 genes alone obviously don't determine every trait/behavior. genes + environment do, though, exhaustively. no one controls either. both just happen, unfolding either completely deterministically, or mostly deterministically with occasional randomness, ie. unexplained/unexplainable occurrences. the obvious falsity of simplistic genetic determinism isn't that much of a shocker. it was mostly motivated by sinister fascistic politics anyway, it was always without a well thought-through empirical basis.

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@ADHDologia 7 күн бұрын

Coming from a molecular biology background, this was a great talk but I was a bit sad towards the end when he brought up free will. *sad Sapolsky noises*

@scottrobertson6949 Ай бұрын

It's amazing that when it all comes down to it, we just heard an engrossing presentation by someone whose distant relative was a rock. So if he came from a rock that must mean that rocks have agency? Something for you to think about!!

@veridicusmaximus6010 Ай бұрын

@capecarver 18 күн бұрын

Bill Clinton isn't a very good man. But he nailed it with that observation. Great lecture.

@imrematajz1624 Ай бұрын

at 50:30 What is the biggest unsolved problem in Physics? Perhaps, posing the wrong questions...and solving them precisely.

@cliffordbohm 25 күн бұрын

While this lecture brings up a number of interesting and critical elements of biology that help explain how life really works, it introduces misconceptions about evolution and I worry therefore that on balance the audience is no more well informed in general than when the lecture began. This is funny because the initial thesis of the lecture is that the story of life that lay people receive is woefully under detailed. How unexpected that while illuminating fascinating facts about the operation of genetics and cellular behaviors the lecture would commit the same sorts of explanatory sins that it bemoans with regard to the evolutionary process by misrepresenting its core tenants. Evolution has no wants and it does not choose. Those features that arrive by random chance that result in increased offspring production persist and proliferate. From an evolutionary perspective we can understand that there is no plan. We can further see that the chaotic nature of biology is exactly what we would expect. If a gene exists in an organism that is useful, it is useful because it provides some predictable or consistent process. By mutation an existing gene may be incorporated in some other aspect of the organism. If this incorporation happens to improve reproductive success this change will also persist and proliferate. Perhaps like quantum measurements if we want to explain genetics we must sacrifice evolutionary accuracy and vice versa. I would like to think not, but this lecture seems to suggest that I'm wrong.

@calebogden Ай бұрын

Bro hacked my brain

@jjovbc Ай бұрын

It works???

@derrickminion9874 9 күн бұрын

He is saying that it is really cheap to be a tiny life form with very little change to it's environment... versus being a giant human with a giant brain and giant muscles is very expensive yet still requires a less stable but survivalable environment exists..

@zipperpillow Ай бұрын

This should be titled, "Blathering Tea-bag gives boring slideshow".

@zeroonetime Ай бұрын

Life I.S. Information system, informing you to lecture at the royal Institute.

@AmitRay47 8 күн бұрын

The title of the speech is different from the content of the speech.

@a.v.7797 Ай бұрын

Oh dear, I'm thinking of the pre-conditions of AI at this moment.

@LeftBoot Ай бұрын

Neoronautics is his calling

@sjoerd1239 Ай бұрын

Interesting. The idea of cognition is fine because that relates to recognizing structure and change. The idea of agency is OK because we separate ourselves from the environment and interact with the environment. However, I don't see any objective evidence or reason for those things to have been self-directed from a free will sense. The free will was just wishful thinking. I can only think it was slipped in from a desire to have some inexplicable autonomy over our lives.

@Mittu91 Ай бұрын

needs to credit the woman for x-ray crystallography

@Lukas-gn6bs Ай бұрын

Sounds like someone read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

@Milarz 7 сағат бұрын

Then perhaps Mr. Ball doesn't understand computers. Code just doesn't execute by itself; rather, it needs a whole suite of compatible, integrated hardware (CPY, primary and secondary memory, etc.) running supporting software systems (embedded device drivers, system loader, operating system, etc.). It is very analogous to Ball's orchestra analogy.

@user-xr6rh6jy8z 19 күн бұрын

One of the basic aspect of life is the urge to procreate, to “Be”. And not to extend this analogy too far, did not the universe also share this “ urge”?

@blinkingmanchannel Ай бұрын

Excellent job walking through sort of a replay of the last few hundred years of the narrative at the heart of biology, and then coming to brilliantly look forward into the next leg of the journey…I think. At 13:31 or so, we see that the guys are still working without actual measurements. Reminds me of the state of astrology just before Newton replaced those huge piles of magical speculation, wholesale, with a telescope. I’m surely not qualified to ask the question…BUT: Why is a molecule-appropriate “telescope” not the entire objective of the science community unless and until we have one?! At 22:09 we find we’re attending a “complex daahns” with some intimidating but again fairly useless post-modern pollack paintings… Music? Ballroom dancing? How about weather? Anybody up for a “maelstrom?” I take deductions from baseline credibility by counting up the number of words that still use “ae” in the spelling… At 32:26 “mechanical…” Now we’re getting somewhere! My kingdom for an appropriate telescope-thing!😢 And yet, this also feels like we’re tiptoeing up to math similar to the astrophysical “three body problem” for water, CO2, and …magnesium something, isn’t it? Feels like we are tantalizingly close to an unforeseen breakthrough. I sincerely hope…

@d.Cog420 Ай бұрын

What if the answer is simple though and it’s circumstance

@hyperduality2838 Ай бұрын

@jamesragsdale8202 Ай бұрын

Perhaps we are electric. That is life and being alive.

@SurrogateActivities Ай бұрын

What doth life, life, life...

@mmokhtabad Ай бұрын

Sorry but these were all examples, I didn't see any attempts to answer the question.

@drgrahambeards9776 Ай бұрын

He doesn't address the problem of what life is. It's not a substance, a force and certainly not a magic black box. It's a process if it exists at all: a relatively simple one in viruses and a highly complex one in plants and animals.

@Olehenry Ай бұрын

He's a poet, not a mentor/teacher. Living in an analogy....

@EeekiE 25 күн бұрын

“In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins sounds almost affronted that our behaviour sometimes seems to go against what a selfish gene picture should make us expect” Having just finished this book a few days ago, it doesn’t seem at all the impression I got. He never seemed affronted or even confused by it. Richard celebrates that brains can “rebel” against genes, and says that genes have in a lot of ways handed off control to brains that have foresight and adaptability. This guy needs to re-read it, as the point he made after that quote is pretty much exactly what Richard said, and celebrated, back in the 1970’s.

@EeekiE 25 күн бұрын

And then at the end he again quote Dawkins in reference to “The Paradox of the Organism”, before again implying Dawkins didn’t understand it or was flabbergasted by it, before offering his own take. But the quote is lifted from a paper freely available online that introduces the apparent paradox as a means of explaining why it isn’t. Read it for yourself by searching: Parasites, desiderata lists and the paradox of the organism Forget selfish genes, it seems the only reason this guy is name dropping and quote-mining for the purpose of straw-manning Dawkins twice is to elevate his own profile. Read The Selfish Gene and see what it says about selfish genes building brains. Read that paper and see what it says about the *apparent* paradox of the organism. This guy is a bit disingenuous, or at least weirdly hostile to someone that isn’t making the points he’s claiming they are. Very bizarre.