Jim talks with Matthew David Segall about the ideas in his and Bruce Damer's new essay, "The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis." They discuss the "philosophy as footnotes to Plato" idea, the hot springs origin of life hypothesis, closing the gap between chemistry & life, Whitehead's idea of concrescence, metaphysics in philosophy, minimum viable metaphysics, why physical law doesn't imply biological organisms, process-relational philosophy, deep-seated cosmic habits, the hero's answer, the type 1a supernova, rigorous speculation, the incalculability of the adjacent possible, the nature of matter, autocatalysis, the tension between the actual & possible, the rate of evolution, getting past the error catastrophe, Prigogine's ideas about dissipative systems, teleology & the second law of thermodynamics, why DNA is not a blueprint, the Fermi paradox, bringing the universe to life, social implications of the origin of life, panpsychism & panexperientialism, integrated information theory, why matter & energy must have an endogenous telos, prehension, life wanting to live better, necessity & openness, questioning falsifiability, and much more.

Episode Transcript

"The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis," by Matthew David Segall & Bruce Damer

Footnotes2Plato (Substack)

JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life

JRS EP 171 - Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life – Implications

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, by Tom Holland

JRS EP 5 - Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution

JRS EP 227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life

JRS EP 157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind’s Emergence From Matter

JRS EP 40 - Eric Smith on the Physics of Living Systems

JRS EP 105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness

JRS EP 178 - Anil Seth on A New Science of Consciousness

JRS EP 17 - Bonnitta Roy on Process Thinking and Complexity

Process Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Matthew David Segall, Phd, is a transdisciplinary researcher, writer, teacher, and philosopher applying process-relational thought across the natural and social sciences, as well as to the study of consciousness. He is Associate Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Department at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and the Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Cobb Institute.