Jim talks with Stuart Kauffman about cosmology, fundamental physics, and the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and inflation. They discuss how Stuart moved into these fields, the Michelson-Morley experiment, special relativity, cosmic background radiation, the new period of precision cosmology, dark energy, why the universe is expanding faster, the Hubble tension, the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation, entanglement, nonlocality & whether it is fundamental, quantum gravity, why particle physics is collectively autocatalytic, stepping through the delay hypothesis, Planck time, the past hypothesis problem, the life ensemble, dark matter as a Ricci soliton, requirements for the rate of inflation, why cold dark matter may explain the cosmic web, Mach's principle, and much more.

Episode Transcript

JRS EP18 - Stuart Kauffman on Complexity, Biology & T.A.P.

JRS EP 227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life

JRS EP5 - Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution

Are Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Inflation a Construction of Space-Time By Matter?", by Stuart Kauffman

"Did the Universe Construct Itself?", by Stuart Kauffman & Stephen Guerin

"On Quantum Gravity If Non-Locality Is Fundamental," by Stuart Kauffman

"Dark Matter as a Ricci Soliton," by Stuart Marongwe & Stuart Kauffman

Stuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. Kauffman graduated from Dartmouth in 1960, was awarded the BA (Hons) by Oxford University (where he was a Marshall Scholar) in 1963, and completed a medical degree (MD) at the University of California, San Francisco in 1968. After completing his residency in Emergency Medicine, he moved into developmental genetics of the fruit fly, holding appointments first at the University of Chicago, then at the University of Pennsylvania, where he rose to Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Kauffman held a MacArthur Fellowship from 1987–1992.