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The major societal consequences of finding alien life | Sara Seager

This interview is an episode from ‪The Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the ‪John Templeton Foundation.

Watch Seager’s next interview ► What if intelligent life exists, but we can’t recognize it? • What if intelligent life exists, but we ca…

Sara Seager, a planetary scientist, astrophysicist, and leading researcher in the search for life beyond Earth, examines how discovering life elsewhere would represent a Copernican-level shift in human understanding.

Research into Mars, Venus, and the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn has revealed complex molecules and liquid environments that could support life. Independent origins of life would imply that the galaxy is rich with living individuals, challenging long-held cultural, religious, and philosophical assumptions. The acceptance of major scientific discoveries — and the unexpected practical contributions to pure science — impact how the search for extraterrestrial life may benefit society over time.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/are-we–…

About Sara Seager:

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Abstract: Addressing an urgent translational need for patients with hereditary cancer syndromes caused by mutations in mismatch repair (MMR) genes!

https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI195189 Dolores Hambardzumyan & team develop mouse models of germline and somatic MMR-deficient high-grade gliomas, finding a role for MMR genes in tumor growth and temozolomide resistance, and presenting KL-50 as a therapeutic avenue.

The figure demonstrates a potent anti-tumor effect from KL-50 treatment in glioblastoma models.

1Departments of Oncological Sciences and Neurosurgery, The Tisch Cancer Institute and.

2Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.

3Departments of Systems Biology and Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA.

The Sound of Contamination: A Comprehensive Analysis of Endocrine Disruptors and Hazardous Additives in the Headphones

The ToxFree Life for All project analysed 81 headphone models (180 material samples) across Central Europe and online marketplaces like Temu and Shein. 100% of products contained hazardous substances, including bisphenols, phthalates, and flame retardants. While these products do not pose an acute or “imminent” danger, the cumulative and synergistic effects of chronic exposure to these chemical classes pose a long-term risk to public health, therefore having a negative impact on sovereign consumer choice. The individual consumer has limited power to choose a safe product. Consumer protection is a systemic problem that cannot be solved by individual choice; it must be addressed at the institutional level.

Joscha Bach “Bootstrapping a GODLIKE Mind”

Dr. Joscha Bach is a renowned cognitive scientist, AI researcher, and philosopher of mind known for his work on synthetic intelligence and the computational foundations of the soul. He is currently the founding director of the California Institute for Machine Consciousness (CIMC) and a strategic advisor at Liquid AI.

Throughout his career, Joscha has held research positions at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, including the MIT Media Lab, the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and Intel Labs. He is the architect behind MicroPsi, a cognitive architecture that models how agents think, act, and feel based on internal motivations.

Joscha is famous for reframing \.

Joscha Bach & Anders Sandberg — AI, Consciousness and the Cyborg Leviathan

Are minds just processes? Can AI become conscious, morally wiser, or even part of a larger collective intelligence? Anders Sandberg and Joscha Bach discuss consciousness, AGI, hybrid minds, moral uncertainty, collective agency and the future of the cyborg Leviathan. It’s a deep and winding discussion with so many interesting topics covered!

0:00 Intro.
0:37 What is consciousness? Phenomenology — functionalism & panpsychism.
1:54 Causal boundaries — the mind is a causally organised process with a non-arbitrary functional boundary, sustained through time by feedback, control, and internal continuity.
3:20 Minds are not states — they are processes. We don’t see causal filtering in tables.
5:54 Epiphenomenalism is self-undermining if it has no causal role, and taking causation seriously pushes towards functionalism.
9:49 Methodological humility about armchair philosophy of mind.
12:41 Putnam-style Brain-in-a-vat — and why standard objections to AI minds fall flat.
16:37 Is sentience required (or desired) for not just moral competence in AI, but moral motivation as well?
22:35 Why stepping outside yourself is powerful — seeing.
25:12 Are AIs born enlightened?
26:25 Are LLMs AGI yet? What’s still missing.
28:16 AI, hybrid minds, and the limits of human augmentation.
32:32 Can minds be extended — in humans, dogs, and cats?
36:19 Why human language may not be open-ended enough.
39:41 Why AI is so data-hungry — and why better algorithms must exist.
43:39 Why better representations matter more than raw compute (grokking was surprising)
48:46 How babies build a world model from touch and perception.
51:05 What comes after copilots: agent teams, multimodality and new AI workflows.
55:32 Can AI help us discover new forms of taste and aesthetics.
59:49 Using AI to learn art history and invent a transhumanist aesthetic.
1:01:47 When AI helps everyone looks professional, what still counts as real skill?
1:03:56 What happens when the self starts to merge with AI
1:05:43 How AI changes the way we think and create.
1:08:10 What happens when AI starts shaping human relationships.
1:11:18 Why feeling in control can matter more than being right.
1:12:58 Why intelligence without wisdom is very dangerous.
1:17:45 AI via scaling statistical pattern matching vs symbolic (& causal) reasoning. Can LLMs learn causality or just correlation?
1:23:00 Will multimodal AI replace LLMs or use them as glue everywhere.
1:24:02 10 years to the singularity?
1:25:27 AI, coordination and the corruption problem.
1:29:47 Can AI become more moral than us (humans)? and if so, should it?
1:34:31 Why pluralism still leaves moral collisions unresolved.
1:34:31 Traversing the landscape of norms (value)
1:38:14 Can ethics work across nested levels of existence? (from the person-effecting-view to the matrioshka-effecting-view)
1:43:08 Moral realism, evolution & game-theoretic symmetries.
1:48:01 Is there a global optimum of moral coordination? Is that god?
1:55:12 Metaphors of the body-politic, the body of Christ, Omega Point theory, Leviathan.
1:59:36 Will superintelligences converge into a cosmic singleton?

Post: https://www.scifuture.org/minds-in-th… thanks for tuning in! Please support SciFuture by subscribing and sharing! Buy me a coffee? https://buymeacoffee.com/tech101z Have any ideas about people to interview? Want to be notified about future events? Any comments about the STF series? Please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mr9P… Kind regards, Adam Ford

Many thanks for tuning in!
Please support SciFuture by subscribing and sharing!
Buy me a coffee? https://buymeacoffee.com/tech101z.

Have any ideas about people to interview? Want to be notified about future events? Any comments about the STF series?
Please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mr9P…

Kind regards.

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New Discoveries on Wormholes Are Changing Everything

Use code coolworlds at https://incogni.com/coolworlds to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan.

How do wormholes work? Are they actually possible? How could we make one? Join us today for a deep dive into the wormhole…

Written & presented by David Kipping, edited by Jorge Casas.

→ Support our research: https://www.coolworldslab.com/support.
→ Get merch: https://crowdmade.com/collections/coo…
→ Check out our podcast: / @coolworldspodcast.

THANK-YOU to M. Howard, M. Metts, M. Provost, S. Shardool, M. Bueche, M. Williams, M. Morrow, R. Borbidge, M. Everest, M. Vystoropskyi, M. Bryant, M. Nimmerjahn, M. Schreiner, M. Canning, M. Stewart, M. Cartmell, M. Brooks, M. Smith, E. Garland, M. Borisoff, M. Danielson, M. Adler, M. Sanford, M. Smith, M. Larter, M. Devermont, M. Chaffee, M. Rockett, M. Aron, M. Daniluk, M. Corwin, M. Bylinsky, C. Fitzgerald, M. Kingston, M. Ortiz, M. Venzor, B. Gaalen, M. Muriuki, M. Schoen, M. Popovski, M. Frederick, M. Kruger, M. Bottaccini, M. Johnston, M. Huch, M. Singh, M. Sattler, M. McMillan, M. Brownlee, M. Armstrong, M. Williams, M. Souter, M. OBrien, M. Shamp, M. Kochkov, M. Schiff, M. Fitzsimmons, G. Belsak, M. Johnston, M. Gillette, M. Murphy, M. Gonzalez, M. Hedlund, M. Seay, M. Zajonc, M. Morrison, N. Offor, M. Alley, M. Hoffman, M. Ross-Lee, M. Haan, M. Elliott, M. Lovely, M. Donkin, M. Cunningham, M. Bassnett, M. Hansen, M. Vaal, M. Langley, M. Reese, W. Ruf, M. Ford, M. Herman, M. Fullwood, M. Edris, M. Czirr, M. Patterson, L. Deacon, M. Saint, M. Lee, M. Murray, M. Kennedy, M. Stevenson, M. Thomsen, M. Daughaday, M. Farabee & M. Matters.

MUSIC

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Scientists revive activity in frozen mouse brains for the first time

A familiar trope in science fiction is the cryopreserved time traveller, their body deep-frozen in suspended animation, then thawed and reawakened in another decade or century with all of their mental and physical capabilities intact.

Researchers attempting the cryogenic freezing and thawing of brain tissue from humans and other animals — mostly young vertebrates — have already shown that neuronal tissue can survive freezing on a cellular level and, after thawing, a functional one to some extent. But it has not been possible to fully restore the processes necessary for proper brain functioning — neuronal firing, cell metabolism and brain plasticity.

A team in Germany has now demonstrated a method for cryopreserving and thawing mouse brains that leaves some of this functionality intact. The study, published on 3 March in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 3, details the authors’ use of a method called vitrification, which preserves tissue in a glass-like state, along with a thawing process that preserves living tissue.

“If brain function is an emergent property of its physical structure, how can we recover it from complete shutdown?” asks Alexander German, a neurologist at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany and lead author of the study. The findings, he says, hint at the potential to one day protect the brain during disease or in the wake of severe injury, set up organ banks and even achieve whole-body cryopreservation of mammals.

Mrityunjay Kothari, who studies mechanical engineering at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, agrees that the study advances the state of the art in cryopreservation of brain tissue. “This kind of progress is what gradually turns science fiction into scientific possibility,” he says. However, he adds that applications such as the long-term banking of large organs or mammals remain far beyond the capabilities of the study.

Article Featured in Nature.

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A Lab Version of Planetary Atmospheres

Researchers recreate key features of atmospheric turbulence in a meter-sized rotating cylinder.

Atmospheric turbulence encompasses a wide range of flow patterns, from 10-m-wide eddies to 1000-km-long wind streams. Geoscientists want to understand how energy and rotational motion transfer (or “cascade”) from one length scale to another, but atmospheric observations have not provided clear answers. A new model of the atmosphere consisting of fluid in a rotating, meter-wide cylinder is able to reproduce key features of observed turbulence [1]. Using video tracking, researchers mapped out the flow velocity in this system, uncovering the dominant role of a “vorticity” transfer that distributes rotational motion from large vortices into smaller ones. This form of cascade may explain the energy distribution in large-scale turbulence on Earth as well as on other planets.

Turbulence can be characterized by a kinetic energy spectrum, which indicates the amount of energy found in fluctuations at each length scale. The typical turbulence spectrum has a mathematical form called a power law, in which the energy density steadily decreases from large to small scales. Fluid dynamics models of Earth’s atmosphere have predicted that the power law should be relatively flat at large scales (with an exponent of −5÷3) and steeper at small scales (with an exponent of −3). However, these predictions aren’t supported by observations. “The basic shape of the spectrum is all wrong,” says Peter Read from the University of Oxford in the UK. Data taken by airplanes have revealed a spectrum that starts out steep at large scales (greater than 500 km) and becomes flatter at small scales.

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