sport's top court rejects an appeal by russia's anti-doping agency to overturn a ban on russian athletes but reduces it to 2 years the court of arbitration for sports decision that means that the russian national flag will not be seen at international sporting events until the end of 2022. russian president vladimir putin wraps up his annual q. and a session with journalists and of the public lasting just over 4 hours for the 1st time it was done remotely by video link due to covert 19. russia was the 1st country in the world to come up with and stop producing its own vaccine we see an expansion we see nato infrastructure coming closer to our borders shouldn't we

respond to this i haven't decided yet whether i will be running for the 2024 election. and french president emmanuel micron tests positive for cocaine $1000.00 but he will continue to work remotely during a self isolation period. up on the top stories this hour up next so if you co-host a renowned physicist discussing how information is becoming the new building block of our universe. welcome to soviet vision. what is like the best efforts of scientists this fundamental question. i guess today has his own form of that we're tracing the answer i'm joined by professor paul davies is assist astrobiology. and best selling

author. professor paul davis. bestselling author really great to have you with us today. so i should talk about a special information because i'm a journalist and i work with information a lot now you're interested in this concept of organized information for me as a journalist information is more obstructive a concept than mathematicians think of it as like myths and binary code and stuff without making it too complicated for my audiences can you explain what is information in physics. right say you're correct that we use that data nice but we have a sort of rough and ready idea of what information means and the best definition is that it reduces on certainty so for example 'd if you were going to carry moscow

sort of metro and you just go random you might quite tight on a 10 minutes or something her friends come along but if you have a timetable it reduces your onset when they train with the ride but that initial one should be can made very mathematically precise about 70 years ago and what we know according to mission terry was based on that notion of all production then on set. can you not a simple example you toss a coin did you count that heads or tails i don't know if you use that expression in russia one side on the other and you don't know but when you look you you get the definite it when you quote one bits of information so that's a technical definition and so using that we can apply some biology to the nature of life and it was recognised a long time ago where the famous double helix of the structure of d.n.a. was worked out and that d.n.a. storms the genetic information it's

a blueprint if you like of what makes you you meet me and that information has to the store process then right down to manage them manipulate it and so we will reckon hons out of what makes living systems so important this i think us all more express the nation one generation next while they express it in the making proteins or carry hence a puncture so that's the basic idea about how warm i came to exist still a very big it's own way trading information as if it. no matter was the stuff out of which the world is builds is one of the avenues in south that you're pursuing great so what do you get as a scientist when you trade information this way what kind of new understanding about the universe can you find if you accept hypothetically that information is

the primal building block of our world. and you've raised a very interesting issue weight understand but as a practical matter information is critical to the operation of biological systems. there's a whole show go by air into magic so now known her about gene entity we can treat the d.n.a. as like a book of life and you can get in there and come edit it and change some of the letters some of the meaning you can create your own platform so this is current technology so we all understand that but you asked a deeper question about whether somehow information is the primary stuff of which the universe is built and the american chooses use john really heat it was coined the term black hole he was a great advocate of this idea that the bottom what we might call the great chain of being is information matter we think about atoms or electrons or something we

normally think they are the primary stuff but he said no no information is the primary stuff matter is simply a manifestation of various states of information and so yeah wonderful to have it beach it's about the battle of the bits is the bit of information he felt information is a primary source now that's still a minority view. a number of my colleagues feel with us that the universe is really a vast information processing of of that is the ultimate reality of the this thing we call matter you can you can you can take it you can touch it it shapes all it. it down it's all about information so regarding that question of matter there's an equation of yours that i came across life because matter class information so that

means that means information equals life minus matter right can i. get information b. interpret it as so all of this include equation. a saudi has one child is a lady of course when it comes from a religious you. most scientists talk about some as a separate thing and some you think the plates around alongside mine but then find out by the word so i've brought is say the mind rethink how does the brain work out of it have consciousness so we've got this sort of rather abstract chain quba mind we have. consciousness and. we don't think of it as a substance of his i don't but somehow there's a matter of story to tell me of the brain rev sense it's in the frame of electrons signals got rid of the brain and then we've got this extraordinary from of

a cold consciousness of material them have to be fitted together now i don't think we've done that yet but. i suppose your question is leading me in that direction to say well if you can from a ship is prime or if. maybe we should think of mind as being primary matter as being 2nd rate i'm counting this a little bit but that idea carries banking drenched history it's good idea elizabeth goes back to ancient greek philosophy of the ultimately well it is you know towns are sort of as it were a modern stuff of a mass of stuff but sometimes a big stretch for of all businesses. but unlike many things i mentioned the idea is often a grain of truth and it. can back some of that engine thinking but yeah but i still want to lay ponder on that a lot of the because when you talk it works in your 'd recent book in cells in atoms how can information be on

a same level as matter i mean doesn't informationally exist when there is something or someone to read it is an information basically confined to the eye of the beholder. yes so you're absolutely right it's a lot of trouble so this whole fascinating air of information theory 'd 'd in just 6 rounds land. he famously said information is just what he meant by that is he in 2000 solar flare creating it in the each of it's always tied to math so for example i mentioned d.n.a. a position of new kids hides d.n.a. introduced the information in about a logical organism in a computer it will be your no one's and zero's stored in. the hard drive or something like that it's always a physical media. the same is true of energy we talk about energy in an abstract sense as more it

a mass of energy can be competitive problem forms with. the 3 different systems of the energy itself doesn't go away make it spread out a bit but it's always somewhere in a physical system but in a sense it has a life of its own informations a bit like that we can talk about it as if it hasn't and that exists somewhere do all the time. we. after all the silly and the united states banks billions of billions of dollars by. selling a manipulated information of insider you know it must have in some sense be real but it's always going to be instantiated in matzoh somehow somewhere but that doesn't mean that it can still be a crime rate comes. some information a matter go hand in hand there's no doubt about it where assuming that information is the primal thing right or at least as primal as the matter assuming that information is the foundation of the universe is kind of like saying that nap of

a town is the town. yes friend as they map the jumbo territory. if it's a one time on math mathematicians will tell you then then the math is the territory . i think once what we're discussing here a maybe we're hung up on this this point. insulin to hike would be a dichotomy a train hardware and software in computing. we will understand the computer well anyway. it's loaded with the appropriate software and i don't draw the analogy here with lush life seems to me like magic but so does this computer i'm talking to you on this computer i think looks like it's much account as. well as your mentor computer science department and. new mindset went in and they pulled it back often

they said well if you know it can get silicone here and as it's called. some other and some plastic it will complain to show how how it all goes together but we're beginning to understand when you know that that was wrong that you have to go to a contingent of problems and they'll tell you all about the software and about the that's been written into the machine it's all you need them to some for account rounded. up and a computer is smaller than the house. and same document does the software have independent existence well sean in a sense that's because i can pump it i can put it on a memory stick i can send it out of optical fiber it's still have it's. so like in a patents exist in nature but they were his exists in something there instantiate it in something. and so i think that's really what we did with him when he comes

from biology we have to go beyond just saying well there's a past because we know how that information has a more active all supervisory role in the big. just think development of the embryo it's not just a matter of all information being read out everything has to be. a korean grocery has to be great so gauger let's talk about. other developments of the embryo so this monster is just counting bits and i don't think we understand more 'd. roles that operate in giving rats. involving impression that we only. have a computer we're about as new physics moving back i believe. so did average vertigo who started thinking about this in the if you told us paul then take a sharp break right now when we're back we'll continue talking to professor paul

davis physicist astrobiologist cosmologist and bestselling author talking about is life made out of information stay with us. long one on the show seemed wrong wrong wrong just don't all. let me. get to shape out of this thing become educated and gain treatment equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart when she's to look for common ground.

join me every thursday on the alex. and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics. i'm show business i'll see you then. and we're back with professor paul davis physicist astrobiologist and bestselling author paul how is information connected to light in your eyes i mean i heard you say that living beings are information processing systems this could sound simple but if we can for a moment accept that is this what we're for to process information come to like what we make computers for. some cynics will say.

yes. the your body is just a vehicle of mapping we want a lot of information and we're not a lot of the nation. that it's one of my reading at it. stop from having to think about the nature of information in biology say we've discussed already in the example everybody knows which is the information in d.n.a. which is copied. to the next generation it's expressed in the development of the embryo in a very complicated brain but it doesn't stop there because in a cell. we all know we have genes of these genes can be switched on or off but they don't act in isolation they form complex. information swellings around these their combated people do. biologists figure out more genes for each other's allman they

draw on these network diagrams wiring diagrams it can computation and so there's a lot of information presence in in those now and then cell signal. molecules. same information combines the other as this great information processing system out here between areas. everybody knows about that and it doesn't stop in towns like i'm not through each house systems right up to a palm tree scale. and i think we're all these days obsessed by power since in the case of hunting. the chain i embarrass is a central part of the planetary system the planter trico system they viruses get everywhere out there like my body can enter government's own little bits of information that a pasta around and are essential for the health of the planet. i'm going

to say. a rat's. time entry ecosystem of life is the original wildlife web it's a wave of information. extents of planetary scale so it's every parent's life but we understand only the bottom level of this nation i'm sure there are no i don't think these are miracles and believe in anything like that but i think we don't yet pretty have the intrinsics worked out of that's the next great friends if you have any young people i hope we do. watching us and i noticed into this conversation that i would say i was going to make a career in science again be at that intersection of physics and chemistry and information theory and biology and computing that's where the big discoveries will be made in the coming decades. so in one interview you described life as a complexity that cannot be achieved through fixed rules and there's

a famous quote by and saying god doesn't play dice meaning that there's got to be underlying laws for what seems random at the moment are you actually saying that god indeed plays out as if the rules of nature are not fixed but flexible. or using instant language i am in the same gold dust played i say he was very much of a minority at the time and experiments in foundations of quantum mechanics of the last few decades are pretty last night down that nature is intrinsically unsound or in deterministic so what einstein meant by god does not play dies his he recognized it's common to have all things were sort of pretty random chancy but he told the beneath that was a hit of deterministic order where everything that happened happened for a very particular reason but in principle you could predict exactly 'd what amounts would do if you had that level of detail which we now know that that is not correct

experiments of refuting that so there is something intrinsically. deterministic or chancy or open if you like and have used up out systems of it's all become like you level of quantum physics introduces absolutely have quantum physics is essential to understanding. but how these things fit together how the. quantum mechanics might ship together with 'd the information processing but libby who has a skin care of someone high a level we don't doubt but this is an area. of the month. and so somewhere in that mix is the secret of mine but i come back to empty trying to found lots of quantum mechanics. who in 140 s. reagan. gave his friends lectures the time to watch his life for the wrote a book about how bad he recognized the cause may have exposed the central from the

standing the stability of the information content of cells but he will say less they have the idea but there may be a new kind of physical mo operating in living matter he didn't say watson who was definite about it but he was for that idea i think it was right that if you send you the physical law 'd operates and you live in mass it doesn't contradict the underlying rules that's for sure. transcendence. in addition to the conceiving systems just as you heard but what are your biggest inventions as far as i understand is to find x. or trace your life and you say one of the reasons why we still haven't found it is because we don't really know how life on earth 1st started how does knowing how life when are started going to affect our research on alien life. well but i'm so serious that was a long time ago a lot of. i was

a passionate belief in life and death and everybody told i was crazy looking crazy hands people setting might as well look for sharon's it's obvious that life is some complex now that we can surely have half a dozen buns the idea being that there was some sort of amazing chain of chemical reactions leading to this very extraordinary improbable thing we call life on have a journey manchuria the pendulum has swung the other way and now many many scientists say. you know this is teeming with life where if you have asked like planets as you can chance life whatever well the truth is we absolutely don't know because the big step is how do you go from non-life to life isn't something that is going to happen. easily in advance of me a few minutes how come or is it the case that it's like a freak. sequence of chemical reactions which prints again are extremely

improbable a manhattanite he wants in the universe and we don't know how to answer that because nobody has made life. a long way from understanding how a chemistry tense to life how did molecules organize cells into something even a primitive in the gulf is huge. mishmash of chemicals and even the simplest of ripping i mean i know we don't know what numbers are pretty and simply don't know that number we can't estimate how many it happens you can it's we know that in the milky way galaxy there are. billions probably of s. like planets on which life as we know it could be met at least if we took it there you could survive say we know there are plenty of candidates. that the chances that . on those planets chemical reactions were 10 to life it could be that such

probable friends such a basic. unlikely step that a branch of happened anywhere else in the galaxy or company that if i'm right about these gene principles. praising and living matter there alone. in your brain matzoh but if we knew their souls above revolve emphasize oh yes. the time chemistry and a life with. probability. then we could put a number to it and the mom we don't have those roles and we have americans for the number who live there so this is complete speculation your beliefs my belief. so if we connect life to information in a meaningful way does that mean that allien life could just be some form of information that is not related to having cells or certain chemical adamant like it could be as douglas adams suggested a particular shade of blue for instance. gerri. that's

a very very good question that it goes to the house what we're trying to achieve in our research. university because. everybody knows this is fear of astrobiology it means you know going to look for lashed the on death but of course you have to the what to look for. and we know. what terrestrial life is like but what we were not ready is to have some sort of more general definition of what is life and that definition in my view is based on software and hardware. which a living soul has and is made into some way that it information has organized and presents so if it's the case of bad luck if we can to try my life as a particular type of informational organization it's organized information not as any oh busy it's not very specific definition as eyes of his life than.

my money we look for all night informational software signature issue i can stay out of the house quizzical johnson sort of concentrate on those they sold out i don't have the right sort of molecules we were people all thinking about does it have the right conditions so that information processing to take place in in the manner other than represents life this is all wishful thinking at the moment we don't have a fully worked out there is an issue of life which is independent of the stuff of which is made. at the end of the day don't that's what it will be about life beyond earth or the existing. replica of our life. but there were some common principles of those principles i think. software runs over the hump just by now you have different makes of computers and their own. well you know i read some

of your champs old you might have also like plastic you. are all made of stuff but won't give individual computers a stinky breath is the software. just like the hardware has didn't principle. so basic ideas of coding circles the same mr a book. paul paul it was such a pleasure talking to you as a true delight and i hope we get to do this again because the subject is and less and there are so many unanswered questions still thanks a lot for this chat and good luck with everything stay safe thank you don't really enjoy talking here are we counsel thank you absolutely.

on the. rare it was a different teddy bear there's got another mr trichet. the draft. is weapon of mass communication is spreading in developing n.f.l. and in that way to marinate agenda of the gender of m.t.v. is if it is an immobile devices more than 12000000000 contaminated country and if you lose money which is about that to your mother your friends all react against alternative vision. if you start to question yourself about your way to expel the air tight units that can happen to their aircraft or data in a period or maybe

a narrow stay under cover of the united states outside the net if you will get exposed to a particular conflates get contaminated by l.q. i'll use it as break everything to. track down where mary was you can defend yourself i enjoyed everyone from the weapons of mass communications. that said from the teeth earth to the enemy of the interview earlier. it's really. the wrong. wrong. i.

i. it. take folks next up one dennis miller plus one we're going to talk to flee the bassist for the chili peppers but he syria the memoir and a turbulent units like a lot of these people who come on and you find a great talents often coming from that white water charm manikin gets tricky in your youth but are usually open some sort of stargate into some sort of artistic or and off time saves them seems like fleas story but he'll tell us in person right.