The speaker hypothesizes that cities can be seen as a living being with memes or ideas as the essential organisms for life on earth. He argues that this perspective on cities is derived from the biological framework of thinking about what is considered as life in the history of science.
Exploring the fundamental way that a city can be viewed as a living being, the podcast highlights comparisons between the city and a cell's energy flow and material turnover. The history of science's biological framework provides an extensive examination and the limitations of complexity and evolvability are discussed.
The podcast discusses the human capability to endure physical suffering, but depression's capability to lead to a feeling of meaninglessness. It also explores the idea that cities can only exist as products and not replicators.
Consciousness may allow us to find some meaning in life, but with transient joy comes transient misery as well, and regulating the balance is an impossible task due to the intrinsic wiring of the brain.