<p>&quot;What is life?&quot; - asks Chris Kempes, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute.</p><p><br></p><p>Chris explains that scientists are moving beyond a purely Earth-based, biological view and are searching for a universal theory of life that could apply to anything, anywhere in the universe. He proposes that things we don&#39;t normally consider &quot;alive&quot;—like human culture, language, or even artificial intelligence; could be seen as life forms existing on different &quot;substrates&quot;.</p><p><br></p><p>To understand this, Chris presents a fascinating three-level framework:</p><p><br></p><p>- Materials: The physical stuff life is made of. He argues this could be incredibly diverse across the universe, and we shouldn&#39;t expect alien life to share our biochemistry.</p><p><br></p><p>- Constraints: The universal laws of physics (like gravity or diffusion) that all life must obey, regardless of what it&#39;s made of. This is where different life forms start to look more similar.</p><p><br></p><p>- Principles: At the highest level are abstract principles like evolution and learning. Chris suggests these computational or &quot;optimization&quot; rules are what truly define a living system.</p><p><br></p><p>A key idea is &quot;convergence&quot; – using the example of the eye. It&#39;s such a complex organ that you&#39;d think it evolved only once. However, eyes evolved many separate times across different species. This is because the physics of light provides a clear &quot;target&quot;, and evolution found similar solutions to the problem of seeing, even with different starting materials.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>**SPONSOR MESSAGES**</p><p>—</p><p>Prolific - Quality data. From real people. For faster breakthroughs.</p><p>https://www.prolific.com/?utm_source=mlst</p><p>—</p><p>Check out NotebookLM from Google here - https://notebooklm.google.com/ - it’s really good for doing research directly from authoritative source material, minimising hallucinations. </p><p>—</p><p>cyber•Fund https://cyber.fund/?utm_source=mlst is a founder-led investment firm accelerating the cybernetic economy</p><p>Hiring a SF VC Principal: https://talent.cyber.fund/companies/cyber-fund-2/jobs/57674170-ai-investment-principal#content?utm_source=mlst</p><p>Submit investment deck: https://cyber.fund/contact?utm_source=mlst</p><p>— </p><p><br></p><p>Prof. Chris Kempes:</p><p>https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/chris-kempes</p><p><br></p><p>TRANSCRIPT:</p><p>https://app.rescript.info/public/share/Y2cI1i0nX_-iuZitvlguHvaVLQTwPX1Y_E1EHxV0i9I</p><p><br></p><p>TOC:</p><p>00:00:00 - Introduction to Chris Kempes and the Santa Fe Institute</p><p>00:02:28 - The Three Cultures of Science</p><p>00:05:08 - What Makes a Good Scientific Theory?</p><p>00:06:50 - The Universal Theory of Life</p><p>00:09:40 - The Role of Material in Life</p><p>00:12:50 - A Hierarchy for Understanding Life</p><p>00:13:55 - How Life Diversifies and Converges</p><p>00:17:53 - Adaptive Processes and Defining Life</p><p>00:19:28 - Functionalism, Memes, and Phylogenies</p><p>00:22:58 - Convergence at Multiple Levels</p><p>00:25:45 - The Possibility of Simulating Life</p><p>00:28:16 - Intelligence, Parasitism, and Spectrums of Life</p><p>00:32:39 - Phase Changes in Evolution</p><p>00:36:16 - The Separation of Matter and Logic</p><p>00:37:21 - Assembly Theory and Quantifying Complexity</p><p><br></p><p>REFS:</p><p>Developing a predictive science of the biosphere requires the integration of scientific cultures [Kempes et al]</p><p>https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2209196121</p><p><br></p><p>Seeing with an extra sense (“Dangerous prediction”) [Rob Phillips]</p><p>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224009035 </p><p><br></p><p>The Multiple Paths to Multiple Life [Christopher P. Kempes &amp; David C. Krakauer]</p><p>https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-021-10016-2 </p><p><br></p><p>The Information Theory of Individuality [David Krakauer et al]</p><p>https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.2447</p><p><br></p><p>Minds, Brains and Programs [Searle]</p><p>https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/searle.minds.brains.programs.bbs.1980.pdf </p><p><br></p><p>The error threshold</p><p>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168170204003843</p><p><br></p><p>Assembly theory and its relationship with computational complexity [Kempes et al]</p><p>https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12176</p>