"What is life?" - asks Chris Kempes, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute.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 "alive"—like human culture, language, or even artificial intelligence; could be seen as life forms existing on different "substrates".To understand this, Chris presents a fascinating three-level framework:- 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.- 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.- Principles: At the highest level are abstract principles like evolution and learning. Chris suggests these computational or "optimization" rules are what truly define a living system.A key idea is "convergence" – 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 "target", and evolution found similar solutions to the problem of seeing, even with different starting materials.**SPONSOR MESSAGES**—Prolific - Quality data. From real people. For faster breakthroughs.https://www.prolific.com/?utm_source=mlst—Check out NotebookLM from Google here - https://notebooklm.google.com/ - it’s really good for doing research directly from authoritative source material, minimising hallucinations. —cyber•Fund https://cyber.fund/?utm_source=mlst is a founder-led investment firm accelerating the cybernetic economyHiring a SF VC Principal: https://talent.cyber.fund/companies/cyber-fund-2/jobs/57674170-ai-investment-principal#content?utm_source=mlstSubmit investment deck: https://cyber.fund/contact?utm_source=mlst— Prof. Chris Kempes:https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/chris-kempesTRANSCRIPT:https://app.rescript.info/public/share/Y2cI1i0nX_-iuZitvlguHvaVLQTwPX1Y_E1EHxV0i9ITOC:00:00:00 - Introduction to Chris Kempes and the Santa Fe Institute00:02:28 - The Three Cultures of Science00:05:08 - What Makes a Good Scientific Theory?00:06:50 - The Universal Theory of Life00:09:40 - The Role of Material in Life00:12:50 - A Hierarchy for Understanding Life00:13:55 - How Life Diversifies and Converges00:17:53 - Adaptive Processes and Defining Life00:19:28 - Functionalism, Memes, and Phylogenies00:22:58 - Convergence at Multiple Levels00:25:45 - The Possibility of Simulating Life00:28:16 - Intelligence, Parasitism, and Spectrums of Life00:32:39 - Phase Changes in Evolution00:36:16 - The Separation of Matter and Logic00:37:21 - Assembly Theory and Quantifying ComplexityREFS:Developing a predictive science of the biosphere requires the integration of scientific cultures [Kempes et al]https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2209196121Seeing with an extra sense (“Dangerous prediction”) [Rob Phillips]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224009035 The Multiple Paths to Multiple Life [Christopher P. Kempes & David C. Krakauer]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-021-10016-2 The Information Theory of Individuality [David Krakauer et al]https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.2447Minds, Brains and Programs [Searle]https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/482/searle.minds.brains.programs.bbs.1980.pdf The error thresholdhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168170204003843Assembly theory and its relationship with computational complexity [Kempes et al]https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12176

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