Alyssa Adams (UW-Madison): Using math to understand and define life

In this Share Your Research video, Dr. Alyssa Adams shares their work to develop a mathematical understanding of open-ended evolution.

Is it possible to define life using math? Dr. Alyssa Adams’s research seeks to answer precisely this question. In their Share Your Research talk, Dr. Adams introduces the concept of open-ended evolution, and describes how they have developed mathematical models to help us understand how biological systems can innovate within a changing environment. These studies could help us to identify living systems beyond our planet that may be vastly different from those we recognize on Earth!

0:00-4:10 How do we define life?
4:10-7:59 Mathematical definitions of evolution
8:00-16:51 Challenges to modeling biological evolution
16:52-19:55 A new approach to modeling evolution
19:56-23:07 Conclusion and next steps

Speaker Biography:
Alyssa Adams got their PhD in Physics at Arizona State University, where they studied the difference between living systems and non-living ones. Alyssa is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Morgridge Institute and the University of Wisconsin-Madison where they study interactions between viruses and hosts they infect. These interactions might help us understand how biological entities co-evolve and together drive new innovative processes.

Credits:
Brittany Anderton (iBiology): Producer
Eric Kornblum (iBiology): Videographer and Editor
Chris George (iBiology): Graphics
Maggie Hubbard (iBiology): Graphics

[rogerparker]

An excellent presentation! Thanks, Alyssa

[firSound]

Yes! Finally, something quite original with cellular automata for the first time in a while. Great presentation! Awesome, you worked with Hector Zenil!
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it was intentional on your end, but I do think you should have mentioned Wolfram's name at least once in this talk.
After all, rule 30 is his favorite :) And he's the original compiler of the 256 elementary CA. I'd imagine most of this audience to be familiar with his work anyway.

Truly awesome work though. Simple, yet beautifully creative, yielding novel results. Elegant.

Have you followed any of the "Wolfram Physics Project"?
There are many new functions that have been added to the wolfram language/mathematica since Wolfram's launch of the Physics Project.
Personally, regardless of whether Wolfram's physical theories are correct or not, I think he's created the best tools for cognitive abstraction and visualization.

Regarding the Mars rock that looks like an iguana, "Just a boring geological process", better hope no geologists watch this. XD

[andreahutchinson]

Excellent work and talk. I am just a lay person lurking on this channel. Really appreciate that you focused in on the simplest system capable of meeting this definition of life, which also seems right.

Are you familiar with Bert Chan and Lenia? I wonder if there is some way to incorporate this method of open ended evolution with Lenia’s framework for searching and documenting rule spaces and initial conditions for life-like emergent behavior.

Wish I knew more about what the broader field looks like in the future, the approaches everyone is taking, and how this work fits in.

[gonzalofdc]

It reminds me a lot to the Ken Binmore's finite automata that we used to study in evolutionary game theory. At the time we were looking to stable distributions I think because economists are somehow disgusted by the caos that emerges from the open ended world and we tend to preffer the boring one. But in principle one could apply the same rules you are applying to move from one world to the other. It is a great talk and fun presentation.

[georgehan]

Excellent presentation! Good job Alyssa!

[StaringCompetition]

As someone who knows next to nothing about the topic, nevertheless I appreciate the presentation especially editing.

[stevenbrown]

Excellent presentation. Thank you for posting.

[alvaromartin]

Wow! Such a great talk about evolution and how to implement some maths and computing into it. I've always wondered how this would work and how it would be done, you just cleared all my doubts perfectly!
Thanks for interesting me in this field, I'll have to start reading some more on it, any recommendations on where to start?

[Valdagast]

Very interesting. I suppose that as your tools get better you'll also study systems that co-evolve, like symbiosis or arms races?

[SanalMG]

Maths is brevity...science is brevity...brevity is beauty! What's novel? Tell what you want in fewest possible words! A bit of verbal diarrhea!😭🤧🤕 ...but I do appreciate the thought and an element of novelty... (although I have come across similar lines of thoughts before),

[denisd]

Tako ti je kad se drugi igraju sa ljudskim životom kao da je njihov u pitanju

[justdev]

Who wakes up in the morning and thinks "I want to define life". Kind of disturbing to be honest.