Stuart Kauffman - Why Open-Ended Evolution Has Never Happened in a Machine (Stewarding the Flame, Episode 5)

This is Daniel Fagelli. You're tuned into The Trajectory, and this is episode five of our Stewarding the Flame series, when we ask, what is the living process that builds more complex things and unfolds possibility into the world, and how can we steward it forward to greater degrees of thrival and expanded robustness, even beyond the present human form or human civilization? it would be impossible to talk about this unfurling, unprestatable, emergent possibility of the living process without referencing the ideas of Stuart Kaufman. And in fact, his ideas have come up on many occasions already in this series, and they will come up on many more future occasions here on Stewarding the Flame. Stu Kaufman is a MacArthur Fellow. He's one of the world's foremost theoretical biologists. He's absolutely pivotal figure in the study of complexity, particularly in living systems. Maybe in terms of living thinkers, there would be no more central figure than he. As far as I understand, sort of the Santa Fe Institute would not have the same robust focus on complexity in living systems if it weren't for Stu's early efforts and some of the smartest and most you know uh advanced thinkers in that domain including blaza gary yarkas who's been with us here on our worthy successor series um have had association with the santa fe institute we'll have many more of their people on the show in the coming year uh stew's a giant and it is wonderful to have him unpack his ideas about the nature of the living process and maybe what we can do to help it move forward. There's many distinctions that come forth in this episode. I think there's a lot more detail about how life emerges and sort of what defines sort of the bounds and tensions that keep it at that edge of chaos and growing. Stuart puts a finger on that, including some of his very latest thoughts that are sort of synthesis of many, many ideas in the last handful of years for him that he lays on a platter for us that I think are useful for our project. So I'll save my thoughts for the end of the episode as usual, but there's a lot to dig into. So let's fly in. This is Stuart Kaufman here in The Trajectory. So, Stuart, welcome to the show. Thank you. There's a lot for us to unpack about sort of where intelligence is headed and sort of the greater process of life, but in terms of defining what life is and does and makes it distinct, I mentioned to you beforehand a big premise of the show here is that what we're building in terms of general intelligence. Some people presume we'll be alive in all the same sense as biology is, but there's some distinctions about what makes life life. When you're speaking to people that might not have a biology or complexity background like yourself, where do you like to start? Paint us the picture of your latest conception of the living process.

Well, Daniel, I'm deeply glad to have this opportunity with you. I stumbled forward and I think made some progress, and I think I will get to it. It takes some time to explain it.

Yeah, yeah.

Living systems literally... construct themselves. Cells do thermodynamic work to construct themselves, and this is fundamentally different than a computation