Artificial life is a research field devoted to the theoretical study of features of living systems, such as evolution and the brain. The field has developed philosophical concepts such as autopoiesis and emergence, alongside a large range of computational and experimental setups, from evolutionary simulations to robotics and chemical experiments.
The complexity and diversity of the artificial life field is crucial to its community. Many researchers consider the community a real source of creativity and free-minded exchange of ideas on important questions. For ideas that don't fit neatly into a single “mainstream” field of science, there is value in examining and discussing them in a context free from departmental or disciplinary constraints, with the purpose of reaching a better knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms that govern living systems.
Workers in the field of artificial life convene yearly at a conference, which most recently took place in 2018 in Tokyo. The...