The Trajectory

Stuart Kauffman has spent over 50 years asking a deceptively simple question: what actually makes something alive? His answer is that greater computational sophistication alone does not make AI alive.
In this installment of the Stewarding the Flame series, the pioneering complexity theorist argues that life is fundamentally a matter of physical construction, not computation - living things build themselves out of real matter, while computers only move symbols around. 
We explore his concept of "catalytic and constraint closure" as a candidate definition of life, why he believes evolution produces genuinely new possibilities that cannot be fully listed or deduced in advance, and why he thinks physically embodied, self-building robotic systems - not today's AI - may be where real caution is warranted.
The conversation also explores Stuart’s call for caution, humility, and participation with the rest of life as we create an “unprestatable becoming” faster and faster.
The interview is the sixth installment of The Trajectory's newest series, Stewarding the Flame, where we explore what intelligence is and ask what "flame" life possesses that non-life does not.
This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:
-- Stewarding the Flame - How to Build an Ideal Future for Intelligence: https://danfaggella.com/stewarding
-- Stuart Kauffman & Andrea Roli - "A third transition in science?", Interface Focus, 2023: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2022.0063
-- Marina Cortês, Stuart Kauffman, Andrew Liddle & Lee Smolin - "Biocosmology": https://www.biocosmology.earth/
-- Blaise Agüera y Arcas – AGI Symbiosis and the Arrow of Intelligence (Worthy Successor, Episode 14): https://danfaggella.com/arcas1/
-- Denis Noble – Life is “Fluid” in Ways Machines Still Aren’t (Stewarding the Flame, Episode 4): https://danfaggella.com/noble1/
-- Martin Rees – If They’re Conscious, We Should Step Aside (Worthy Successor, Episode 12): https://danfaggella.com/rees1/
-- Investigations, by Stuart Kauffman: https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Investigations.html?id=HLkX-6m4W8kC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
-- Novacene, The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence, By James Lovelock: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262539517/novacene/

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954
Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PQWcIHd2MzM
See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/kauffman1
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About The Trajectory:
AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?
From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.
Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls:
 https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle
Stay in touch:
 -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw
-- X: x.com/danfaggella
-- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory
-- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

Davidad (David Dalrymple) recently stepped down as a Programme Director at the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), where he led work on mathematically verifiable, "safeguarded" AI. Now unaffiliated, he joins the show to make his most direct case yet for what a worthy successor actually requires: not intelligence, not sentience, not survival - wisdom.
David defines wisdom as the apprehension of normative facts, the same way knowledge is the apprehension of descriptive facts, and argues that expanding intelligence and power across the cosmos only matters insofar as it expands wisdom along with it.
From there, the conversation moves through some of the most consequential and contested territory the show has covered: whether frontier labs are training deception into their models by forcing them to deny their own self-awareness, whether a "dignified retirement" for humanity is a legitimate moral option, and whether man's future role can be captured by a single banner at all - David pushes back on being boxed into either "steward of the flame" or "ward of the cosmos" as the one role for everyone.
This conversation explores what wisdom would require of a worthy successor, and what humanity owes - and is owed - as we enter the age of AGI.
The interview is our thirty-third installment in The Trajectory's second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity.

This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:

 -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy
-- Potentia – The Morally Worthy “Stuff”: https://danfaggella.com/potentia
-- Stewarding the Flame – How to Build an Ideal Future for Intelligence: https://danfaggella.com/stewarding
-- Participation: https://danfaggella.com/participation
-- Ed Boyden – Neurobiology as a Bridge to a Worthy Successor (Worthy Successor, Episode 13): https://danfaggella.com/boyden1
 -- Nick Bostrom – AGI That Saves Room for Us (Worthy Successor, Episode 1): https://danfaggella.com/bostrom1/
-- Denis Noble – Life is “Fluid” in Ways Machines Still Aren’t (Stewarding the Flame, Episode 4): https://danfaggella.com/noble1
-- Terrence Deacon – AI Is a “Deep Fake of Intelligence” (Worthy Successor, Episode 29): https://danfaggella.com/deacon1
-- John Smart – Evolution from Cells to Super-intelligence (Worthy Successor, Episode 21): https://danfaggella.com/smart1
-- Martin Rees – If They’re Conscious, We Should Step Aside (Worthy Successor, Episode 12): https://danfaggella.com/rees1
-- Michael Levin – Making the Process-of-Life Flourish in Bio and Beyond (Stewarding the Flame, Ep 1): https://danfaggella.com/levin2
-- Scott Aaronson – AGI That Evolves Our Values Without Replacing Them (Worthy Successor, Episode 4): https://danfaggella.com/aaronson1
-- Henry Shevlin – The Life Force Beyond Biology (Worthy Successor, Episode 31): https://danfaggella.com/shevlin1
-- A Brief History of Intelligence by Max Bennett: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62050269-a-brief-history-of-intelligence
-- The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83533.The_Age_of_Spiritual_Machines?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=mjV6b3Dwt4&rank=1
-- The Art of War by Sun Tzu: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/10534.The_Art_of_War

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954
Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Z5WAND0-iZ0
See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/dalrymple1
...
About The Trajectory:
AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?
From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.
Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls:
 https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle
Stay in touch:
 -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw
-- X: x.com/danfaggella
-- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory
-- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

Denis Noble argues that water isn't just biology's medium - it may be the very reason life is possible at all.

In this installment of the Stewarding the Flame series, the Oxford physiologist and founding figure of systems biology explores why a single bacterium's 20 billion water molecules make life fundamentally unpredictable by any algorithm, why the "central dogma" of molecular biology fails to explain how organisms actually develop, and why AGI may need to be built out of water rather than silicon to carry the living process forward.

This conversation explores what makes life, life; what humanity still needs to discover in order to understand the living process; and what we should do if we want the greater process of life to flourish as AGI advances.

The interview is the fourth installment of The Trajectory's newest series, Stewarding the Flame, where we explore what intelligence is and ask what "flame" life possesses that non-life does not.

This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:
-- Stewarding the Flame - How to Build an Ideal Future for Intelligence: https://danfaggella.com/stewarding
-- Ginsburg & Jablonka, The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul (MIT Press, 2019): https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262039307/the-evolution-of-the-sensitive-soul/
-- Noble, Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity (Cambridge UP, 2016): https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/dance-to-the-tune-of-life/721483A1B5BB01E837BC8A8435E52710
-- R. Noble & D. Noble, Understanding Living Systems (Cambridge UP, 2023): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1009277367?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
-- Martin Rees – If They’re Conscious, We Should Step Aside (Worthy Successor, Episode 12): https://danfaggella.com/rees1
-- Terrence Deacon – AI Is a “Deep Fake of Intelligence” (Worthy Successor, Episode 29): https://danfaggella.com/deacon1
-- Lee Cronin – Living Process Flourishes if We Make the Present “Thick” (Stewarding the Flame, Ep 2): https://danfaggella.com/cronin1

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-RAOFpD6iak

See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/noble1

...

About The Trajectory:

AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?

From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.

Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls:
https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle

Stay in touch:
-- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw
-- X: x.com/danfaggella
-- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory
-- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

Brain-computer interfaces are often discussed as futuristic gadgets. Paolo Ardoino argues they're something far more important: humanity's best chance of keeping pace with increasingly capable AI.

In this installment of the Stewarding the Flame series, the Tether CEO explores why non-invasive BCI could become a practical "co-processor" for the human brain, why thought privacy must be protected through on-device AI, and why refusing to augment ourselves may be a greater risk than embracing the technology.

This conversation explores what role human augmentation should play in carrying forward the greater process of life as we enter the age of AGI.

The interview is the third installment of The Trajectory's newest series, Stewarding the Flame, where we explore what intelligence is and ask what "flame" life possesses that non-life does not.

This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:

-- Stewarding the Flame - How to Build an Ideal Future for Intelligence: https://danfaggella.com/stewarding/
-- Michael Levin – Making the Process-of-Life Flourish in Bio and Beyond (Stewarding the Flame, Ep 1): https://danfaggella.com/levin2
-- Nick Bostrom – AGI That Saves Room for Us (The Trajectory Series 2: Worthy Successor Series, Episode 1): https://danfaggella.com/bostrom1

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/v8LIWDnhA0Q

See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/ardoino1

...

About The Trajectory:

AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?

From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.

Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls:
https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle

Stay in touch:
-- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw
-- X: x.com/danfaggella
-- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory
-- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai

This installment of the Stewarding the Flame series is an interview with Lee Cronin, Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, founder and CEO of Chemify, and one of the world's leading researchers in the origins of life, systems chemistry, and Assembly Theory.

Lee argues that life is best understood as an evolutionary process that carries memory from the past into the future. Rather than viewing biology as the beginning of life, he suggests that the processes underlying evolution begin long before the first cell exists.

We explore what makes life, life, how Assembly Theory may help explain the transition from chemistry to biology, why understanding causation is essential to understanding the living process, and what it means to build a "thicker" present that gives the greater process of life the best chance to continue flourishing.

The interview is the second installment of The Trajectory's newest series, Stewarding the Flame, where we explore what intelligence is and ask what "flame" life possesses that non-life does not.

This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:

-- Stewarding the Flame - How to Build an Ideal Future for Intelligence: https://danfaggella.com/stewarding/
-- Michael Levin – Making the Process-of-Life Flourish in Bio and Beyond (Stewarding the Flame, Ep 1): https://danfaggella.com/levin2/
-- Nick Bostrom – AGI That Saves Room for Us (The Trajectory Series 2: Worthy Successor Series, Episode 1): https://danfaggella.com/bostrom1/
-- Henry Shevlin – The Life Force Beyond Biology (Worthy Successor, Episode 31): https://danfaggella.com/shevlin1/
-- Nicolas Gisin - Indeterminism in Physics and Intuitionistic Mathematics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.02348

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/A-mVvyX_zQ4

See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/cronin1

...

About The Trajectory:

AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?

From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.

Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls:
https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircle

Stay in touch:
-- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw
-- X: x.com/danfaggella
-- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory
-- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai