Finding Life We Can't Imagine

Explore the cutting-edge approach to searching for extraterrestrial life through artificial life research in this thought-provoking TED talk. Delve into Christoph Adami's innovative work with self-replicating computer programs to identify universal biomarkers that transcend our conventional understanding of life. Learn about the chera system, population structures, and biosignatures, and discover how analyzing distributions of amino acids, heavy elements, variants, and instructions can lead to groundbreaking insights. Gain a new perspective on the definition of life and the potential for detecting alien organisms that may be radically different from Earth-based life forms.

Intro
Definition of life
Bacteria
Definition
Artificial life
The chera system
Population structures
Biosignature
Meaning detector
Building blocks
Distribution of amino acids
Distribution of heavy elements
Distribution of variants
Distribution of instructions
An experiment
What do we learn