Complexity Cat 🐱
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amahury.bsky.social
Complexity Cat 🐱
@amahury.bsky.social
Exciting stuff on complexity, theoretical biology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, neuroscience and their intersections.

#complexitycat

complexitycat.org
The latest #complexitycat essay is dedicated to review their approach, pointing out avenues for future refinement as well as potential connections with other approaches, such as the free energy principle. Read it now now and let me know what you think!/3

www.complexitycat.org/posts/semant...
November 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Wolpert and Kolchinsky have defined semantic information by framing an agent's ability to maintain itself (autonomous agency) as the ability to remain in a low-entropy state. In this way, having high semantic content is a necessary condition for any physical system to be alive./2
November 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Number of works focused on autopoiesis and (M, R)-systems. Counts are based on the Web of Science. It would be interesting to see if the trend has changed from 2013 to 2024...

Source: repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/...
November 6, 2025 at 7:08 PM
However, names like Pattee, Cariani, and Hofmeyr were left out of their scope despite their enormous contributions to the topic. As shown in my latest #complexitycat essay, the first in proposing time to resolve self-reference was Tomek Korbak, not them!/3
amahury.github.io/posts/time-a...
October 31, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Don't get me wrong, the authors did a great job of challenging conventional scientific assumptions and exploring alternative frameworks for understanding living systems, proposing a solution to the paradoxes of self-reference, and outlining new directions for artificial life./2
October 31, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Last week, #complexitycat brought you a short essay tracing the idea of life as a thermodynamic phenomenon out of equilibrium, discovering that Schrödinger failed to cite relevant contributions when writing his popular “What is Life?”.

Want to know more? Check it out below!🐈‍⬛✍️
October 24, 2025 at 1:20 PM
And this is how #ALIFE2025 ends! See you next year in Waterloo, Canada for #ALIFE2026!
October 10, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Our last keynote speaker at #ALIFE2025 is @annaciaunica.bsky.social, who discussed the importance of bodies when talking about intelligence and agency. Her integrative approach shows that we need to adapt and extend the notion embodiedment to reflect the co-autopoietic nature of life.
October 10, 2025 at 2:39 AM
How can the physics of the Game of Life be modified to create extended non-equilibrium conditions? What new structures could be created with these changes? Hank Rainwater addresses these questions, showing self-organization and phase transitions in driven CA.

#ALIFE2025
October 10, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Now Cédric Koller proposes a novel analytical method to count short trajectories to simple attractors. His method reveals a quantitative divide between Classes 1/2 and Classes 3/4 of Elementary Cellular Automata.

#ALIFE2025
October 10, 2025 at 12:34 AM
I start the last day of #ALIFE2025 at the cellular automata session, where Matias Barandiaran presented his work on physical reservoir computing. His approach allows us to explore new diverse structures in graph cellular automata.
October 10, 2025 at 12:14 AM
What new artificial life research is on the horizon? What are the biggest unsolved problems in the field? Dominique Chen, Emily Dolson, and Hiro Iizuka closed #ALIFE2025 's fourth day with a panel discussing the future of artificial life!
October 9, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Now Shin-ichiro Nomura studies the possibility of engineering molecular systems to develop artificial multicellular smart gels combining different droplets from heterogeneous chemical mixtures.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 6:22 AM
Fernando Rodríguez Vergara uses von Neumann's kinematic automaton as a motivation to distinguish life from computation, being the capacity of adaptation one of the main differences. Algorithms are fixed, substrate-dependent entities lacking organizational closure.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 6:07 AM
Now at the Synthetic Biology - Artificial Intelligence workshop, Antonio Fleres explains the concept of robosphere: a complex of self-organizing, multi-scale robotic ecosystems capable of autonomous adaptation and interaction with life from nano to macro.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 5:39 AM
Our keynote speaker today is Blaise Agüera y Arcas, who presented his results on in-silico abiogenesis using a primitive programming language, showing the emergence of self-replicator programs follow a well-defined phase transition.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Finishing the Agency and Meaning session, Stuart Bartlett introduces a generalization of the Wolpert-Kolchinsky measure of meaning, going beyond viability to include casual leverage density.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 1:27 AM
Now Denizhan Pak analyzes spatialized Brain-Body-Environment systems. His approach is based on dynamical systems theory, showing it's possible to characterize these type of systems using a few parameters.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Nathaniel Virgo gives us a nice overview on the work by Ashby, focusing on a generalization of the good regulator theorem claiming that every good regulator of a system must have a model of that system.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Kicking off the Agency and Meaning session, Connor McShaffrey explores how noise impacts the expected lifespan of genetically identical individuals, showing a state-dependent relationship between both.

#ALIFE2025
October 9, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Are there universal laws of life? Our keynote speaker today at #ALIFE2025 is Chris Kempes, who dedicated his talk to the question above. He mainly focused on the constraints that life needs to emerge, showing that there are general scaling laws between multiple biological traits.
October 8, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Jeongho Park finishes the Cognition session by showing us how to develop visual homing based on retinal flow vector using an insect (bio-)inspired approach.

#ALIFE2025
October 8, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Keep going with the Cognition session, Earnest Kota Carr presents his cyber-mimetic framework to model social dynamics, showing that cybernetic mimesis truly captures economic booms and busts.

#ALIFE2025
October 8, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Now @imytk.bsky.social introduces us to his computational framework of bio-inspired adaptive systems using social allostatic principles. He followed up his model showing empirical testing of it.

#ALIFE2025
October 8, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Starting the Cognition session, Fernando Rodríguez gives us an overview on how the conception of cognition as computation has evolved historically.

#ALIFE2025
October 8, 2025 at 12:13 AM