---
title: "Life"
description: "Agüera y Arcas's definition in What Is Intelligence?: \"self-modifying computronium arising from selection for dynamic stability,\" evolving through the symbiotic composition of simpler dynamically stable entities."
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/life"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/life"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# Life

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/life), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

Agüera y Arcas's definition in What Is Intelligence?: "self-modifying computronium arising from selection for dynamic stability," evolving through the symbiotic composition of simpler dynamically stable entities. Each clause does work. Computronium, because self-construction from a program requires computation (von Neumann's universal constructor); Dynamic Stability, because whatever keeps copying itself outlasts any passive object; Symbiogenesis, because bff's replicators assemble from smaller pieces of code and the arrow of complexity depends on such merging. The definition stipulates no specific function or chemistry, so anything that can support computation qualifies, and it makes life and intelligence inseparable, since what persists is what predicts. It thereby treats AI as continuous with biology, which the Long L essay takes up when asking whether NASA's Darwinian definition can cover bff's programs. Tripaldi's Substrate Agency, in the Substrates program, rejects the resulting indifference to material as Technomorphism; Bratton's Research description adopts the informational account as a premise.

## Appears in

- [Planetary Sapience Symposium](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/planetarysapience) (2025-11-21)
- [Substrates Unbound](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/substrates) (2025-11-21)
- [The Long L](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/longl) (2025-11-21)
- [What Is Intelligence?](https://antikythera.wiki/work/book/what-is-intelligence) (2025-09-23)
- [What is Intelligence? (Lecture)](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/wii-film) (2025-05-10)
- [Antikythera](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/research) (2025-05-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._