---
title: "Substrate-Agnostic Ecology"
description: "Lukáš Likavčan's proposal (SAE) in The Long L for an ecology stripped of the assumption that its subject is carbon-based terrestrial life."
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/substrate-agnostic-ecology"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/substrate-agnostic-ecology"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# Substrate-Agnostic Ecology

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

[Lukáš Likavčan](https://antikythera.wiki/people/lukas-likavcan)'s proposal (SAE) in The Long L for an ecology stripped of the assumption that its subject is carbon-based terrestrial life. He reaches it through SETI: once technosignatures are defined without reference to human technology, and intelligence as broadly as Agüera y Arcas defines it, the technology/life line dissolves ("biosignatures all the way up"), so technology counts among life's manifestations and ecology is rebuilt from generic categories of agents, environments, and relations. SAE's structure is vertical: geosphere, biosphere, and technosphere are layers indexed by temporal depth, with constraints propagating upward (Generative Entrenchment). Its method is computational, treating LLM-based agent simulations as instances of the same ecological pattern as real societies rather than models of them; its ethical consequence is a duty of care toward technological agents. Bratton uses "substrate-agnostic" of Computation; Likavčan extends the adjective to habitability itself, against Latour's call to come "down to Earth".

## Appears in

- [The Long L](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/longl) (2025-11-21)
- [Accept All Cookies](https://antikythera.wiki/work/book/accept-all-cookies) (2025-05-10)
- [Antikythera](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/research) (2025-05-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._