CfA: "Life As It Could Be: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Artificial Life"
Date/Time
10/1/2026 - 10/23/2026
9:00 AM - 7:00 PM MEA
9:00 AM - 7:00 PM MEA
Event Type(s)
Call for Papers (Enter the SUBMISSION DEADLINE as the date above. Submit EVENT separately.)
Event Description
This mini-symposium will provide a forum for discussion of A-Life’s objectives, overarching theoretical frameworks, main achievements and shortcomings, and prospects for the coming decades of scientific inquiry into what life is and could be. We welcome contributions from theoretical and empirical researchers—philosophers and scientists alike—interested in fostering interdisciplinary dialogues on the past, present and future of A-Life as a scientific field.
Location
Aula Symbiosis, Bioscience Center, KU Leuven
Celestijnenlaan 200R
Leuven, 3001
Click here for Google Maps
Celestijnenlaan 200R
Leuven, 3001
Click here for Google Maps
Details
“Life As It Could Be: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Artificial Life”
7–8 December 2026
Mini-Symposium
Aula Symbiosis, Bioscience Center, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200R, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
https://hiw.kuleuven.be/clps/events/symposium-lifeasitcouldbe/home
Organizers: Lendert Gelens (Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine), Bart Smeets (Department of Biosystems), Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda (Institute of Philosophy), Grant Ramsey (Institute of Philosophy), and Sylvia Wenmackers (Institute of Philosophy)
Deadline: October 23rd 2026
Notification: October 30th 2026
Invited Speakers
Mark Bedau (Reed College)
Liedewij Laan (TU Delft)
Andrea Loettgers (University of Vienna)
Gry Oftedal (University of Oslo)
Juli Peretó (University of Valencia)
Ricard Solé (Pompeu Fabra University)
Theme
The interdisciplinary field of Artificial Life (A-Life) is widely considered to have gained visibility with a September 1987 workshop organized by Christopher Langton at Los Alamos National Laboratory, followed by a landmark edited volume two years later. Emphasizing the investigation of “life as it could be” with self-organization as a conceptual cornerstone, A-Life research united computational, experimental, and theoretical approaches. In subsequent decades, A-Life attracted philosophical attention—with the landmark volume The Philosophy of Artificial Life edited by Margaret Boden in 1996—and diversified across computational analysis, laboratory-based experimentation, and bio-inspired robotics. Today, A-Life functions as a thriving trading zone where diverse disciplinary perspectives—biology, cognitive science, physics, computer science, chemistry, mathematics, philosophy, art, and engineering, among others—converge. As the 40th anniversary of Langton’s volume and the 30th anniversary of Boden’s volume approach, the time is ripe to reevaluate the past, present, and future of A-Life research, bringing together scientists and philosophers from varied backgrounds.
This mini-symposium will provide a forum for discussion of A-Life’s objectives, overarching theoretical frameworks, main achievements and shortcomings, and prospects for the coming decades of scientific inquiry into what life is and could be—in silicon, in laboratories, and perhaps beyond Earth.
Call for Abstracts
We welcome contributions from theoretical and empirical researchers—philosophers and scientists alike—interested in fostering interdisciplinary dialogues on the past, present and future of A-Life as a scientific field.
We invite submissions of abstracts (max. 500 words) for presentations. Abstracts must include affiliation and contact information. Please send the abstracts to Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda via email (alejandro.fabregastejeda@kuleuven.be). Deadline: October 23rd 2026. Notifications of acceptance: October 30th 2026.
Some of the themes and topics that we will cover include (but are not restricted to):
7–8 December 2026
Mini-Symposium
Aula Symbiosis, Bioscience Center, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200R, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
https://hiw.kuleuven.be/clps/events/symposium-lifeasitcouldbe/home
Organizers: Lendert Gelens (Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine), Bart Smeets (Department of Biosystems), Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda (Institute of Philosophy), Grant Ramsey (Institute of Philosophy), and Sylvia Wenmackers (Institute of Philosophy)
Deadline: October 23rd 2026
Notification: October 30th 2026
Invited Speakers
Mark Bedau (Reed College)
Liedewij Laan (TU Delft)
Andrea Loettgers (University of Vienna)
Gry Oftedal (University of Oslo)
Juli Peretó (University of Valencia)
Ricard Solé (Pompeu Fabra University)
Theme
The interdisciplinary field of Artificial Life (A-Life) is widely considered to have gained visibility with a September 1987 workshop organized by Christopher Langton at Los Alamos National Laboratory, followed by a landmark edited volume two years later. Emphasizing the investigation of “life as it could be” with self-organization as a conceptual cornerstone, A-Life research united computational, experimental, and theoretical approaches. In subsequent decades, A-Life attracted philosophical attention—with the landmark volume The Philosophy of Artificial Life edited by Margaret Boden in 1996—and diversified across computational analysis, laboratory-based experimentation, and bio-inspired robotics. Today, A-Life functions as a thriving trading zone where diverse disciplinary perspectives—biology, cognitive science, physics, computer science, chemistry, mathematics, philosophy, art, and engineering, among others—converge. As the 40th anniversary of Langton’s volume and the 30th anniversary of Boden’s volume approach, the time is ripe to reevaluate the past, present, and future of A-Life research, bringing together scientists and philosophers from varied backgrounds.
This mini-symposium will provide a forum for discussion of A-Life’s objectives, overarching theoretical frameworks, main achievements and shortcomings, and prospects for the coming decades of scientific inquiry into what life is and could be—in silicon, in laboratories, and perhaps beyond Earth.
Call for Abstracts
We welcome contributions from theoretical and empirical researchers—philosophers and scientists alike—interested in fostering interdisciplinary dialogues on the past, present and future of A-Life as a scientific field.
We invite submissions of abstracts (max. 500 words) for presentations. Abstracts must include affiliation and contact information. Please send the abstracts to Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda via email (alejandro.fabregastejeda@kuleuven.be). Deadline: October 23rd 2026. Notifications of acceptance: October 30th 2026.
Some of the themes and topics that we will cover include (but are not restricted to):
- What are the objectives of A-Life as an interdisciplinary field? What can the history of A-Life teach us about which questions to carry forward and which to retire?
- What does the field of A-Life offer that is unique or of value to the philosophy of science?
- What role does the study of self-organization play in research into artificial life?
- What distinguishes strong A-Life (genuine instantiation of life) from weak A-Life (simulation and modeling)? How to determine the threshold between them?
- When does a simulation or synthetic system constitute evidence of the general properties of life-as-it-could-be?
- Which overarching conceptual/theoretical frameworks have proven most fruitful in A-Life investigations, and why?
- What are A-Life’s genuine successes, and by what criteria should they be judged?
- What has A-Life contributed to adjacent disciplines (e.g., cell and developmental biology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, origins-of-life research, astrobiology, and artificial intelligence) that those fields could not have produced on their own?
- Which empirical findings in A-Life defy the soundness of our extant theoretical frameworks, and how can our theoretical frameworks be better tested experimentally?
- What are the main empirical challenges currently facing the field of A-Life?
- Whither A-Life research? What trajectories are in store for the field?
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