What Is Life? A Royal Institution Live Inquiry into Agency, Purpose and the Origin of Life

The Royal Institution hosts a dynamic live inquiry into the question of what it means to be alive. Science writers Nick Lane and Philip Ball are joined by a third speaker to trace the shifting definitions of life from Aristotle to contemporary molecular biology and to explore how embodied agency and metabolism shape our understanding of life and self. The conversation also considers lifelike chemistry and the ethical implications of artificial life and AI in society, highlighting why definitions of life matter today.

• Life as more than a brain based quest for meaning, emphasizing holistic, body centered agency
• Origin theories that stress metabolism and energy flow before genetic information
• Open information flow and context dependent gene expression challenge gene centric views
• Ethical questions arise as AI life like systems and organoid research advance

Introduction: Reframing Life

The session opens with a reflection on why life remains a gnarly definitional problem, despite advances in biology. The speakers argue for a view of life that foregrounds the organism as an embodied, purposive agent rather than a passive collection of genes. A key thought experiment modeled on Dawkins style demonstrations is used to show how our bodies coordinate perception and action without requiring a single brain based event. This sets the stage for a holistic approach to what it means to be alive, one that integrates metabolism, membranes, and cellular organization with the organism as a whole.

A History of Life Definitions

Across the ages, attempts to define life have swung between vitalist intuitions and mechanistic reduction. Aristotle framed life in terms of a psyche, an integrated capacity for action that could not be separated from the body. The mechanist shift of the 17th and 18th centuries, followed by chemistry based accounts in the 19th century, gradually pushed biology toward molecules and genetic programs. By the mid to late 20th century, the focus narrowed to DNA and proteins as the carriers of life’s instructions, sparking a gene centric view. The speakers argue that this trajectory misses the ongoing, open nature of biological information and life’s embodied agency.

Life with a Body: Agency, Purpose and the Open Information View

Turning to contemporary science, the dialogue questions whether agency can and should be naturalized. They discuss criteria for genuine agency, including boundaries, internal states, predictive capacity, and the ability to act to meet goals in a given environment. They critique purely gene based accounts and emphasize how cells and tissues operate with information that flows in from the environment, shaping development and function. The speakers also discuss how this open information perspective can illuminate debates about AI, machine learning, and agentic systems.

Experiment, Metabolism and the Origin of Life

The discussion covers laboratory experiments that simulate lifelike behavior from non living components. In particular, synthetic biology efforts create membrane bound “spud cells” that replicate and show competitive growth. While these systems mimic some lifelike properties, they still rely on abundant external support and are not fully alive, illustrating the difficulty of distinguishing life from life like behavior. The dialogue places metabolism center stage, arguing that the energy flows across membranes and chemical gradients were likely central in the origin of life, with genes arising later as a contingent layer over a metabolism driven system.

Scale and Society: From Single Cells to Organisms and Organoids

The piece then turns to how life scales its agency. It asks whether a single cell, a multicellular organism, or a colony or organoid should be considered a single agent, and how to attribute agency in symbiotic relationships. It also touches on xenobots and brain organoids as examples that challenge strict boundaries between organism and machine, and raises ethical concerns about sentience and rights as organoid research progresses.

Ethics, AI and the Future of Life Definitions

Finally, the talk connects life definitions to contemporary ethics. With AI life like systems and agentic models influencing human decisions, it argues for careful normative criteria and for robust discussion about what counts as agency and what obligations arise when living systems or near living systems participate in society. The speakers conclude by underscoring that our evolving definitions of life, agency, and intelligence matter for science, policy and everyday life.

Conclusion and Questions

As the session closes, the speakers invite questions from the audience and propose to return to the core aim: to articulate a working understanding of life that acknowledges embodiment, metabolism and open informational flow while remaining attentive to ethical implications in science and society.