Overview

So far, we’ve been thinking about putting chemistry into a computer. Today, we’re going to turn this around and discuss how you can put a computer in chemistry by thinking of droplets as liquid robots that are able to move, replicate, and coordinate at the group level.

AI Policy

As a reminder, you are not allowed to use genAI to summarize or produce your reading check responses. These checks are for you to engage with the material and start thinking about things before class. It’s okay if you don’t understand everything ahead of time!

Basic Learning Objectives

Before class, you should be able to:

  • Explain what droplets are in an artificial life context
  • Explain the high level idea of how droplets can demonstrate one dynamic of life

Advanced Learning Objectives

After class, you should be able to:

  • Analyze how life-like droplets are compared to simple biological organisms

Reading

(This is another day where you should set a 4 hour timer and stop then. You don’t need to understand everything from the second paper!)

Read the following:

Checks

Submit answers to the following on Moodle:

  • What plays the role of “fuel” or “metabolism” in the moving droplet systems? How is that similar or different to the fuel/metabolism we normally think of for living organisms?
  • Recall that autopoiesis is Maturana and Varela’s term to capture the idea that living organisms are “self-constructing, self-organising, self-bounding chemical machine[s]”. Which of these characteristics do droplets genuinely demonstrate? Where does their “aliveness” fall short either definitionally or conceptually?
  • If you were to try modeling these droplets in software, what low-level rules would you need to capture their dynamics without simulating full fluid equations?