Bruce Damer's EvoGrid Talk at the SETI Institute (Jan 20, 2010)

1. The EvoGrid: Building an Origin of Life Simulator & Its Implications for Life, the Universe and Everything Bruce Damer , DigitalSpace and Biota.org SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA 01 20 2010

2. ET How many (if any) are out there? How many are on the move? How did they figure out how to do that? And can we do the same?

3. where: N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible; and R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.[2] The Drake Equation (for ETs of the “I Love Lucy” detectable kind)

4. where: N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy which got up the gumption to boldly go out and find the others (ie: In Real Life); and fv = the fraction of civilizations who sport “visionary geeks”, wacky individuals or collectives not solely committed to mundane productivity but instead hooked on this “boldly go” escapade f$ = the fraction of those civilizations whose visionary geeks are not only out of the closet but able to get funding support f(t+n) = the fraction of those civilizations who are willing to fund visionary geeks for indeterminately long periods of time fT = the fraction of the above civilizations that are willing to pay for large scale versions of the geeks’ products for a very long time fm = the fraction of the above that are able to remember what it was all about and handle the end results (or lack of them) in a “mature” way (ie: not killing off all the visionary geeks and burning the fleet) Damer’s extensions to the Drake Equation (for ETs of the “boldly go where no ET has gone before” kind)

7. Now back to SETI which is… =

8. Now enter… the EvoGrid

9. Which is kind of like SETI…

10. … but turned…

11. … on its head!

12. In that the EvoGrid first creates the haystack (an origin of life simulation) then hopes that a needle spontaneously appears in it… … and that the needle is found!

13. Roll tape!

15. But is this realistic? Freeman Dyson: “the simulation should be truly ‘messy’, ie: nature is not clean and neat as you are showing in the movie, cells are more like dirty water surrounded by garbage bags” -Professor, Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ NJ

16. Building life… the hard way

18. Chemically Recreating the Origins of Life: Miller-Urey, 1953

20. Fundamental Living Technologies Laboratory Odense, Denmark University of Southern Denmark, Odense

21. Protocells from Chemical Soups

22. Origins of Life the “hard way” ”

23. Your chemical origins of life computing equipment

24. Radically new chemical life cycles

25. feeding light (hv) heating container division information replication metabolic conversion addition of resources

26. But how easy is this going to be?

27. Penny Boston: “The simulation must model abstract universes and not attempt a high fidelity chemistry model, all that counts is if you can demonstrate a method for supporting ever increasing levels of emergent complexity” -Associate Professor of Cave and Karst Science Director, Cave and Karst Studies Dept of Earth & Environmental Science New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM

28. Boston: “You need this…. to originate and evolve complex life (and civilization)”

29. Model for a minimal cell

30. How do we get… From here… to here?

31. Protocells must form on their own through successive “ratchets” of complexity Ref Pierre-Alain Monnard, FLinT

32. The Inner Life of the Cell (Harvard)

33. So how to map this computer onto this one?

34. The EvoGrid: conceptually a large central artificial chemistry simulation operated upon by analysis clients

36. What is the ‘Secret Sauce’ of the EvoGrid? Answer: Stochastic hill-climbing algorithm utilizing analysis, feedback and temporal backtracking

37. EvoGrid Engine

46. Simulation #144,204: Highest Score 2.2303 avg-avg-molecule-size 9.355 avg-max-molecule-size 17 max-max-molecule-size 4.47307 max-avg-molecule-size 33.0584 search-evogrid-complexity-1 Based on these numbers, it looks like one large molecule, of 17 atoms "wide", is forming. The term “molecule size” means the maximum link count between any two atoms in the molecule. But nothing has been visualized yet!

48. Back to Boldly Going Where No Earthy ET Has Gone Before… Freeman Dyson’s Trees

49. Roll tape!

52. We will find out the power of (primordial) soups!

53. EvoGrid inspirer Richard Gordon: “The Artificial Life community should get down to the basics and simulate an Origin of Life.” -Professor, University of Manitoba, Canada Acknowledgements Peter Newman, chief architect Ryan Norkus, animation, artwork Tom Barbalet: Biota.org FLinT, U. Southern Denmark Freeman Dyson, IAS SETI Institute

54. Visit us at: www.evogrid.org Thank You!