Substrate-coupled artificial life (SCAL) is the study of artificial systems in which the physical dynamics of a computational substrate form part of the causal mechanism through which life-like organisation emerges, persists, adapts, or scales. Established classifications describe artificial life by its form or synthetic method. Bottom-up systems are classified as physico-chemical, physico-mechanical, or computational, while the soft, hard, and wet approaches provide a related division. SCAL adds an orthogonal causal axis. A process is substrate-passive when the medium’s physical dynamics remain outside the causal account of its organisation. It is substrate-active when those dynamics participate causally in the organisation itself. SCAL names the substrate-active region of computational artificial life.
THE SUBSTRATE
In conventional virtual artificial life, organisms, environments, and governing dynamics are defined within a software model. The computing substrate executes that model, but its own physical dynamics remain outside the organisational account. In SCAL, the substrate enters the experiment, bringing noise, latency, energy throughput, thermal behaviour, and non-equilibrium dynamics into the causal account. A SCAL system requires reciprocal coupling between organisation and medium. Substrate state affects subsequent activity, and that activity alters the substrate conditions encountered later. The distinction follows the process being explained rather than the machine as a whole. SCAL is substrate-general and applies to any computational medium whose physical dynamics enter the causal mechanism of life-like organisation. Silicon-based artificial life is the first substrate-specific programme within SCAL. Physical implementation, substrate participation, and artificial-life status are distinct empirical claims.
EXTERNAL RECORD
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ARTIFICIAL LIFE
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ARTIFICIAL LIFE / SUBSTRATE-COUPLED ARTIFICIAL LIFE
SILICON-BASED ARTIFICIAL LIFE
Silicon-based artificial life applies the SCAL framework to conventional silicon through its memory hierarchy, latency, fluctuation, restoration, and dissipation.
CONTINUE TO SILICON-BASED ARTIFICIAL LIFE