Q&A Highlights

Question: Have you ever thought of your aesthetic selections as a way of amplifying peoples' perception? For example, what would happen if different types of people evolved different artistic products?

Answer: Sims mentioned that he had not tried his aesthetic selection on non-humans such as chimpanzees, dolphins, nematodes. But that the decisions did reflect individual differences in humans, and that everyone develops a different type of picture after only a few decisions. With no guidance to the evolution, the result was junk.

Question: Have we found any general patterns that describe life?

Answer: Life can be an evolutionary mess of patchwork solutions. Life does build from simple to complex forms, and there has to be enough free energy and means to transfer it for life to exist.

Otherwise, none of the panel noted any general patterns enabling us to describe alien life.