# Artificial Life as Experimental Philosophy (ALIFE 2026)

Canonical URL: https://experimentalphilosophy.life/
Conference: ALIFE 2026 (Waterloo, Canada)
Event dates: 2026-08-17 to 2026-08-21
Session: Artificial Life as Experimental Philosophy

## Key dates
- Paper submission deadline: 2026-03-30
- Notification: 2026-06-07
- Camera-ready: 2026-06-21

## Submission links
- Call for papers details: https://2026.alife.org/call-for-papers/
- Submission portal: https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/ALIFE/

## Contact
- alife2026@experimentalphilosophy.life

## Organisers
- Ben Gaskin (University of Sydney)
- Simon McGregor (University of Sussex)

## Session scope
This special session examines artificial life as a form of experimental philosophy and natural philosophy. Questions of interest include: What are we doing when we simulate a thing? Where is emergence when it happens in a machine? What is the relationship between form, function, parameters, and dynamics in simulation? What are the laws of motion of living matter, and how does ALife relate to theoretical biology? Is life just physics, or is there something more? Could artificial life ever really be alive? We welcome experimental, theoretical, and position papers.

## Key references
- Pattee (1989). "Simulations, Realizations, and Theories of Life."
- Pattee (1995). "Artificial Life Needs a Real Epistemology."
- Dennett (1994). "Artificial Life as Philosophy."
- Bedau (2000). "Open Problems in Artificial Life."
- Braitenberg (1984). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology.
- Langton (1989). "Artificial Life."
- Aguilar et al. (2014). "The Past, Present, and Future of Artificial Life."