Sara Imari Walker
@saraimari.bsky.social
š¤ 2747
š„ 242
š 76
Professor @ASU @sfiscience
pinned post!
I'm so happy to share that my debut book, LIFE AS NO ONE KNOWS IT, comes out August 6th, 2024 from @riverheadbooks! Read more about it here:
bit.ly/3QN0Nop
almost 2 years ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Noema Magazine
2 days ago
āAI cannot replace human scientists.ā ā
@saraimari.bsky.social
www.noemamag.com/the-death-of...
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The Death Of The Scientist | NOEMA
Will AI kill science, or will it foster a scientific revolution? The answer depends on something no one knows: What is science?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-death-of-the-scientist/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
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Of all our universeās creations, life is the most profoundly significant because it is what allows our universe to create
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
This is a transformative time to be alive, I do not take it for granted that I exist now: my hope is that those of us alive now do as much as we can to enable ourselves and our descendants to further the creative potential of life, rebelling against a universe that is indifferent without us
about 1 month ago
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This is a transformative time to be alive, I do not take it for granted that I exist now: my hope is that those of us alive now do as much as we can to enable ourselves and our descendants to further the creative potential of life, rebelling against a universe that is indifferent without us
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Among the most amazing things about existence is we are the opportunity to ask why
about 1 month ago
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Among the most amazing things about existence is we are the opportunity to ask why
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Currently hiring 1-2 postdocs to work on origins of life theory/experiment, assembly theory, life detection, with me and
@leecronin.bsky.social
, positions are mostly based at ASU but also some time could be spent at U. Glasgow, Apply here:
apply.interfolio.com/176391
Please help us spread the word!
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https://apply.interfolio.com/176391
3 months ago
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Currently hiring 1-2 postdocs to work on origins of life theory/experiment, assembly theory, life detection, with me and
@leecronin.bsky.social
, positions are mostly based at ASU but also some time could be spent at U. Glasgow, Apply here:
apply.interfolio.com/176391
Please help us spread the word!
loading . . .
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
https://apply.interfolio.com/176391
3 months ago
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Science is a cultural institution that allows our species to directly confront our epistemological limits. Itās easy to think the criticism & controversy in science is the eclipsing battle but the only battle that really matters is the one at the boundary of what we know
5 months ago
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Spontaneous, infinite physics leaves life without definition or meaning. Finite, recursive physics makes life definable.
5 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Hetan Shah
5 months ago
Food for thought in this piece by
@saraimari.bsky.social
on how AI will affect science. Warning: contains philosophy!
www.noemamag.com/the-death-of...
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The Death Of The Scientist | NOEMA
Will AI kill science, or will it foster a scientific revolution? The answer depends on something no one knows: What is science?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-death-of-the-scientist/
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
In a universe where everything exists, nothing is possible
5 months ago
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In a universe where everything exists, nothing is possible
5 months ago
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We have no idea what alien intelligences are like (or if they even exist at all). What little we know about what is āalienā or āintelligentā is put in stark relief if AI is truly the most exotic āintelligencesā we can imagine, when these are a mirror of the human niche
5 months ago
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"creativity" emerges in wake of deep distress felt when one's experience of reality is not our consensus - what remains is no other choice but to disrupt the consensus
5 months ago
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"The death of the scientist is the loss of the inner world that creates an idea, but this is also when the idea can become shared, and the inner world of the societal system of debate and controversy comes alive"
www.noemamag.com/the-death-of...
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The Death Of The Scientist | NOEMA
Will AI kill science, or will it foster a scientific revolution? The answer depends on something no one knows: What is science?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-death-of-the-scientist
5 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Noema Magazine
5 months ago
āIf we misunderstand what science is, mistaking automation of method for the human project of collectively constructing, debating & refining the symbolic representations through which we make sense of reality, AI may foretell the death of science.ā ā
@saraimari.bsky.social
#science
#ai
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The Death Of The Scientist | NOEMA
Will AI kill science, or will it foster a scientific revolution? The answer depends on something no one knows: What is science?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-death-of-the-scientist/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
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Language remains the most profound technology we humans ever developed because its implication is that our mind is shared
5 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Carlos Gershenson
6 months ago
Last week's dialogue with
@saraimari.bsky.social
is online.
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
On ontological anarchy in assembly theory ⦠really enjoyed the deconstruction of both reductionism and emergence in this piece by Michael Ardoline. I will happily take ontological anarchy over reductionism or emergence any day
www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf...
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Life Against Smallism: Iterability, Assembly Theory, and the Origin of Ideality - published on September 24, 2025
That the order of explanation tracks the relative scale of objects involved and that the smaller objects must explain the larger is a common, often unchallenged assumption in the metaphysics of scienc...
https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase_mobile?openform&fp=philtoday&id=philtoday_2025_0999_9_23_579
6 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Thoughts on thought experiments ā¦
youtu.be/h52qWMncEUE?...
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Sara Imari Walker: Astrobiology, Aliens, and the Origin of Life
YouTube video by Robinson Erhardt
https://youtu.be/h52qWMncEUE?si=xeOkvSJRkq7sdA5u
6 months ago
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Thoughts on thought experiments ā¦
youtu.be/h52qWMncEUE?...
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Sara Imari Walker: Astrobiology, Aliens, and the Origin of Life
YouTube video by Robinson Erhardt
https://youtu.be/h52qWMncEUE?si=xeOkvSJRkq7sdA5u
6 months ago
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On ontological anarchy in assembly theory ⦠really enjoyed the deconstruction of both reductionism and emergence in this piece by Michael Ardoline. I will happily take ontological anarchy over reductionism or emergence any day
www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf...
loading . . .
Life Against Smallism: Iterability, Assembly Theory, and the Origin of Ideality - published on September 24, 2025
That the order of explanation tracks the relative scale of objects involved and that the smaller objects must explain the larger is a common, often unchallenged assumption in the metaphysics of scienc...
https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase_mobile?openform&fp=philtoday&id=philtoday_2025_0999_9_23_579
6 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
The Long Now Foundation
6 months ago
This year's issue includes: - Essays from
@blaiseaguera.bsky.social
,
@kalladomcdowell.bsky.social
, Benjamin Bratton, and
@saraimari.bsky.social
consider how to define and differentiate intelligence, computation, and identity in the face of synthetic minds.
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Sara Imari Walker
Carlos Gershenson
6 months ago
"Information and the Emergence of Complexity" I'm looking forward to an IAIS dialogue with
@saraimari.bsky.social
, moderated by Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic. Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 17:30 (CET) | 11:30 AM (EST)
meet.google.com/gqm-frcd-apg...
More info:
sites.google.com/view/iais-in...
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Meet
Real-time meetings by Google. Using your browser, share your video, desktop, and presentations with teammates and customers.
https://meet.google.com/gqm-frcd-apg?pli=1
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As a species we see reality through mental models, the deepest rooted is the socially constructed one we feel like we live inside which we call our own āmindā. Seeing ourselves outside of the models we currently live inside will be one of the greatest challenges for science in the coming centuries
6 months ago
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If you are too confident in your representational maps of reality you will miss seeing reality
6 months ago
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What we communicate are models of the world, not the world.
7 months ago
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The platonic world does not exist āout thereā, itās a projection insideĀ your mind when you must construct internal representations that are devoid of the history and causal contingency in the objects of your experience
7 months ago
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Mathematics without ontological commitment is not a theory of reality, itās an interpretation, which is how we landed on the current landscape of descriptions in quantum mechanics, none of which are satisfactory
7 months ago
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Contrary to science fiction an infinite number of copies of you do not exist, you only exist here and now, and the closest things to copies of you are the other humans inhabiting this same rock at this same time.
7 months ago
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Asking about alien lineages of life requires deconstructing four billion years of evolution and attempting to look into a space of possibilities weāve never seen in our entire history
7 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
The Long Now Foundation
7 months ago
āYou only exist here. And you exist here because four billion years was necessary to construct you on this planet.ā -
@saraimari.bsky.social
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It is an odd feature of the human mind that we use all these things that donāt exist to reason about the ones that do.
8 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Greg
9 months ago
Recursive Worlds (
@saraimari.bsky.social
): Life reshapes how we think about reality: best understood in time, not space. Earth is a self-constructing system: āa very deep stack of recursive objectsā built over 4 billion years.
recursiveworlds.antikythera.org
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Recursive Worlds | Antikythera
https://recursiveworlds.antikythera.org/@saraimari.bsky.social
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Sara Imari Walker
Santa Fe Institute
9 months ago
Unfold the history of proteins and you find rich, unexplained complexity. This August, an SFI working group with @ELSI_origins and @ASU_SCAS used machine learning and assembly theory to explore hidden rules underlying all folded matter, from proteins to potential new drugs.
santafe.edu/news
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We should always take seriously where computational descriptions fail, as it tells us something about where the current boundaries of what we can describe in language lie
9 months ago
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Of all the materials that compose you, the most significant is time. It takes billions of years for our universe to generate structures like us.
9 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Santa Fe Institute
9 months ago
Collaborate with researchers globally. Chart your transdisciplinary path. Apply to SFI's 2026 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships. Competitive pay, research funds, and generous benefits to become a leader in transdisciplinary research. Deadline: Oct 1, 2025 Apply:
santafe.edu/sfifellowship
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Known examples of life persist across scales from the molecular to the planetary. Death also is a matter of scale, raising the question of which of our deaths matters most? The individual? The lineage? The biosphere/planetary? Or the universe?
9 months ago
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Myths are very much alive in modern societies, and apart from in few cultural practices, like science, we have just as hard of a time recognizing when we are steeped in them as our ancestors did.
9 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Nils Gilman
9 months ago
Toward Planetary Maturity: The RAND Corporation's new proposal for astrographic standardization will help to provide a standard grammar for
#PlanetarySapience
, thus helping to "mature the technosphere," as per
@saraimari.bsky.social
. My latest substack:
nilsgilman.substack.com/p/toward-pla...
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Toward Planetary Maturity
The RAND Corporation's new proposal for astrographic standardization will help to provide a standard grammar for planetary sapience, thus helping mature the technosphere
https://nilsgilman.substack.com/p/toward-planetary-maturity?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=336744&post_id=170438334&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=kq3zp&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Ruthanna Emrys
10 months ago
Finally, in the second Seeds of Story post,
@saraimari.bsky.social
's Life as No One Knows It offers cool new physics and a metric for whether that thing out there is aliens:
reactormag.com/the-wild-ali...
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Finite Monkeys, Finite Keyboards: The Wild Alien Possibilities of Sara Imari Walkerās Life as No One Knows It - Reactor
Radically rethinking the origins of life on Earth and throughout the universe...
https://reactormag.com/the-wild-alien-possibilities-of-sara-imari-walkers-life-as-no-one-knows-it/
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Life as No One Knows It, my conversation with Sophia Al Maria during the inaugural AIR festival (also named Life As No One Knows It!!) now on Aspen Public radio, an incredible week celebrating art, artists, creativity and ideas with so many amazing humans ā¤ļø
www.aspenpublicradio.org/ideas-speake...
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Aspen Art Museum: Life As No One Knows It - Sara Imari Walker and Sophia Al-Maria
Physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker and artist Sophia Al-Maria explore life on other worlds. Departing from Walkerās radical rethinking of the origins and definitions of life in her 2024 bo...
https://www.aspenpublicradio.org/ideas-speakers-lectures/2025-07-30/aspen-art-museum-life-as-no-one-knows-it-sara-imari-walker-and-sophia-al-maria
9 months ago
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āHumanā is the most amazing configuration of matter any of us has ever observed, yet we deeply under appreciate what we are
10 months ago
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What is the human aesthetic choice behind Google's algorithm āPeople also ask' - it seems like it prioritizes content scaling over relevance and/or depth. The answers are depressing and boring. Would love it to add value to my original search.Why is understanding NOT the aesthetic we are going for?
10 months ago
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Physics for a new century should solve what we, and all life, share fundamentally
youtube.com/watch?v=43Re...
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2025 Interdisciplinary Science Summit Showcase Talk: Sara Walker
YouTube video by Schmidt Science Fellows
https://youtube.com/watch?v=43Ren08I5wA
10 months ago
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reposted by
Sara Imari Walker
Reactor Magazine
10 months ago
@r-emrys.bsky.social
explores the work of physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker, and how her insights into Assembly Theory and the origins of life might influence the future of science and science fiction š±
reactormag.com/the-wild-ali...
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Finite Monkeys, Finite Keyboards: The Wild Alien Possibilities of Sara Imari Walkerās Life as No One Knows It - Reactor
Radically rethinking the origins of life on Earth and throughout the universe...
https://reactormag.com/the-wild-alien-possibilities-of-sara-imari-walkers-life-as-no-one-knows-it/
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Many cannot see past the current representational maps that architect our minds & want them to remain static, but itās important to recognize these can always be revised - the models we inhabit in our own minds should always be changing if we are to really come to understand anything about our world
12 months ago
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The most transformative theories never come from trying to build better mathematical representations of current theories. Instead we get them by making direct contact with observations not accounted for in our existing map of the world.
12 months ago
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