\chapter{A Deal with Life}

Life is one of the most beautiful things in the universe.  Arguably,
it is because we humans belong to the kingdom of Life that it
fascinates us so.  Beyond its intrinsic beauty to which our sensory
organs are attuned, it also deeply attracts us because of the
self-referentiality of its contemplation: when thinking about Life, we
often think about our interactions with it, and ultimately
about ourselves.

Self-referentiality is also a hurdle: it is intrinsically difficult to
conceive of oneself.  Even though theoretical computer science is no
substitute for philosophy, I enjoy taking Gödel's incompleteness
theorems\footnote{\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems}}
and especially Hilbert's
\emph{Entscheidungsproblem}\footnote{\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem}}
and the halting
problem\footnote{\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem}}
as vivid examples: Turing's famous proof states that a Turing machine
cannot generally decide whether another Turing machine will ever halt.
Since abstract computing devices can be seen as distant
mathematizations of the human brain, this formal result hints that
entirely conceiving of our mind---and by extension of Life itself---is
borderline intractable.

The difficulty of self-referiantiality is also deeply disturbing,
especially because understanding how our bodies function within their
environments has so many essential implications: dealing with the
climate crisis, tackling diseases, improving the quality of life, to
only cite the foremost ones.  To avoid the worry of looking into the
mirror for too long, one can brutally build a wall between oneself and
``the rest'' of Life, and adopt what may be called the Engineer's
position: a living organism is a machine constituted out of mechanical
pieces, whilst the human disassembles, adjusts, and reassembles them
again, improved.

Modern biology, medicine, biotechnology illustrate the high
performance of the Engineer's approach, and this text is not
a criticism of mechanicism per se.  Nevertheless, its efficiency does
not entail total truthfulness, nor even exclusivity about truth.
In other words, mechanistic views allowing for impressive technical
achievements does not mean that these views fully reflect reality, nor
that mechanicism is the final stop on our journey to understanding
Life.  In my research, I aim for exploring different approaches to
Life and tools supporting such approaches.  I take particular
enthusiasm in thinking about striking \emph{a deal with Life}:
establishing \emph{mutually beneficial} interactions with living
systems.

Concluding deals as opposed to taking the Engineer's position resets
the power balance in our relationship with Life: instead of seeking to
control, hack, or otherwise dominate living organisms, the goal is to
further take into account their well-being.  I believe that
approaching Life from this viewpoint is essential if we are after true
solutions to fundamental problems such as the climate crisis or
complex diseases.  On a more philosophical note, the framework of
mutually beneficial interactions should remind us that our
intelligence in no way warrants an extraction of the human being into
an exceptional superior stance---we are part of Life, and we ought to
think and act accordingly.

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