Artificial Life, or ALife for short, is pretty much what it sounds like - 'life' as created artificially, that is not just found in the universe, but made by humans.
There is, of course, a major problem with this definition - what is life?
Rather than trying to answer this mind-bogglingly difficult question, it is easier just to consider what ALife is trying to achieve -
In the words of ALife Online 2.0, the internet ALife Society:
' The term 'Artificial Life' is used to describe research into human-made systems that possess some of the essential properties of life...'
Which properties of life the system must possess is, however, not fixed, some possess the need for food ( all be it, green squares that represent cheese to a mouse ), some sense other objects and seek to avoid them, some just seek to survive to the next generation, and so on...
So what's the point of making models of life on a computer - click the link below to find out...