Essays on Life ItselfCompiling twenty articles on the nature of life and on the objective of the natural sciences, this remarkable book complements Robert Rosen's groundbreaking Life Itself--a work that influenced a wide range of philosophers, biologists, linguists, and social scientists. In Essays on Life Itself, Rosen takes to task the central objective of the natural sciences, calling into question the attempt to create objectivity in a subjective world and forcing us to reconsider where science can lead us in the years to come. |
Contents
On Biology and Physics | |
FiftyFive Years Later 5 | |
Biological Challenges to Contemporary Paradigms of Physics and Mimetics 33 | |
What Is Biology? 45 | |
On Biology and the Mind 57 | |
The ChurchPythagoras Thesis 63 | |
Comments on the MindBrain Problem 82 | |
Mind as Phenotype 96 | |
Genericity as Information | |
Syntactics and Semantics in Languages 156 | |
How Universal Is a Universal Unfolding? 171 | |
System Closure and Dynamical Degeneracy 175 | |
Some Random Thoughts About Chaos and Some Chaotic Thoughts About Randomness 187 | |
Similarity and Dissimilarity in Biology 197 | |
On Biology and Technology 271 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adjective algorithms argued arising assertion autonomous basic biology called causal entailment cell chapter characterize chimera Church’s Thesis closed complex systems computability concept constraints contemporary physics context cost function differential differential forms dynamical systems elements entirely environment epistemology equation equivalent expressed fact finite forces formal formal causes formalizable fractions genome genotype Go¨del gravitational hence ideas identified identity impredicativities independent inertial inferential infinite interactions kind language larger system loops machine manifested material system mathematics matter means measure mechanics Mendelian gene microstates mimesis mind-brain problem molecule N-body problem networks Newtonian nongeneric notion Number Theory objective ontology open systems optimality organism original parameters particles particular perturbation phenomena phenotype ploidies precisely predicative properties purely syntactic question realization reductionism reductionistic relation Rosen Schro¨dinger Schro¨dinger’s semantic sense situation strategy structure surrogacy syntax system behavior system x Theorem thermodynamic things tion Turing machines Turing Test