A Legacy For Living Systems

Download or read book A Legacy for Living Systems written by Jesper Hoffmeyer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-02-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Bateson’s contribution to 20th century thinking has appealed to scholars from a wide range of fields dealing in one way or another with aspects of communication and epistemology. A number of his insights were taken up and developed further in anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and communication theory. But the large, trans-disciplinary synthesis that, in his own mind, was his major contribution to science received little attention from the mainstream scientific communities. This book represents a major attempt to revise this deficiency. Scholars from ecology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology and philosophy discuss how Bateson's thinking might lead to a fruitful reframing of central problems in modern science. Most important perhaps, Bateson's bioanthropology is shown to play a key role in developing the set of ideas explored in the new field of biosemiotics. The idea that organismic life is indeed basically semiotic or communicative lies at the heart of the biosemiotic approach to the study of life. The only book of its kind, this volume provides a key resource for the quickly-growing substratum of scholars in the biosciences, philosophy and medicine who are seeking an elegant new approach to exploring highly complex systems.

Download or read book Physical Models of Living Systems written by Philip Nelson and published by Macmillan Higher Education. This book was released on 2014-12-20 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written for intermediate-level undergraduates pursuing any science or engineering major, Physical Models of Living Systems helps students develop many of the competencies that form the basis of the new MCAT2015. The only prerequisite is first-year physics. With the more advanced "Track-2" sections at the end of each chapter, the book can be used in graduate-level courses as well.

Download or read book Small Arcs of Larger Circles written by Nora Bateson and published by Triarchy Press. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an important first collection of essays, reflections and poems by Nora Bateson, the noted research designer, film-maker, writer and lecturer. She is the daughter of Gregory Bateson, president of the International Bateson Institute (IBI) and an adviser to numerous bodies at international and governmental level.

Download or read book Understanding Gregory Bateson written by Noel G. Charlton and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Bateson (1904–1980), anthropologist, psychologist, systems thinker, student of animal communication, and insightful environmentalist, was one of the most important holistic thinkers of the twentieth century. Noel G. Charlton offers this first truly accessible introduction to Bateson's work, distilling and clarifying Bateson's understanding of the "mind" or "mental systems" as being present throughout the living Earth, in systems and creatures of all kinds. Part biography, part overview of the evolution of his ideas, Charlton's book situates Bateson's thought in relation to that of other ecological thinkers. This long-awaited volume opens up this challenging thinker's body of work and introduces it to a new generation of readers.

Download or read book Essential Readings in Biosemiotics written by Donald Favareau and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 882 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines – from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics – the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes. Donald Favareau’s Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well. Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the ‘big questions’ of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.

Download or read book Information Processing and Living Systems written by Vladimir B. Baji? and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2005 with total page 799 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information processing and information flow occur in the course of an organism's development and throughout its lifespan. Organisms do not exist in isolation, but interact with each other constantly within a complex ecosystem. The relationships between organisms, such as those between prey or predator, host and parasite, and between mating partners, are complex and multidimensional. In all cases, there is constant communication and information flow at many levels.This book focuses on information processing by life forms and the use of information technology in understanding them. Readers are first given a comprehensive overview of biocomputing before navigating the complex terrain of natural processing of biological information using physiological and analogous computing models. The remainder of the book deals with ?artificial? processing of biological information as a human endeavor in order to derive new knowledge and gain insight into life forms and their functioning. Specific innovative applications and tools for biological discovery are provided as the link and complement to biocomputing.Since ?artificial? processing of biological information is complementary to natural processing, a better understanding of the former helps us improve the latter. Consequently, readers are exposed to both domains and, when dealing with biological problems of their interest, will be better equipped to grasp relevant ideas.

Download or read book Theoretical Physics for Biological Systems written by Paola Lecca and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-01-30 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quantum physics provides the concepts and their mathematical formalization that lend themselves to describe important properties of biological networks topology, such as vulnerability to external stress and their dynamic response to changing physiological conditions. A theory of networks enhanced with mathematical concepts and tools of quantum physics opens a new area of biological physics, the one of systems biological physics.