Investigations - Hardcover

Kauffman, Stuart A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019512104X ISBN 13: 9780195121049

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

"It may be that I have stumbled upon an adequate description of life itself."
These modest yet profound words trumpet an imminent paradigm shift in scientific, economic, and technological thinking. In the tradition of Schrödinger's classic What Is Life?, Kauffman's Investigations is a tour-de-force exploration of the very essence of life itself, with conclusions that radically undermine the scientific approaches on which modern science rests--the approaches of Newton, Boltzman, Bohr, and Einstein.
Building on his pivotal ideas about order and evolution in complex life systems, Kauffman finds that classical science does not take into account that physical systems--such as people in a biosphere--effect their dynamic environments in addition to being affected by them. These systems act on their own behalf as autonomous agents, but what defines them as such? In other words, what is life? Kauffman supplies a novel answer that goes beyond traditional scientific thinking by defining and explaining autonomous agents and work in the contexts of thermodynamics and of information theory. Much of Investigations unpacks the progressively surprising implications of his definition. Significantly, he sets the stages for a technological revolution in the coming decades. Scientists and engineers may soon seek to create autonomous agents--both organic and mechanical--that can not only construct things and work, but also reproduce themselves! Kauffman also lays out a foundation for a new concept of organization, and explores the requirements for the emergence of a general biology that will transcend terrestrial biology to seek laws governing biospheres anywhere in the cosmos. Moreover, he presents four candidate laws to explain how autonomous agents co-create their biosphere and the startling idea of a "co-creating" cosmos.
A showcase of Kauffman's most fundamental and significant ideas, Investigations presents a new way of thinking about the fundamentals of general biology that will change the way we understand life itself--on this planet and anywhere else in the cosmos.

About this title

About the Author

Stuart Kauffman, winner of the MacArthur "genius" award, is a founding member of the Santa Fe Institute, the leading center for the emerging sciences of complexity. A major force in science and its applications to the business world, he formed BiosGroup LP in 1996 in partnership with Ernst & Young. The author of previous bestsellers Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe, he lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Reviews

Kauffman's investigations concern nothing less than the nature of life. "It may be," he says, "that I have stumbled upon the proper definition of life itself." His deep and challenging argument runs as follows. Much of the order in living organisms is self-organized and spontaneous. "Self-organization mingles with natural selection in barely understood ways to yield the magnificence of our teeming biosphere. We must, therefore, expand evolutionary theory." The living organism, be it bacterial cell or human being, is a " 'propagating organization,' that is, that it literally constructs more of itself." This activity "has no statement in current physics or biology but constitutes that which constructs a bio- sphere." Kauffman, a founding member of the Santa Fe Institute, calls his actors autonomous agents and says we are on the verge of the capacity to create novel molecular autonomous agents. "When we do, or if we discover life on other planets and solar systems, science will enter a vast new phase in which we will create a 'general biology,' freed from the limitations of terrestrial biology."

EDITORS OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019512104X
• ISBN 13: 9780195121049
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 302