This is the only book which deals with the correlatory comparison between hierarchical living systems and inorganic physical ones. The culmination of the book is the proposition of research to discover and understand the natural underlying level of organization which produces the descriptive commonality of life and physics. Traditional science eliminates life from its purview by its rejection of interrelationships as a primary content of systems. The conventional procedure of science is that of reductionism, whereby complex systems are dismantled to characterize lower level components, but virtually no attention is given to how to rebuild those systems―the underlying assumption is that analysis and synthesis are symmetrical. This book fulfills two main coupled functions. Firstly, it details hierarchy as the major formulation of natural complex systems and investigates the fundamental character of natural hierarchy as a widely transferable ‘container’ of structure and/or function – andthis in the case of the new development of a representational or model hierarchy. Secondly, it couples this hierarchical description to that of the electronic properties of semiconductors, as a well-modeled canonical example of physical properties. The central thesis is that these two descriptions are comparable, if care is taken to treat logical and epistemological aspects with prudence: a large part of the book is composed of just this aspect of care for grounding consistency. As such great attention is given to correct assessment of argumentative features which are otherwise presumed ‘known’ but which are usually left uncertain. Development of the ideas is always based on a relationship between entity or phenomenon and their associated ecosystems, and this applies equally well to the consequent derivations of consciousness and information.
Ron Cottam grew up in Cheshire, in the north-west of England. At school he studied mathematics, physics and chemistry, and went on to gain a bachelor’s degree in applied physics and electronics and a PhD in the acoustic physics of II-VI and III-V compounds at the University of Durham, UK. He was invited to the University of Leuven in 1972 to start a new research activity in shape-memory alloy ultrasonics, and in 1976 became responsible for the music-recording facility in HiFi Home, Brugge. He established Sound Stuff – a study bureau in acoustics and music recording facility – in 1979, and worked as an independent in recording-studio design and recorded-music production until he joined the Department of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in 1983. From 1984 until the 2011 he has been ‘campus medewerker’ for the microelectronics R&D company IMEC vzw in ETRO, working on chemical sensors, integrated optical components, and most recently as leader of the Living Systems Project in the LAMI laboratory of ETRO. He currently continues research work in the Living Systems Project at the VUB as ‘vrijwillige medewerker’. Ron has an impressive publication record (see attached).
Willy Ranson received the Telecommunication Engineer degree in 1975 from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Microwaves and Lasers at the University of Leuven until 1983, when he joined the Department of Electronics and Information Processing (ETRO) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Since 1989 he has been a member of the Inter-university Micro-Electronics Center (IMEC) in the VUB. Willy has participated in projects and contracted research on such diverse topics as planar antenna structures, high frequency wave-guides, chemical sensors, biological applications for breast cancer detection, optical information processing for parallel computation, CO2 laser applications, microelectronic process technology andrevolutionary information and revolutionary computation theories. He is currently Senior Researcher in charge of the processing technology lab of LAMI and is a founder member of LIFE (Living Systems). His current research contributions are in the areas of CO2 laser modulation, millimeter imaging systems, micro machines for ultra-rapid DNA screening, fast enforcing technologies for protein engineering and Evolutionary Living Systems, sensing, imaging and modulation functionalities and operating in the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from the microwave range up to the far-infrared, covering the 30 GHz to 30 THz range. Willy is (co)author of more than 140 publications in international refereed journals and conferences (attachment).
