Robert Rosen: Essays on Life Itself (1999)
Filed under book | Tags: · algorithm, anticipation, biology, causality, complex systems, complexity, environment, life, machine, mathematics, mind, philosophy of science, physics, science, semantics, systems theory, technology, theory
“In this collection of twenty-two essays, Rosen takes to task the central objective of the natural sciences, calling into question the attempt to create objectivity in a subjective world. The book opens with an exploration of the interaction between biology and physics, unpacking Schrödinger´s famous text What Is Life? and revealing the shortcomings of the notion that artificial intelligence can truly replicate life.
He also refutes the thesis that mathematical models of reality can be reflected entirely in algorithms, that is, are of a purely syntactical character. He argues that it is the noncomputable, nonformalizable nature of biology that makes organisms complex, and that these systems are generic, whereas those systems described by reductionistic reasoning are simple and rare.
An intriguing enigma links all of the essays: ‘How can science explain the unpredictable?'”
Publisher Columbia University Press, 1999
Complexity in Ecological Systems series
ISBN 023110510X, 9780231105101
x+360 pages
Reviews: Bruce J. West (Quarterly Review of Biology, 2001), Donald C. Mikulecky (c1999).
PDF (removed on 2019-10-30 upon request from Judith Rosen)
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