Information and Living Systems PDF
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Information and Living Systems PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVES EDITED BY GEORGE TERZIS AND ROBERT ARP I nformation and Living Systems I nformation and Living Systems P hilosophical and Scientifi c Perspectives E dited by George Terzis and Robert Arp A Bradford Book T he MIT Press C ambridge, Massachusetts L ondon, England © 2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology A ll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. F or information about special quantity discounts, please email F or George, Katherine, Chris, and Alexis C ontents P reface i x I ntroduction x i I T he Defi nition of Life 1 1 T he Need for a Universal Defi nition of Life in Twenty-fi rst-century Biology 3 K epa Ruiz-Mirazo and Alvaro Moreno 2 E nergy Coupling 2 5 Y as ˛a r Demirel I I I nformation and Biological Organization 5 3 3 B ioinformation as a Triadic Relation 5 5 A lfredo Marcos 4 T he Biosemiotic Approach in Biology: T heoretical Bases and Applied Models 9 1 J oã o Queiroz, Claus Emmeche, Kalevi Kull, and Charbel El-Hani 5 P roblem Solving in the Life Cycles of Multicellular Organisms : I mmunology and Cancer 1 31 N iall Shanks and Rebecca A. Pyles 6 T he Informational Nature of Biological Causality 1 57 A lvaro Moreno and Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo 7 T he Self-construction of a Living Organism 1 77 N atalia L óp ez-Moratalla and Mar ía Cerezo 8 P lasticity and Complexity in Biology: T opological Organization, Regulatory Protein Networks, and Mechanisms of Genetic Expression 2 05 L uciano Boi viii Contents I II I nformation and the Biology of Cognition, Value, and Language 251 9 D ecision Making in the Economy of Nature: V alue as Information 2 53 B enoit Hardy-Vallé e 1 0 I nformation Theory and Perception: T he Role of Constraints, and What Do We Maximize Information About? 2 89 R oland Baddeley, Benjamin Vincent, and David Attewell 1 1 A ttention, Information, and Epistemic Perception 3 09 N icolas J. Bullot 1 2 B iolinguistics and Information 3 53 C edric Boeckx and Juan Uriagereka 1 3 T he Biology of Personality 3 71 A urelio Jos é Figueredo, W. Jake Jacobs, Sarah B. Burger, Paul R. Gladden, and Sally G. Olderbak C ontributors 4 07 I ndex 4 09 P reface T his volume is the product of talks we had about the important ways in which information shapes our understanding of biological organization, and more generally, of the difference between living and inanimate matter. It later occurred to us to broaden our conversation to include other researchers, both philosophers and scientists, who could write on this theme at a level of biological organization that refl ects the interests of their respective disciplines. With this in mind, we solicited contribu- tions, through both invitation and a global call for papers. As a result, we were able to assemble a group of papers that addresses our informa- tional theme at levels of organization that range from the genetic and epigenetic, at one end of the biological continuum, to the cognitive and linguistic, at the other. These papers also exemplify the deeply interdis- ciplinary nature of our theme. I n preparing this volume, we were helped and encouraged by several of our colleagues and friends to whom we wish to express our deep appreciation: to former MIT Press senior editor, Tom Stone, for his friendliness and belief in the value of our project; to current senior editor Philip Laughlin and his assistant, Marc Lowenthal, for guidance during the project ’s fi nal stages; to MIT Press editor Kathleen Caruso who, together with Nancy Kotary and Michael Sims, oversaw the fi nal edit of our project; to Theodore Vitali, CP, Philosophy Department Chair, Saint Louis University, for lightening our load so that our project could be completed and for moral support; to the university’ s College of Arts and Sciences for a Mellon Faculty Development Grant that helped us kick- start our project at the beginning; and to Ronald Belgau and Matthew Piper, for helping us prepare the introduction to our volume. F inally, we are also grateful to Kathy Stone, Melissa Kinsey, and Judy MacManus for their helpful editorial advice, and especially to Aileen Keenan, who took time from her own responsibilities as African American Review’ s managing editor to do an excellent job in preparing the fi nal version of the manuscript.
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