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A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science--and at the forces for order tha...
Stuart Kauffman here presents a brilliant new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. The book drives to the heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It focuses on the concept of self-organization: the spontaneous emergence of order that is widely observed throughout nature Kauffman argues that self-organization plays an important role in the Darwinian process of natural selection. Yet until now no systematic effort has been made to incorporate the concept of sel...
Explores the possiblity and process of evolution beyond the standard and established scientific principles.
Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...
"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 biosphe...
How did life start? Is the evolution of life describable by any physics-like laws? Stuart Kauffman's latest book offers an explanation-beyond what the laws of physics can explain-of the progression from a complex chemical environment to molecular reproduction, metabolism and to early protocells, and further evolution to what we recognize as life. Among the estimated one hundred billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellu...
"In the hard sciences , which can often feel out of grasp for many lay readers, there are "great thinkers" who go far beyond the equations, formulas, and research. Great minds such as Stuart A. Kauffman think about the functions and nature of the universe, the implications of our living existence, and other impossibly fascinating, yet difficult questions. He has dedicated his lifetime to researching "complex systems" at prestigious institutions and now writes his treatise on the most complex systems of all, the creative universe, the limits of scientific laws, and the role of the mind. Grounded in his rigorous training and research background, Kauffman is interdisciplinary in every sense of ...
Written by a highly accredited scientist, this book offers a compelling and original alternative to outdated approaches to the life sciences. It presents a metaphysical basis for living systems that significantly mitigates several purported conflicts between science and religion.
Applies complexity science to the study of international politics. Why did some countries transition peacefully from communist rule to political freedom and market economies, while others did not? Why did the United States enjoy a brief moment as the sole remaining superpower, and then lose power and influence across the board? What are the prospects for China, the main challenger to American hegemony? In Complexity Science and World Affairs, Walter C. Clemens Jr. demonstrates how the basic concepts of complexity science can broaden and deepen the insights gained by other approaches to the study of world affairs. He argues that societal fitness—the ability of a social system to cope with co...
Science journalist John Horgan presents a radical new perspective on the mind-body problem and related issues such as consciousness, free will, morality and the meaning of life. Horgan argues that science will never discover an objectively true solution to the mind-body problem because such a solution does not exist. Horgan explores his thesis by delving into the professional and personal lives of nine mind-body experts, including neuroscientist Christof Koch, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, child psychologist Alison Gopnik, complexologist Stuart Kauffman, legal scholar and psychoanalyst Elyn Saks, philosopher Owen Flanagan, novelist Rebecca Goldstein, evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, and economist Deirdre McCloskey.