From complexity to life: on the emergence of life and meaning

Niels Henrik Gregersen9780195150704, 9780195186369, 0195150708

This book brings together an impressive group of leading scholars in the sciences of complexity, and a few workers on the interface of science and religion, to explore the wider implications of complexity studies. It includes an introduction to complexity studies and explores the concept of information in physics and biology and various philosophical and religious perspectives. Chapter authors include Paul Davies, Greg Chaitin, Charles Bennett, Werner Loewenstein, Paul Dembski, Ian Stewart, Stuart Kauffman, Harold Morowitz, Arthur Peacocke, and Niels H. Gregersen.

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Table of contents :
Contents……Page 8
Contributors……Page 10
1. Introduction: Toward an Emergentist Worldview……Page 16
PART I: DEFINING COMPLEXITY……Page 30
2. Randomness and Mathematical Proof……Page 32
3. How to Define Complexity in Physics, and Why……Page 47
PART II: THE CONCEPT OF INFORMATION IN PHYSICS AND BIOLOGY……Page 58
4. The Emergence of Autonomous Agents……Page 60
5. Complexity and the Arrow of Time……Page 85
6. Can Evolutionary Algorithms Generate Specified Complexity?……Page 106
7. The Second Law of Gravitics and the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics……Page 127
8. Two Arrows from a Mighty Bow……Page 164
PART III: PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES……Page 188
9. Emergence of Transcendence……Page 190
10. Complexity, Emergence, and Divine Creativity……Page 200
11. From Anthropic Design to Self-Organized Complexity……Page 219
B……Page 248
C……Page 249
E……Page 250
G……Page 251
L……Page 252
N……Page 253
R……Page 254
T……Page 255
Z……Page 256