From Matter to Life: Information and Causality

Description

'From Matter to Life, by Walker, Davies and Ellis, is an astonishing, important book. What is information? Can information have causal consequences? If so, how? With new mathematics, wide and rigorous, this collection is a powerful springboard with which we can propel our science forward.' Stuart Kauffman FRSC, Mac Arthur Fellow 'The editors of From Matter to Life have complied a series of cross-disciplinary essays that focus on how the science of information can explain the function of living organisms. Contributions are made by noted biologists, chemists, and physicists who research the principles of chemical information. The book begins with the physics of life and other material that supports later findings about chemical principles of how molecular arrangements use an inherent system of information, which explains a broad array of living properties and organismic interactions. Many of the explanations are accompanied with detailed scientific accounts and mathematical formulas… most of the explained science requires some proficiency in chemistry, mathematics, and physics. The chapters are accompanied with ample primary references. This is an eclectic book that is appropriate for more advanced students and faculty, or for philosophy of science libraries.' B. R. Shmaefsky, CHOICE 'Each contribution is written by an expert on the field, in a scientific style and fully referenced to scientific publications … there is no definite or easy answer to the questions about information as a physical entity or its role in emergence of life from matter, but a number of interesting points are made about the nature of information and its role in physical reality. It is interesting to see the way in which the various disciplines, mainly physics, chemistry, biology, information theory and related fields, but also philosophy and cognitive and social sciences approach the issue. [This book is] a collection of scientific essays on new questions and what the various disciplines have to provide in the approach to give answers. … It is an interesting read for all those who want their thoughts provoked around the origin of life and what role information can possibly have in it.' Manuel Vogel, Contemporary Physics 1. Introduction by Sara Imari Walker, Paul C. W. Davies, and George F. R. Ellis PART I: PHYSICS AND LIFE 2. The “Hard Problem” of Life by Sara Imari Walker and Paul C. W. Davies 3. Beyond Initial Conditions and Laws of Motion: Constructor Theory of Information and Life by Chiara Marletto PART II: BIO FROM BIT 4. (How) Did Information Emerge? by Anne-Marie Grisogono 5. On the Emerging Codes for Chemical Evolution by Jillian E. Smith-Carpenter, Sha Li, Jay T. Goodwin, Anil K. Mehta, and David G. Lynn 6. Digital and Analogue Information in Organisms by Denis Noble 7. From Entropy to Information: Biased Typewriters and the Origin of Life by Christoph Adami and Thomas Labar PART III: LIFE’S HIDDEN INFORMATION 8. Cryptographic Nature by David Krakauer 9. Noise and Function by Steven Weinstein and Theodore P. Pavlic 10. The Many Faces of State Space Compression by David Wolpert, Eric Libby, Joshua A. Grochow, and Simon Dedeo 11. Causality, Information, and Biological Computation: An Algorithmic Software Approach to Life, Disease, and the Immune System by Hector Zenil, Angelika Schmidt, and Jesper Tegnér PART IV: COMPLEXITY AND CAUSALITY 12. Life’s Information Hierarchy by Jessica Flack 13. Living Through Downward Causation: From Molecules to Ecosystems by Keith D. Farnsworth, George F. R. Ellis, and Luc Jaeger 14. Automata and Animats: From Dynamics to Cause–Effect Structures by Larissa Albantakis and Giulio Tononi 15. Biological Information, Causality, and Specificity: An Intimate Relationship by Karola Stotz and Paul E. Griffiths PART V: FROM MATTER TO MIND 16. Major Transitions in Political Order by Simon Dedeo 17. Bits From Brains: Analyzing Distributed Computation in Neural Systems by Michael Wibral, Joseph Lizier, and Viola Priesemann 18. Machine Learning and the Questions It Raises by G. Andrew D. Briggs and Dawid Potgieter