Information and Living Systems ─ Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives

Information shapes biological organization in fundamental ways and at everyorganizational level. Because organisms use information--including DNA codes, gene expression, andchemical signaling--to construct, maintain, repair, and replicate themselves, it would seem onlynatural to use information-related ideas in our attempts to understand the general nature of livingsystems, the causality by which they operate, the difference between living and inanimate matter,and the emergence, in some biological species, of cognition, emotion, and language. And yetphilosophers and scientists have been slow to do so. This volume fills that gap. Information andLiving Systems offers a collection of original chapters in which scientists and philosophers discussthe informational nature of biological organization at levels ranging from the genetic to thecognitive and linguistic. The chapters examine not only familiar information-related ideas intrinsicto the biological sciences but also broader information-theoretic perspectives used to interprettheir significance. The contributors represent a range of disciplines, including anthropology,biology, chemistry, cognitive science, information theory, philosophy, psychology, and systemstheory, thus demonstrating the deeply interdisciplinary nature of the volume's bioinformationaltheme.

Robert Arp has authored numerous articles and book chapters in ontology (in the information science sense), philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, modern philosophy, and popular culture. He is the author of Scenario Visualization: An Evolutionary Account of Creative Problem Solving (MIT Press, 2008). He is also coauthor of Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology (MIT Press, in preparation) and Reasoning Well: An Introduction to Critical Thinking and is coeditor of Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology and Philosophy of Biology: An Anthology.