1. Introduction Sara Imari Walker, Paul C. W. Davies and F. R. Ellis; Part I. Physics and Life: 2. The 'hard problem' of life Sara Imari Walker and Paul C. W. Davies; 3. Beyond initial conditions and laws of motion: constructor theory of information and life Chiara Marletto; Part II. Bio from Bit: 4. (How) did information emerge? Anne-Marie Grisogono; 5. On the emerging codes for chemical evolution Jillian E. Smith-Carpenter, Sha Li, Jay T. Goodwin, Anil K. Mehta and David G. Lynn; 6. Digital and analogue information in organisms Denis Noble; 7. From entropy to information: biased typewriters and the origin of life Christoph Adami and Thomas Labar; Part III. Life's Hidden Information: 8. Cryptographic nature David Krakauer; 9. Noise and function Steven Weinstein and Theodore Pavlic; 10. The many faces of state space compression David Wolpert, Eric Libby, Joshua Grochow and Simon DeDeo; 11. Causality, information and biological computation: an algorithmic software approach to life, disease and the immune system Hector Zenil, Angelika Schmidt and Jesper Tegnér; Part IV. Complexity and Causality: 12. Life's information hierarchy Jessica Flack; 13. Living through downward causation: from molecules to ecosystems Keith D. Farnsworth, George F. R. Ellis and Luc Jaeger; 14. Automata and animats: from dynamics to cause-effect structures Larissa Albantakis and Giulio Tononi; 15. Biological information, causality and specificity – an intimate relationship Karola Stotz and Paul Griffiths; Part V. From Matter to Mind: 16. Major transitions in political order Simon DeDeo; 17. Bits from biology for computational intelligence Michael Wibral, Joseph Lizier and Viola Priesemann; 18. Machine learning and the questions it raises G. Andrew D. Briggs and Dawid Potgieter.
This book tackles the most difficult and profound open questions about life and its origins from an information-based perspective.
Sara Imari Walker is a theoretical physicist and astrobiologist. She is an Assistant Professor in the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University. She is also a Fellow of the Arizona State University-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, co-founder of the astrobiology-themed social website SAGANet.org, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Blue Marble Space. She is active in public engagement in science, with recent appearances on 'Through the Wormhole' and NPR's Science Friday. Paul C. W. Davies is Regents' Professor and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. He is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist. He has written 30 books, many for the general public. In 1995 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for his work on the deeper meaning of science. He was also awarded the Faraday Prize by the Royal Society, the Kelvin Medal by the Institute of Physics, the Robinson Cosmology Prize, and three honorary degrees. In 2007 he was named a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's birthday honours list and in 2011 he received the Bicentenary Medal of Chile. The asteroid 1992 OG was renamed (6870) Pauldavies. George F. R. Ellis, FRS, is Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town. He is a relativist and cosmologist who has worked on exact and perturbed cosmological models in general relativity theory and carefully studied observational limits in cosmology. He wrote The Large Scale Structure of Space Time with Steven Hawking. His more recent research relates to the philosophy of cosmology and the emergence of complexity. He has various honorary degrees, and was awarded the Star of South Africa Medal by President Nelson Mandela in 1999 and the Templeton Prize in 2004.
'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
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