Overview
- It is a unique collection of Pattee’s papers on foundational principles relating physics, life, and informational symbol systems
- It establishes the necessity of symbolic constraints on physical laws for life and evolution
- It is an approach to reconciling the information processing (symbolic) and dynamic models of cognition
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Biosemiotics (BSEM, volume 7)
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About this book
Howard Pattee is a physicist who for many years has taken his own path in studying the physics of symbols, which is now a foundation for biosemiotics. By extending von Neumann’s logical requirements for self-replication, to the physical requirements of symbolic instruction at the molecular level, he concludes that a form of quantum measurement is necessary for life. He explains why all non-dynamic symbolic and informational controls act as special (allosteric) constraints on dynamical systems. Pattee also points out that symbols do not exist in isolation but in coordinated symbol systems we call languages. Such insights turn out to be necessary to situate biosemiotics as an objective scientific endeavor.
By proposing a way to relate quiescent symbolic constraints to dynamics, Pattee’s work builds a bridge between physical, biological, and psychological models that are based on dynamical systems theory. Pattee’s work awakes new interest in cognitive scientists, where his recognition of the necessary separation—the epistemic cut—between the subject and object provides a basis for a complementary third way of relating the purely symbolic, computational models of cognition and the purely dynamic, non-representational models.
This selection of Pattee’s papers also addresses several other fields, including hierarchy theory, artificial life, self-organization, complexity theory, and the complementary epistemologies of the physical and biological sciences.
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Table of contents (19 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Commentary and History—H.H. Pattee
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Front Matter
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Commentary and History
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The Pattee Papers in Chronological Order
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Front Matter
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The Pattee Papers in Chronological Order
Authors and Affiliations
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: LAWS, LANGUAGE and LIFE
Book Subtitle: Howard Pattee’s classic papers on the physics of symbols with contemporary commentary
Authors: Howard Hunt Pattee, Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi
Series Title: Biosemiotics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5161-3
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life Sciences, Biomedical and Life Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature B.V. 2012
Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-007-5160-6Published: 08 December 2012
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-017-8511-2Published: 29 January 2015
eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-5161-3Published: 09 December 2012
Series ISSN: 1875-4651
Series E-ISSN: 1875-466X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 336
Topics: Life Sciences, general, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Cognitive Psychology, Bioinformatics, Philosophy of Language, Epistemology