Welcome to our book review site www.go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Introduction to Biosemiotics
Combining research approaches from biology, philosophy and linguistics, the field of Biosemiotics proposes that animals, plants and single cells all engage in semiosis – the conversion of objective signals into conventional signs. This has important implications and applications for issues ranging from natural selection to animal behavior and human psychology, leaving biosemiotics at the cutting edge of the research on the fundamentals of life. Drawing on an international expertise, the book details the history and study of biosemiotics, and provides a state-of-the-art summary of the current work in this new field. And, with relevance to a wide range of disciplines – from linguistics and semiotics to evolutionary phenomena and the philosophy of biology – the book provides an important text for both students and established researchers, while marking a vital step in the evolution of a new biological paradigm.
LAWS, LANGUAGE and LIFE
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 scien...
Soft Computing Agents
In the existing literature the intersection of agent technology with soft computing is a very recent and attractive issue. The book is devoted to a unifying perspective of this topic. In contains contributions by well-known authors whose expertise is universally recognized in these crossing areas. Particular emphasis is devoted to advanced research projects involved with Web-related technologies. Fundamental topics explored in this volume are: - formal theories and logics to represent and handle imprecise communication acts among communities of agents; - soft-computing approaches to define distributed problem-solving techniques to represent and reason about large-scale control systems; - decomposition of a complex system into autonomous or semiautonomous agents through evolutionary models; - enrichment of agent programming paradigm for cooperative soft-computing processing.
Life Energies, Forces and the Shaping of Life: Vital, Existential
The nature of life consists in a constructive becoming (see Analecta Husserliana vol. 70). Though caught up in its relatively stable, stationary intervals manifesting the steps of its accomplishments that our attention is fixed. In this selection of studies we proceed, in contrast, to envisage life in the Aristotelian perspective in which energia, forces, and dynamisms of life at work are at the fore. Startling questions emerge: `what distinction could be drawn between the prompting forces of life and its formation? Or, is this distinction a result of our transcendental faculties?' The answers to these questions reveal themselves, as Tymieniecka proposes, at the phenomenologically ontopoietic level of life's origination where transcendentality surges.
Design Principles for the Immune System and Other Distributed Autonomous Systems
Design Principles for the Immune System and Other Distributed Autonomous Systems is the first book to examine the inner workings of such a variety of distributed autonomous systems--from insect colonies to high level computer programs to the immune system. It offers insight into the fascinating world of these systems that emerge from the interactions of seemingly autonomous components and brings us up-to-date on the state of research in these areas. Using the immune system and certain aspects of its functions as a primary model, this book examines many of the most interesting and troubling questions posed by complex systems. How do systems choose the right set of agents to perform appropriate actions with appropriate intensities at appropriate times? How in the immune system, ant colonies and metabolic networks does the diffusion and binding of a large variety of chemicals to their receptors permit coordination of system action? What advantages drive the various systems to complexity, and by what mechanisms do the systems cope with the tendency toward unwieldiness and randomness of large complex systems?
Mimicry and Meaning: Structure and Semiotics of Biological Mimicry
The present book analyses critically the tripartite mimicry model (consisting of the mimic, model and receiver species) and develops semiotic tools for comparative analysis. It is proposed that mimicry has a double structure where sign relations in communication are in constant interplay with ecological relations between species. Multi-constructivism and toolbox-like conceptual methods are advocated for, as these allow taking into account both the participants’ Umwelten as well as cultural meanings related to specific mimicry cases. From biosemiotic viewpoint, mimicry is a sign relation, where deceptively similar messages are perceived, interpreted and acted upon. Focusing on living subjec...
Artificial Life VII
The term "artificial life" describes research into synthetic systems that possess some of the essential properties of life. This interdisciplinary field includes biologists, computer scientists, physicists, chemists, geneticists, and others. Artificial life may be viewed as an attempt to understand high-level behavior from low-level rules—for example, how the simple interactions between ants and their environment lead to complex trail-following behavior. An understanding of such relationships in particular systems can suggest novel solutions to complex real-world problems such as disease prevention, stock-market prediction, and data mining on the Internet. Since their inception in 1987, the Artificial Life meetings have grown from small workshops to truly international conferences, reflecting the field's increasing appeal to researchers in all areas of science.
Actes
None
Athanor
None
The Nature of Time: Geometry, Physics and Perception
This book provides the reader with the most recent scholarly insights into the nature of time - undoubtedly one of the most profound mysteries that science has ever faced. The selected contributions are grouped into four conceptually different yet mutually cohesive chapters, carefully woven into a comprehensive whole that goes well beyond standard treatments. The subjects discussed include the fine structure of psychological time(s) and consciousness, novel algebraic geometrical and number theoretic models of time dimension, different arrows of time, time travel, EPR paradox, quantum non-locality, pregeometry, and a host of relevant epistemological and ontological issues. The book shows that...
