Overview

To understand how complex dynamic systems, living or non-living, linguistic or non-linguistic, come to be organized as systems, to understand how their inherent dynamic nature gives rise to organizations and forms that have found a balance between potentiality for change and evolution on the one hand, and requisite stability in a given environment on the other, is the main ambition of the study of evolutionary systems. The aim of the present volume is to elucidate the scientific and philosophical backgrounds that play a role in the debate taking place in evolutionary systems, namely that on the relation between selection and self-organization. The book represents an interdisciplinary forum in which the major representatives of evolutionary systems take part.

Full Product Details

Author:   Fons J. R. van de Vijver ,  Stanley N. Salthe ,  Manuela Delpos
Publisher:   Springer
Imprint:   Springer
Edition:   1998 ed.
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   1.790kg
ISBN:  

9780792352600

ISBN 10:   0792352602
Pages:   438
Publication Date:   31 October 1998
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Evolution: Model or metaphor?.- The role of natural selection theory in understanding evolutionary systems.- Darwinism and developmentalism: Prospects for convergence.- Towards high evolvability dynamics.- The beginning of the end: On the origin of final cause.- Emergence of life and biological selection from the perspective of complex systems dynamics.- Self-organization and self-construction of order.- Self-organization and optimization: Conflicting or complementary approaches?.- Pleiotropy and the evolution of adaptibility.- The unified theory and selection processes.- Information increase in biological systems: How does adaptation fit?.- Canonical ensembles, evolution of competing species, and the arrow of time.- Spontaneous order, evolution, and autocatakinetics: The nomological basis for the emergence of meaning.- Pragmatic information and the emergence of meaning.- Emergence of chaos in evolving Volterra ecosystems.- Immanent causality: A Spinozist viewpoint on evolution and theory of action.- Causality as constraint.- Evolutionary systems and the four causes: A real Aristotelian story?.- Evolution as its own cause and effect.- Dealing with complex systems or how to decipher language and organisms.- The unfolding semiosphere.- Competence of natural languages for describing the physical origin of life.- Towards a “meta-ethic” derived from evolutionary lineages.- On some relations between cognitive and organic evolution.- Selected self-organization and the semiotics of evolutionary systems.- Towards an evolutionary semiotics: The emergence of new sign-functions in organisms and devices.- The evolution of the symbolic domain in living systems and artificial life.- Embodiment of natural and artificial agents.- Are life and meaning coextensive ?.

Reviews

'...the book is a statement of exciting open problems at the interface of self-organization and selection, and of how multidisciplinary perspectives can help refine evolutionary theory. It should prove valuable to future work on the subject.' The Quarterly Review of Biology, 76:3(2001)

`...the book is a statement of exciting open problems at the interface of self-organization and selection, and of how multidisciplinary perspectives can help refine evolutionary theory. It should prove valuable to future work on the subject.' The Quarterly Review of Biology, 76:3(2001)

...the book is a statement of exciting open problems at the interface of self-organization and selection, and of how multidisciplinary perspectives can help refine evolutionary theory. It should prove valuable to future work on the subject.' The Quarterly Review of Biology, 76: 3(2001)

'...the book is a statement of exciting open problems at the interface of self-organization and selection, and of how multidisciplinary perspectives can help refine evolutionary theory. It should prove valuable to future work on the subject.' The Quarterly Review of Biology, 76:3(2001)

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