A World Beyond Physics: The Emergence and Evolution of Life

by Stuart A. Kauffman Narrated by Bob Souer

Overview

Among the estimated one hundred billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere.



Building on concepts from his work at the Santa Fe Institute, Kauffman focuses in particular on the idea of cells constructing themselves and introduces concepts such as "constraint closure." Living systems are defined by the concept of "organization" which has not been focused on in enough in previous works. Cells are autopoetic systems that build themselves: they literally construct their own constraints on the release of energy into a few degrees of freedom that constitutes the very thermodynamic work by which they build their own self creating constraints. Living cells are "machines" that construct and assemble their own working parts. The emergence of such systems-the origin of life problem-was probably a spontaneous phase transition to self-reproduction in complex enough prebiotic systems. The resulting protocells were capable of Darwin's heritable variation, hence open-ended evolution by natural selection.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"A World Beyond Physics, broken into short chapters and written with infectious enthusiasm and exclamation marks, is meant as an introduction to the importance of emergence in biology." — Kevin Schilbrack, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

"makes for stimulating reading . . . [Kauffman's] prose is reader-friendly and thought-provoking . . . I highly recommend Kauffman's book to anyone interestedin the ongoing scientific enterprise to model the transition from physical to living systems." — Ragnar van der Merwe, University of Johannesburg, Metascience

"This is a delightful little book that considers the classic question, "What is life?" — P. K. Strother, CHOICE

"A World Beyond Physics is a well-written and thought provoking book. It should prove a worthwhile read for anyone with an undergraduate knowledge of biology and physics who is interested in amore philosophical take on the origins, complexities, and evolution of life." — Rebekah Hall, Mathematical & Statistical Sciences and Daniel A. Charlebois, Physics, University of Alberta, The Quarterly Review of Biology

"For persons with the requisite scientific background, the book will be very rewarding to read...The book has many applications to the science and theology interchange..." — Jay R. Feierman, European Society for the Study of Science and Theology News and Reviews

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173095206
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	10/08/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos