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Table of Contents
Preface; Contents; Contributors; Part I From Physics to Biology; 1 From Physics to Semiotics; Introduction; Newton; Darwin; Monod and "Teleonomy"; Functions, Meanings, and Doings Are Real in the Universe; The Non-ergodic Universe Above the Complexity of the Atom; Kantian Wholes and the Reality of Functions and "Doings"; Collectively Autocatalytic DNA Sets, RNA Sets or Peptide Sets; Collectively Autocatalytic Sets Are the Simplest Cases of Kantian Wholes and the Peptide Parts Have Functions; Task Closure; Task Closure in a Dividing Bacterium; Biosemiosis Enters at this Point
Toward: No Entailing Laws, But Enablement in the Evolution of the Biosphere; The Uses of a Screw Driver Cannot Be Listed Algorithmically; Adaptations in an Evolving Cell Cannot Be Prestated; We Cannot Pre-state the Actual Niche of an Evolving Organism; Darwinian Preadaptations and Radical Emergence: The Evolving Biosphere, Without the "Action" of Selection, Creates Its Own Future Possibilities of Becoming; The Adjacent Possible; Without Natural Selection, the Biosphere Enables and Creates Its Own Future Possibilities; Evolution Often Does Not Cause, But Enables Its Future Evolution
Toward a Positive Science for the Evolving Biosphere Beyond Entailing Law; Re-enchantment and Creating a New World; How Much Magic Do We Want to Be Re-enchanted?; Bibliography; 2 Is Life Essentially Semiosis?; Introduction; A Confusion of Means with Ends?; Semiosis and Biological Functions; The "Absent Content"; Manufacturing Semiosis; Structural Determination; Conclusion; Bibliography; 3 Life in the Open Air; Life; What Does the "Is" Do in "What Is Life?"?; When We Ask "What Is Life?", What Is the "Other" That We Are Contrasting It with?; Why Interrogate This Boundary?; In; Air
The Air Has Its Own Life; The Air Carries the Signal of Life; The Organism Is "in" the Air; The Open; Life in the Open Air: For Us, Here, Now; Bibliography; 4 Reflections on Life: Lessons from Evolutionary Biology, with Insights from Sergius Bulgakov; Evolution as the Unifying Theory of Biology; The Relationship of Evolution and Ecology; Critiques of Evolution; The (Quasi-Scientific) Question of Chance in Science (and Evolution); The (Ideological) Question of "Animal Baseness"; The (Theological) Question of Causality; Concluding Thoughts: Lessons from Evolution; Bibliography
5 Life in Terms of Nano-biotechnologies; Introduction; What Is Life?; The "Technosciences" and the Making of the Living; Philosophical Consequences: The Reduction of a Living System to Its Functions; From the Representation of Life to the Ethics of the Living; Human Responsibility Facing the Limits of the Living; The View of the Christian Tradition: A Ternary Anthropology and Attention to the Lower; Conclusion; Bibliography; Part II Concepts of Life in Philosophy, Theology and Ethics; 6 Life: An Ill-Defined Relationship; What Is Life?; Do We Need a Definition of Life?
Toward: No Entailing Laws, But Enablement in the Evolution of the Biosphere; The Uses of a Screw Driver Cannot Be Listed Algorithmically; Adaptations in an Evolving Cell Cannot Be Prestated; We Cannot Pre-state the Actual Niche of an Evolving Organism; Darwinian Preadaptations and Radical Emergence: The Evolving Biosphere, Without the "Action" of Selection, Creates Its Own Future Possibilities of Becoming; The Adjacent Possible; Without Natural Selection, the Biosphere Enables and Creates Its Own Future Possibilities; Evolution Often Does Not Cause, But Enables Its Future Evolution
Toward a Positive Science for the Evolving Biosphere Beyond Entailing Law; Re-enchantment and Creating a New World; How Much Magic Do We Want to Be Re-enchanted?; Bibliography; 2 Is Life Essentially Semiosis?; Introduction; A Confusion of Means with Ends?; Semiosis and Biological Functions; The "Absent Content"; Manufacturing Semiosis; Structural Determination; Conclusion; Bibliography; 3 Life in the Open Air; Life; What Does the "Is" Do in "What Is Life?"?; When We Ask "What Is Life?", What Is the "Other" That We Are Contrasting It with?; Why Interrogate This Boundary?; In; Air
The Air Has Its Own Life; The Air Carries the Signal of Life; The Organism Is "in" the Air; The Open; Life in the Open Air: For Us, Here, Now; Bibliography; 4 Reflections on Life: Lessons from Evolutionary Biology, with Insights from Sergius Bulgakov; Evolution as the Unifying Theory of Biology; The Relationship of Evolution and Ecology; Critiques of Evolution; The (Quasi-Scientific) Question of Chance in Science (and Evolution); The (Ideological) Question of "Animal Baseness"; The (Theological) Question of Causality; Concluding Thoughts: Lessons from Evolution; Bibliography
5 Life in Terms of Nano-biotechnologies; Introduction; What Is Life?; The "Technosciences" and the Making of the Living; Philosophical Consequences: The Reduction of a Living System to Its Functions; From the Representation of Life to the Ethics of the Living; Human Responsibility Facing the Limits of the Living; The View of the Christian Tradition: A Ternary Anthropology and Attention to the Lower; Conclusion; Bibliography; Part II Concepts of Life in Philosophy, Theology and Ethics; 6 Life: An Ill-Defined Relationship; What Is Life?; Do We Need a Definition of Life?