Cogprints

The World as Evolving Information

Gershenson, Carlos (2007) The World as Evolving Information. [Preprint]

Warning

There is a more recent version of this eprint available. Click here to view it.

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF
132Kb

Abstract

This philosophical paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter difficulties because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms of matter and energy, falling into a dualist trap. However, if matter and energy, as well as life and cognition, are described in terms of information, evolution can be described consistently as information becoming more complex. Moreover, information theory is already well established and formalized. The paper presents five tentative laws of information, which are generalizations of Darwinian, cybernetic, thermodynamic, and complexity principles. These are further used to discuss the notions of life and cognition, including their origins and evolution.

Item Type:Preprint
Keywords:information, evolution, matter, energy, life, cognition
Subjects:Computer Science > Complexity Theory
Biology > Evolution
Philosophy > Epistemology
ID Code:5486
Deposited By: Gershenson, Carlos
Deposited On:26 Apr 2007
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:56

Available Versions of this Item

References in Article

Select the SEEK icon to attempt to find the referenced article. If it does not appear to be in cogprints you will be forwarded to the paracite service. Poorly formated references will probably not work.

1. Helbing, D., Vicsek, T.: Optimal self-organization. New Journal of Physics 1 (1999) 13.1–13.17

2. Ashby, W.R.: An Introduction to Cybernetics. Chapman & Hall, London (1956)

3. Heylighen, F., Joslyn, C.: Cybernetics and second order cybernetics. In Meyers, R.A., ed.: Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology. Volume 4. 3rd edn. Academic Press, New York (2001) 155–170

4. Wolfram, S.: A New Kind of Sciene. Wolfram Media (2002)

5. Wheeler, J.A.: Information, physics, quantum: the search for links. In Zurek, W.H., ed.: Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information. Volume VIII of Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Perseus Books, Reading, MA (1990)

6. Kauffman, S.A.: Investigations. Oxford University Press (2000)

7. Umpleby, S.: Physical relationships among matter, energy and information. In Trappl, R., ed.: Cybernetics and Systems 2004. Volume 1., Vienna, Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies (2004) 124–6

8. Morowitz, H., Smith, D.E.: Energy flow and the organization of life. Technical Report 06-08-029, Santa Fe Institute (2006)

9. Hopfield, J.J.: Physics, computation, and why biology looks so different. Journal of Theoretical Biology 171 (1994) 53–60

10. Roederer, J.G.: Information and its Role in Nature. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg (2005)

11. Gershenson, C.: Cognitive paradigms: Which one is the best? Cognitive Systems Research 5(2) (2004) 135–156

12. Cover, T.M., Thomas, J.A.: Elements of Information Theory. Wiley-Interscience (2006)

13. Prokopenko, M., Boschetti, F., Ryan, A.J.: An information-theoretic primer on complexity, self-organisation and emergence. Advances in Complex Systems (2007)

14. Floridi, L., ed.: The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Computing and Information. Blackwell (2003)

15. von Uexk ̈ull, J.: A stroll through the worlds of animals and men. In Schiller, C.H., ed.: Instinctive Behavior: The Development of a Modern Concept. International Universities Press, New York (1957) 5–80

16. Gershenson, C.: Design and Control of Self-organizing Systems. PhD thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2007)

17. Shannon, C.E.: A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal 27 (1948) 379–423 and 623–656

18. Wittgenstein, L.: Philosophical Investigations. 3rd edn. Prentice Hall (1999)

19. Adami, C.: What is complexity? Bioessays 24(12) (2002) 1085–1094

20. Bedau, M.A.: Four puzzles about life. Artificial Life 4 (1998) 125–140

21. Darwin, C.: The Origin of Species. Wordsworth (1998)

22. Dennett, D.: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Simon & Schuster (1995)

23. Martyushev, L.M., Seleznev, V.D.: Maximum entropy production principle in physics, chemistry and biology. Physics Reports 426(1) (2006) 1–45

24. McShea, D.W.: Metazoan complexity and evolution: Is there a trend? Evolution 50 (1996) 477–492

25. Langton, C.: Computation at the edge of chaos: Phase transitions and emergent computation. Physica D 42 (1990) 12–37

26. Kauffman, S.A.: The Origins of Order. Oxford University Press (1993)

27. Bak, P., Tang, C., Wiesenfeld, K.: Self-organized criticality: An explanation of the 1/f noise. Phys. Rev. Lett. 59(4) (1987) 381–384

28. Adami, C.: Self-organized criticality in living systems. Phys. Lett. A 203 (1995) 29–32

29. Atlan, H.: On a formal definition of organization. J Theor Biol 45(2) (1974) 295–304

30. Gershenson, C.: Introduction to random Boolean networks. In Bedau, M., Husbands, P., Hutton, T., Kumar, S., Suzuki, H., eds.: Workshop and Tutorial Proceedings, Ninth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (ALife IX), Boston, MA (2004) 160–173

31. Klyubin, A.S., Polani, D., Nehaniv, C.L.: Organization of the information flow in the perception-action loop of evolved agents perception-action loop of evolved agents. In Zebulum, R.S., Gwaltney, D., Hornby, G., Keymeulen, D., Lohn, J., Stoica, A., eds.: Proceedings of 2004 NASA/DoD Conference on Evolvable Hardware, IEEE Computer Society (2004) 177–180

32. Prokopenko, M., Gerasimov, V., Tanev, I.: Evolving spatiotemporal coordination in a modular robotic system. In Nolfi, S., Baldassarre, G., Calabretta, R., Hallam, J.C.T., Marocco, D., Meyer, J.A., Miglino, O., Parisi, D., eds.: From Animals to Animats 9: 9th International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB 2006). Volume 4095 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science., Springer (2006) 558–569

33. Klyubin, A.S., Polani, D., Nehaniv, C.L.: Representations of space and time in the maximization of information flow in the perception-action loop. Neural Computation (In Press)

34. Varela, F.J., Maturana, H.R., Uribe., R.: Autopoiesis: The organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. BioSystems 5 (1974) 187–196

35. McMullin, B.: 30 years of computational autopoiesis: A review. Artificial Life 10(3) (2004) 277–295

36. Ruiz-Mirazo, K., Moreno, A.: Basic autonomy as a fundamnental step in the synthesis of life. Artificial Life 10(3) (2004) 235–259

37. Barandarian, X.: Behavioral adaptive autonomy. a milestone in the alife route to ai? In Pollack, J., Bedau, M., Husbands, P., Ikegami, T., Watson, R.A., eds.: Artificial Life IX Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, MIT Press (2004) 514–521

38. Moreno, A., Ruiz-Mirazo, K.: The maintenance and open-ended growth of complexity in nature: information as a decoupling mechanism in the origins of life. In Capra, F., Juarrero, A., Sotolongo, P., van Uden, J., eds.: Reframing Complexity: Perspectives from the North and South. ISCE Publishing (2006)

39. Krakauer, D.C., Zanotto, P.M.A.: Viral individuality and limitations of the life concept. In Rasmussen, S., Bedau, M.A., Chen, L., Deamer, D., Krakauer, D.C., Packard, N., Stadler, D.P., eds.: Protocells: Bridging Nonliving and Living Matter. MIT Press (2007)

40. Michod, R.E.: Darwinian Dynamics: Evolutionary Transitions in Fitness and Individuality. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ (2000)

41. De Duve, C.: Live Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning. Oxford University Press (2003)

42. Stewart, J.: Cognition = life : Implications for higher-level cognition. Behavioural processes 35 (1995) 311–326

43. Shalizi, C.R.: Causal Architecture, Complexity and Self-Organization in Time Series and Cellular Automata. PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin at Madison (2001)

44. Görnerup, O., Crutchfield, J.P.: Hierarchical self-organization in the finitary process soup. Artificial Life (In Press) Special Issue on the Evolution of Complexity.

45. Ray, T.S.: An approach to the synthesis of life. In Langton, C., Taylor, C., Farmer, J.D., Rasmussen, S., eds.: Artificial Life II. Volume XI of Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA (1991) 371–408

46. Adami, C., Brown, C.T.: Evolutionary learning in the 2d artificial life system ”avida”. In Brooks, R., Maes, P., eds.: Proc. Artificial Life IV, MIT Press (1994) 377–381

47. Farmer, J.D., Zamani, N.: Mechanical vs. informational components of price impact. Technical Report 06-09-034, Santa Fe Institute (2006)

48. von Baeyer, H.C.: Information: The New Language of Science. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (2004)

Metadata

Repository Staff Only: item control page