From Matter to Life
Information and Causality

This book tackles the most difficult and profound open questions about life and its origins from an information-based perspective.

Sara Imari Walker (Edited by), Paul C. W. Davies (Edited by), George F. R. Ellis (Edited by)

9781107150539, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 February 2017

514 pages, 49 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 4.3 cm, 0.88 kg

'Each contribution is written by an expert on the field, in a scientific style and fully referenced to scientific publications … there is no definite or easy answer to the questions about information as a physical entity or its role in emergence of life from matter, but a number of interesting points are made about the nature of information and its role in physical reality. It is interesting to see the way in which the various disciplines, mainly physics, chemistry, biology, information theory and related fields, but also philosophy and cognitive and social sciences approach the issue. [This book is] a collection of scientific essays on new questions and what the various disciplines have to provide in the approach to give answers. … It is an interesting read for all those who want their thoughts provoked around the origin of life and what role information can possibly have in it.' Manuel Vogel, Contemporary Physics

Recent advances suggest that the concept of information might hold the key to unravelling the mystery of life's nature and origin. Fresh insights from a broad and authoritative range of articulate and respected experts focus on the transition from matter to life, and hence reconcile the deep conceptual schism between the way we describe physical and biological systems. A unique cross-disciplinary perspective, drawing on expertise from philosophy, biology, chemistry, physics, and cognitive and social sciences, provides a new way to look at the deepest questions of our existence. This book addresses the role of information in life, and how it can make a difference to what we know about the world. Students, researchers, and all those interested in what life is and how it began will gain insights into the nature of life and its origins that touch on nearly every domain of science.

1. Introduction Sara Imari Walker, Paul C. W. Davies and F. R. Ellis
Part I. Physics and Life: 2. The 'hard problem' of life Sara Imari Walker and Paul C. W. Davies
3. Beyond initial conditions and laws of motion: constructor theory of information and life Chiara Marletto
Part II. Bio from Bit: 4. (How) did information emerge? Anne-Marie Grisogono
5. On the emerging codes for chemical evolution Jillian E. Smith-Carpenter, Sha Li, Jay T. Goodwin, Anil K. Mehta and David G. Lynn
6. Digital and analogue information in organisms Denis Noble
7. From entropy to information: biased typewriters and the origin of life Christoph Adami and Thomas Labar
Part III. Life's Hidden Information: 8. Cryptographic nature David Krakauer
9. Noise and function Steven Weinstein and Theodore Pavlic
10. The many faces of state space compression David Wolpert, Eric Libby, Joshua Grochow and Simon DeDeo
11. Causality, information and biological computation: an algorithmic software approach to life, disease and the immune system Hector Zenil, Angelika Schmidt and Jesper Tegnér
Part IV. Complexity and Causality: 12. Life's information hierarchy Jessica Flack
13. Living through downward causation: from molecules to ecosystems Keith D. Farnsworth, George F. R. Ellis and Luc Jaeger
14. Automata and animats: from dynamics to cause-effect structures Larissa Albantakis and Giulio Tononi
15. Biological information, causality and specificity – an intimate relationship Karola Stotz and Paul Griffiths
Part V. From Matter to Mind: 16. Major transitions in political order Simon DeDeo
17. Bits from biology for computational intelligence Michael Wibral, Joseph Lizier and Viola Priesemann
18. Machine learning and the questions it raises G. Andrew D. Briggs and Dawid Potgieter.

Subject Areas: Developmental biology [PSC], Evolution [PSAJ], Quantum physics [quantum mechanics & quantum field theory PHQ], Astronomy, space & time [PG], History of science [PDX], Philosophy of science [PDA]