A coherent and comprehensive theory of life that synthesizes the specific properties of living organisms. Despite continued advances, science has until now struggled to describe the specific properties that define a living being. By synthesizing several aspects of organismic biology and contemporary science, Properties of Life by Bernd Rosslenbroich generates a coherent concept of the singular quality of being alive—a concept that provides a crucial foundation for scientists, farmers, and medical practitioners and helps explain how we all interact with the world around us and within ourselves. Is an organism an aggregate of parts or an integrated system with agency? Is it a passive stimulus-response machine or a being equipped with subjectivity and consciousness? Rosslenbroich argues that the way people in different fields understand life determines their assumptions about organic function and behavior. In medicine, this extends to the human organism, which influences prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Drawing attention to a long-standing but underappreciated line of thought in organismic biology, Rosslenbroich’s original idea emphasizes the autonomy of living processes, their network characteristics, and their self-determined organization in time and structure. A timely and revelatory book, Properties of Life formulates an integrated, unified theory that remains flexible enough to accommodate future developments and resilient enough to withstand the challenges of different theoretical and disciplinary backgrounds.
This volume describes features of autonomy and integrates them into the recent discussion of factors in evolution. In recent years ideas about major transitions in evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. They include questions about the origin of evolutionary innovation, their genetic and epigenetic background, the role of the phenotype and of changes in ontogenetic pathways. In the present book, it is argued that it is likewise necessary to question the properties of these innovations and what was qualitatively generated during the macroevolutionary transitions. The author states that a recurring central aspect of macroevolutionary innovations is an increase in individual organismal autonomy whereby it is emancipated from the environment with changes in its capacity for flexibility, self-regulation and self-control of behavior. The first chapters define the concept of autonomy and examine its history and its epistemological context. Later chapters demonstrate how changes in autonomy took place during the major evolutionary transitions and investigate the generation of organs and physiological systems. They synthesize material from various disciplines including zoology, comparative physiology, morphology, molecular biology, neurobiology and ethology. It is argued that the concept is also relevant for understanding the relation of the biological evolution of man to his cultural abilities. Finally the relation of autonomy to adaptation, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and other factors and patterns in evolution is discussed. The text has a clear perspective from the context of systems biology, arguing that the generation of biological autonomy must be interpreted within an integrative systems approach.
A coherent and comprehensive theory of life that synthesizes the specific properties of living organisms. Despite continued advances, science has until now struggled to describe the specific properties that define a living being. By synthesizing several aspects of organismic biology and contemporary science, Properties of Life by Bernd Rosslenbroich generates a coherent concept of the singular quality of being alive—a concept that provides a crucial foundation for scientists, farmers, and medical practitioners and helps explain how we all interact with the world around us and within ourselves. Is an organism an aggregate of parts or an integrated system with agency? Is it a passive stimulus-response machine or a being equipped with subjectivity and consciousness? Rosslenbroich argues that the way people in different fields understand life determines their assumptions about organic function and behavior. In medicine, this extends to the human organism, which influences prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Drawing attention to a long-standing but underappreciated line of thought in organismic biology, Rosslenbroich’s original idea emphasizes the autonomy of living processes, their network characteristics, and their self-determined organization in time and structure. A timely and revelatory book, Properties of Life formulates an integrated, unified theory that remains flexible enough to accommodate future developments and resilient enough to withstand the challenges of different theoretical and disciplinary backgrounds.
This volume describes features of autonomy and integrates them into the recent discussion of factors in evolution. In recent years ideas about major transitions in evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. They include questions about the origin of evolutionary innovation, their genetic and epigenetic background, the role of the phenotype and of changes in ontogenetic pathways. In the present book, it is argued that it is likewise necessary to question the properties of these innovations and what was qualitatively generated during the macroevolutionary transitions. The author states that a recurring central aspect of macroevolutionary innovations is an increase in individual organismal autonomy whereby it is emancipated from the environment with changes in its capacity for flexibility, self-regulation and self-control of behavior. The first chapters define the concept of autonomy and examine its history and its epistemological context. Later chapters demonstrate how changes in autonomy took place during the major evolutionary transitions and investigate the generation of organs and physiological systems. They synthesize material from various disciplines including zoology, comparative physiology, morphology, molecular biology, neurobiology and ethology. It is argued that the concept is also relevant for understanding the relation of the biological evolution of man to his cultural abilities. Finally the relation of autonomy to adaptation, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and other factors and patterns in evolution is discussed. The text has a clear perspective from the context of systems biology, arguing that the generation of biological autonomy must be interpreted within an integrative systems approach.
Since 2006, specialists, doctors, psychologists, and therapists of Parzival-Zentrum Karlsruhe have taken part in emergency education crisis interventions, carried out by the organization Friends of Friends of Waldorf Education. They work with psychologically traumatized children and young people in war zones and disaster areas, including Lebanon, China, the Gaza Strip, Indonesia, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, and most recently in Japan following the tsunami there and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Bernd Ruf, who heads these operations, describes in his book in various ways the basics of anthroposophically extended “emergency education,” including the anthroposophic understanding of trauma itself. In addition, he describes processes and experiences, focusing on recent experiences in Japan at the center of his descriptions. Educating Traumatized Children offers much-needed insight into this little-known area of education and healing for traumatized children and young people. This book will be valuable not only for those working in areas of disaster and armed conflict, but also for any teacher or parent who is teaching or caring for a traumatized child.
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