Stuart A. Kauffman's Books

At Home in the Universe

The Search for Laws of Self-organization and Complexity

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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At Home in the Universe

The Search for Laws of Self-organization and Complexity

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

At Home in the Universe presents and extends the intellectual core ofKauffman's earlier book The Origins of Order (OUP 1993) for any intelligentgeneral reader can understand and appreciate. The reader is very effectivelyinvited into Kauffman's vision and thought processes, in one of the moreexhilarating and important books of popular science.

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348

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Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195095995

ISBN 13

9780195095999

A World Beyond Physics

The Emergence and Evolution of Life

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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A World Beyond Physics

The Emergence and Evolution of Life

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

How did life start? Is the evolution of life describable by any physics-like laws? Stuart Kauffman's latest book offers an explanation-beyond what the laws of physics can explain-of the progression from a complex chemical environment to molecular reproduction, metabolism and to early protocells, and further evolution to what we recognize as life. 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 as a complex systems researcher 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. Evolution propagates this burgeoning organization. Evolving living creatures, by existing, create new niches into which yet further new creatures can emerge. If life is abundant in the universe, this self-constructing, propagating, exploding diversity takes us beyond physics to biospheres everywhere.

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169

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190871350

ISBN 13

9780190871352

Humanity in a Creative Universe

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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Humanity in a Creative Universe

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

Much of Stuart Kauffman's work in the philosophy of evolutionary biology has centered on the question of what he calls "prestatability" in evolution: that is, whether or not science can precisely predict the future development of biological features in organisms, using a singular "FinalTheory" of evolution. In this book, Kauffman argues that the development of life on earth is not prestatable, because no theory could ever fully account for the limitless variability of evolution. He believes that the biological universe's primary trait is that it is creative, and that acknowledgingthis creativity will lead to a radically different way in which humans view themselves and all other living beings. It is an argument against Reductive Materialism.Kauffman also asserts that man's Modern preoccupation to explain all things with scientific law has deadened our creative natures. In his words, he aims for the book to be "one that revises our scientific world view of the universe as entirely entailed by law." Instead, he advocates an approach toscience that accounts for "unprestatable" creativity, thus allowing humans to fully realize their creative selves. The book will build off the ideas developed in his last two works, Reinventing the Sacred and Investigations. Incorporating philosophers like Kant and Descartes, as well as the scienceof Newton and Darwin, Humanity in a Creative Universe is Stuart Kauffman's argument for a creative and unpredictable view of modern science.

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313

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199390452

ISBN 13

9780199390458

The Origins of Order

Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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The Origins of Order

Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

Stuart Kauffman here presents a brilliant new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. The book drives to the heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It focuses on the concept of self-organization: the spontaneous emergence of order that is widely observed throughout nature Kauffman argues that self-organization plays an important role in the Darwinian process of natural selection. Yet until now no systematic effort has been made to incorporate the concept of self-organization into evolutionary theory. The construction requirements which permit complex systems to adapt are poorly understood, as is the extent to which selection itself can yield systems able to adapt more successfully. This book explores these themes. It shows how complex systems, contrary to expectations, can spontaneously exhibit stunning degrees of order, and how this order, in turn, is essential for understanding the emergence and development of life on Earth. Topics include the new biotechnology of applied molecular evolution, with its important implications for developing new drugs and vaccines; the balance between order and chaos observed in many naturally occurring systems; new insights concerning the predictive power of statistical mechanics in biology; and other major issues. Indeed, the approaches investigated here may prove to be the new center around which biological science itself will evolve. The work is written for all those interested in the cutting edge of research in the life sciences.

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958

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199826676

ISBN 13

9780199826674

Reinventing the Sacred

A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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Reinventing the Sacred

A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...

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534

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ReadHowYouWant.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

1458722066

ISBN 13

9781458722065

At Home in the Universe

The Search for Laws of Self-organization and Complexity

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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At Home in the Universe

The Search for Laws of Self-organization and Complexity

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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348

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Oxford University Press, USA

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ISBN 10

0195095995

ISBN 13

9780195095999

Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

Protein, RNA, and the Immune System (Volume IX)

By: Alan S. Perelson

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Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

Protein, RNA, and the Immune System (Volume IX)

By: Alan S. Perelson

This book lays out a number of the general issues concerning the structure of rugged fitness landscapes and examines both the history and the current status of experimental work on somatic mutation and the maturation of the immune response.

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Page Count

328

Publisher

CRC Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

042996742X

ISBN 13

9780429967429

Reinventing the Sacred

A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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Reinventing the Sacred

A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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534

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ISBN 10

1458722066

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9781458722065

The Origins of Order

Self-organization and Selection in Evolution

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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The Origins of Order

Self-organization and Selection in Evolution

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

This monograph extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. It explains how complex systems, contrary to expectations, can spontaneously exhibit degrees of order.

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744

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195079515

ISBN 13

9780195079517

A World Beyond Physics

The Emergence and Evolution of Life

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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A World Beyond Physics

The Emergence and Evolution of Life

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

Explores the possiblity and process of evolution beyond the standard and established scientific principles.

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169

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ISBN 10

0190871334

ISBN 13

9780190871338

Investigations

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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Investigations

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

A fascinating exploration of the very essence of life itself sheds new light on the order and evolution in complex life systems and defines and explains autonomous agents and work within the contexts of thermodynamics and information theory, setting the stage for a dramatic technological revolution. 50,000 first printing.

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287

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

019512104X

ISBN 13

9780195121049

Humanity in a Creative Universe

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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Humanity in a Creative Universe

By: Stuart A. Kauffman

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313

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199390452

ISBN 13

9780199390458

Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

Protein, RNA, and the Immune System (Volume IX)

By: Alan S. Perelson

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Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

Protein, RNA, and the Immune System (Volume IX)

By: Alan S. Perelson

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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328

Publisher

CRC Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

042996742X

ISBN 13

9780429967429

Book's by Stuart A. Kauffman

At Home in the Universe

At Home in the Universe

A World Beyond Physics

A World Beyond Physics

Humanity in a Creative Universe

Humanity in a Creative Universe

The Origins of Order

The Origins of Order

Reinventing the Sacred

Reinventing the Sacred

At Home in the Universe

At Home in the Universe

Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

Reinventing the Sacred

Reinventing the Sacred

The Origins of Order

The Origins of Order

A World Beyond Physics

A World Beyond Physics

Investigations

Investigations

Humanity in a Creative Universe

Humanity in a Creative Universe

Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

Molecular Evolution on Rugged Landscapes

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