Evolution of Information Processing Systems: An Interdisciplinary Approach for a New Understanding of Nature and Society

ISBN-13: 9783642772139 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 357 str.

Klaus Haefner

Opis

An interdisciplinary team of scientists is presenting a new paradigm: all existing structures on earth are the consequence of information processing. Since these structures have been evolved over the last five billion years, information processing and its systems have an evolution.This is under consideration in the book. Starting with a basic paper which summarizes the essential hypotheses about the evolution of informaion processing systems, sixteen international scientists have tried to verify or falsify these hypothesises. This has been done at the physical, the chemical, the genetic, the neural, the social, the societal and the socio-technical level. Thus, the reader gets an insight into the recent status of research on the evolution of information processing systems. The papers are the result of an interdisciplinary project in which scientists of the classical disciplines have been invited to collaborate. Their inputs have been intensively discussed in a workshop. The book is the output of the workshop. The first goal of the bookis to give the reader an insight into basic principles about the evolution of information processing systems. This, however, leads directly to a very old and essential question: who is controlling the world, "matter" or an "immaterial intelligence"? Several authors of the papers are arguing that there is a basic concept of information processing in nature. This is the crucial process, which, however, needs a material basis. The reader has a chance to understand this paradigm as an approach which is valid for all levels of inorganic, organic and societal structures. This provocative concept is open to debate.

Spis treści

I Basic Concept.- I.1 Evolution of Information Processing - Basic Concept.- II Contributions to the Concept of Information.- II.1 Information: Course and Recourse.- II.2 Aspects of Information.- II.3 Mathematical Aspects of PANINFORMATICA.- II.4 Process, Information Theory and the Creation of Systems.- II.5 Mega-Evolution of Information Processing Systems.- III Information Processing Systems at the Physical Level.- III.1 From “Matter-Energy” to “Irreducible Information Processing” - Arguments for a Paradigm Shift in Fundamental Physics.- III.2 Inorganic Matter as One of Four Levels of Natural Information Processing.- III.3 The Concept of Information Seen from the Point of View of Physics and Synergetics.- III.4 Dynamical Systems, Instability of Motion and Information Processing.- III.5 Pragmatic Information in Nonlinear Dynamo Theory for Solar Activity.- IV Information Processing in Biological Systems.- IV.1 Thermal Proteins in the First Life and the “Mind-Body” Problem.- IV.2 Remembering and Planning: A Neuronal Network Model for the Selection of Behaviour and its Development for Use in Human Language.- IV.3 Nature and Origin of Biological and Social Information.- V The Evolution of Information Processing Systems at the Social Level.- V.1 Unitary Trends in Sociocultural Evolution.- V.2 The Replicative Model of the Evolution of Business Organization.- VI The Evolution of Information Processing Systems at the Sociotechnical Level.- VI.1 Information Processing at the Sociotechnical Level.- VI.2 From Neural Information Processing to Knowledge Technology.- Epilogue and Bibliography.- Epilogue.