In this book, the authors describe the long journey from formless inanimate matter to man, explaining the nature and the logic of the physical-chemical processes involved. It stresses the limitations of reductionism analyses of these processes as complexity increases and novel properties emerge. And, in particular, the authors develop the idea that it was chemical change of the environment that allowed evolution of life to occur and that this evolution required successive addition of new message systems and information codes connected, compatible, and cooperative with previous extant systems....