This book, by an eminent scientist and philosopher, provides strong evidence for the claim that language is a general principle of Nature, rooted exclusively in physical and chemical laws. The author’s radical idea inevitably leads us to view the essence, origin and evolution of life in a completely new light. It shifts the coordinates of our scientific world-view in favor of an overarching concept of language that is able to bridge the gap between matter and mind. At the same time, it removes a blind spot in the Darwinian concept of evolution.
To justify this far-reaching idea, the book takes a long and deep look at our scientific and philosophical thinking, at language as such, at science’s claim to truth, and at its methods, unity, limits and perspectives. These are the cornerstones structuring the book into six thematically self-contained chapters, rounded off by an epilogue that introduces the new topic of Nature’s semantics. The range of issues covered is a testimony to how progress in the life sciences is transforming the whole edifice of science, from physics to biology and beyond. The book is aimed at a broad academic and general readership; it requires no mathematical expertise.

lgli/Kuppers B.-O. The language of living matter.. How molecules acquire meaning (FC, Springer, 2022)(ISBN 9783030803186)(O)(525s)_PPh_.pdf

Küppers, Bernd-Olaf

Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The Frontiers collection, Cham, Switzerland, 2022

Springer Nature, Cham, 2022

Switzerland, Switzerland

1st ed. 2021, 2022

Title
Copyright
Epigraph
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Bridging the Gap between Matter and Meaning
References
Contents
1 Language: Gateway to the World
1.1 Forms of Knowledge
1.2 Toward a New Atlantis
1.3 Language and the World
1.4 What is Information?
1.5 The Genetic Script
1.6 Symbolic Forms
1.7 Excursion into the Empire of Signs
1.8 Context-Dependence of Signs and Language
1.9 Contextual Aspects of Science
1.10 Context Principle and Quantum Physics
References
2 Truth: The Regulative Principle of Cognition
2.1 What is Truth?
2.2 The Search for True Being
2.3 One or Two Worlds?
2.4 Empiricism Against Rationalism
2.5 The Copernican Revolution of Thought
2.6 Speculative Rank Growth
2.7 Knowledge and Pseudo-Knowledge
2.8 Approaching Truth by Evolution?
2.9 Practical Truth
2.10 Truths Without Truth?
References
3 Methods: Ways of Gaining Knowledge
3.1 Implicit Knowledge
3.2 The Aesthetics of Cognition
3.3 Is “Understanding” a Method?
3.4 Fundamentalism of Understanding
3.5 Facets of Holism
3.6 The Problem of Non-separability
3.7 The Mechanistic Paradigm
3.8 The Reductionist Research Program
3.9 Misunderstandings
3.10 Anything Goes?
References
4 Unity: The Deep Structure of Science
4.1 Toward the Unity of Science
4.2 The General and the Particular
4.3 The Structure of Scientific Explanations
4.4 Can History Become the Subject of Exact Science?
4.5 Mass Action and Cooperativity
4.6 Temporal Depth
4.7 The Double Nature of Causality
4.8 The Abstract World of Boundary Conditions
4.9 The Ascent of Structural Sciences
4.10 What Task Remains for the Human Sciences?
References
5 Limits: Insights into the Reach of Science
5.1 The Enigmatic Reference to the “Self”
5.2 Incomplete and Undecidable
5.3 How Complicated is the Complex?
5.4 Limits of Objective Knowledge
5.5 Circular Reasoning
5.6 The Impossibility of a Perpetual Motion Machine
5.7 Fluid Boundaries
5.8 The World of “As-Well-As”
5.9 The Fuzziness of Truth
5.10 Limits of Conceptual Thinking
References
6 Perspectives: Designing Living Matter
6.1 We Must Know, We Shall Know
6.2 How the “Impossible” Becomes Possible
6.3 Genetic Information and Communication
6.4 Reprogramming Gene Expression
6.5 Artificial Evolution
6.6 Pathways to Artificial Life
6.7 Toward Artificial Intelligence
6.8 Modeling Semantic Information
6.9 The Grammar of Genetic Language
6.10 Language-Driven Evolution
References
7 Epilog: Nature’s Semantics
7.1 Unforeseen Progress
7.2 Future Visions: Organic Technology
7.3 Control by Renunciation?
7.4 The Phantom of Instrumental Reason
7.5 Only Knowledge Can Control Knowledge
7.6 The Nature of Ecological Balance
7.7 Does Nature Pursue Purposes?
7.8 Nature as a Cultural Task
7.9 Nature’s Intrinsic Proportions
7.10 Science in the Age of Global Change
References
Author Index
Subject Index

2024-08-01