ArticleCommunicative & integrative biology
How to deduce and teach the logical and unambiguous answer, namely L = ∑C, to "What is Life?" using the principles of communication?
Article in Communicative & integrative biology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed.
- The resolution of ambiguity as the basis for life: A cellular bridge between Western reductionism and Eastern holism.Progress in biophysics and molecular biology · 2017Review
- The evolution of "Life": A Metadarwinian integrative approach.Communicative & integrative biology · 2017Article
- Cognition, Information Fields and Hologenomic Entanglement: Evolution in Light and Shadow.Biology · 2016Article
- The cell's self-generated "electrome": The biophysical essence of the immaterial dimension of Life?Communicative & integrative biology · 2016Article
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Abstract
Is it possible to understand the very nature of 'Life' and 'Death' based on contemporary biology? The usual spontaneous reaction is: "No way. Life is far too complicated. It involves both material- and an immaterial dimensions, and this combination exceeds the capacities of the human brain." In this paper, a fully contrarian stand is taken. Indeed it will be shown that without invoking any unknown principle(s) unambiguous definitions can be logically deduced. The key? First ask the right questions. Next, thoroughly imbue contemporary biology with the principles of communication, including both its 'hardware' and its 'software' aspects. An integrative yet simple principle emerges saying that: 1. All living matter is invariably organized as sender-receiver compartments that incessantly handle and transfer information (= communicate); 2. The 'communicating compartment' is better suited to serve as universal unit of structure, function and evolution than 'the (prokaryotic) cell', the smallest such unit; 3. 'Living matter' versus 'non-living' are false opposites while 'still alive' and 'just not alive anymore' are true opposites; 4. 'Death' ensues when a given sender-receiver compartment irreversibly loses its ability to handle information at its highest level of compartmental organization; 5. The verb 'Life' (L) denotes nothing else than the total sum (∑) of all acts of communication (C) executed by a sender-receiver at all its levels of compartmental organization: L = ∑C; 6. Any act of communication is a problem-solving act; 6. Any Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) should have the definition of Life at its core.
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