book

Information, The Hidden Side of Life

by Cédric Gaucherel, Pierre-Henri Gouyon, Jean-Louis Dessalles

April 2019

Beginner

212 pages

6h 1m

English

Wiley-ISTE

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I.1. We can change the medium without changing the informationI.2. Where does information exist?I.3. What is information?
1.1. Language, that amazing thing1.2. The mechanics of language1.3. What is syntax?1.4. Meaning1.5. Beyond meaning1.6. Non-human languages1.7. Types of language1.8. Why give information?1.9. The autonomy of information1.10. Language and information
2.1. A central concept in biology2.2. Epigenetic information2.3. The environment2.4. Information: from replication to reproduction2.5. Mutation and selection2.6. The story of the message: phylogeny and coalescence2.7. The point of view of the reading system2.8. We cannot see the wood for the trees2.9. The tree and the web … and some complexities there!2.10. When information and individual can no longer be confused2.11. Conflicts and levels of integration: avatars2.12. Sociobiology, altruism and information2.13. The “all genetics” versus epigenetics2.14. What is Life?
3.1. An information-centered perspective of the ecosystem3.2. Reservoirs of ecosystemic information3.3. Biodiversity: an ecosystem made up of individuals3.4. Phylogeny of communities: biology in the arena3.5. The ecosystem: a physical system or a biological system?3.6. An ecosystem made up of matter and energy3.7. Failure of the physical approach3.8. Physics has not said its last word3.9. The great challenges of ecology3.10. Flow and balance of ecosystemic information3.11. Ecosystemic codes3.12. The languages of the ecosystem
4.1. Information as surprise4.2. Information measured by complexity4.3. Information as organized complexity4.4. Information as compression4.5. Coding and information reading4.6. Memory
5.1. In the beginning was structure5.2. The first languages were ecosystemic5.3. The replicators and the conservators5.4. Biological languages5.5. Information selection5.6. Messages and languages5.7. The complexification of codes5.8. Complexification of languages5.9. The re-creation of life5.10. And what about tomorrow?