Self-Modifying Systems in Biology and Cognitive Science

Preface. Introduction. Models of life and mind. Pitfalls of dynamical models. A Constructive Approach to Models. Foundations. Causality and determinism: 'why'-s and 'how'-s. Time and information. Observables. The concept of information set. Encodings of observables into variables. The modelling relation. From Observations to a Theory of Dynamics. The Zeno paradoxes and the shuttle principle. On the notion of state. Anticipation and the existence proof for states. Material and formal implications. The Mechanistic Universe. An alternative view of mechanics. Dynamics as statics: the walled-in universe. The atomistic perspective. The nature of mechanistic systems. Component-Systems: Beyond Algorithmic Dynamics. The concept of component-system. Origins of the concept. Problem properties. The concept of immensity. The main theorem. Universal libraries. Creation and non-algorithmic self-modification. Complexity and Its Increase in Systems. The concept of complexity. Mathematical complexity theory. Relative complexity. Dynamic complexity. The increase of complexity. Self-Reproduction and Computation. Self-replication as a means for existence. Self-reproducing automata. Construction, reproduction and computation. Self-reference and autopoiesis. A model of self-reproduction. The Wigner paradox. The Concept of Information. Syntactic information concepts. Semantic concepts. Towards a causal theory. Two types of information: knowledge and action. Perspective. Law, form, and meaning: three vistas of causality. The Church-Turing hypothesis. References. Index. Authors index.