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Reviving the Living: Meaning Making in Living Systems Volume 6
Contributor(s): Neuman, Yair (Author)
ISBN: 0444530339     ISBN-13: 9780444530332
Publisher: Elsevier Science
OUR PRICE:   $193.05  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: May 2008
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Science | Philosophy & Social Aspects
- Science | Life Sciences - General
- Science | History
Dewey: 570.1
Series: Studies in Multidisciplinarity
Physical Information: 0.71" H x 7.18" W x 9.36" (1.60 lbs) 320 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Reviving the Living: Meaning Making in Living Systems presents a novel perspective that relates to current biological knowledge and issues. Written by polymath Dr. Yair Neuman, the book challenges the dogmas that frame our understanding of living systems and presents a radical alternative approach to understanding the world around us, one that avoids the pitfalls of non-scientific perspectives such as Vitalism and Creationism.

In this thought provoking and iconoclastic manuscript, Neuman follows the footsteps of Gregory Bateson, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michael Polanyi and others, to suggest that living systems are meaning making systems. The book delves into the unique processes of meaning making that characterize organisms as a unique category of nature, and offers new and fascinating insights into a variety of enigmatic biological phenomena from immune memory to hidden life (cryptobiosis). It consists of four parts divided into 18 chapters and covers topics ranging from reductionism and its pitfalls to genetics; why organisms are irreducible; immunology; meaning making in language and biology; meaning-bridging the gap between physics and semantics; context and memory; and the poetry of living. Core concepts and themes are illustrated using examples based in current science.

This text would be of high interest to biologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, psychologists, and semioticians, as well as to any reflective individual who is willing to examine the realm of the living from a novel and fascinating perspective.