The mathematical theory of communication.

This paper compares the two known logical forms of hierarchy, both of which have been used in models of natural phenomena, including the biological. I contrast their general properties, internal formal relations, modes of growth (emergence) in applications to the natural world, criteria for applying them, the complexities that they embody, their dynamical relations in applied models, and their informational relations and semiotic aspects.

Providing a new conceptual scaffold for further research in biology and cognition, this book introduces the new field of cognitive biology, a systems biology approach showing that further progress in this field will depend on a deep recognition of developmental processes, as well as on the consideration of the developed organism as an agent able to modify and control its surrounding environment. The role of cognition, the means through which the organism is able to cope with its environment, cannot be (...) underestimated. In particular, it is shown that this activity is grounded on a theory of information based on Bayesian probabilities. The organism is considered as a cybernetic system able to integrate a processor as a source of variety (the genetic system), a regulator of its own homeostasis (the metabolic system), and a selecting system separating the self from the non-self (the membrane in unicellular organisms). Any organism is a complex system that can survive only if it is able to maintain its internal order against the spontaneous tendency towards disruption. Therefore, it is forced to monitor and control its environment and so to establish feedback circuits resulting in co-adaptation. Cognitive and biological processes are shown to be inseparable. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam, who may have been the first philosopher to advance the notion that the computer is an apt model for the mind, takes a radically new view of his...

The lectures have afforded me an opportunity of developing more fully than in my earlier books the principles of philosophic thought associated with the modern advances of physical science. It is often said that there is no "philosophy of ...

J'ai fait dernierement (etant a un endroit ou quelques jours durant je n'avais rien a faire) un petit discours de Metaphysique, dont je serais bien aise d'avoir le sentiment de M. Arnauld. Leibniz annoncait en ces termes, en fevrier 1686, a l'un de ses nombreux correspondants, l'achevement tout recent de ces fameux trente sept articles. Ce discours offre, avec une remarquable densite, le premier grand expose d'ensemble des principes generaux d'une metaphysique qui jusque la se cherchait encore a travers de (...) nombreux travaux partiels; c'est cette synthese, qui sera bientot reprise par d'innombrables opuscules, qui inspirera encore les grandes oeuvres de maturite (Theodicee, Monadologie, Principes de la nature et de la grace). (shrink)

Unpopular in its day, David Hume's sprawling, three-volume A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) has withstood the test of time and had enormous impact on subsequent philosophical thought. Hume's comprehensive effort to form an observationally grounded study of human nature employs John Locke's empiric principles to construct a theory of knowledge from which to evaluate metaphysical ideas. A key to modern studies of eighteenth-century Western philosophy, the Treatise considers numerous classic philosophical issues, including causation, existence, freedom and necessity, and morality. (...) Unabridged republication of the edition originally published by Oxford at the Clarendon Press, London, 1888. Index. Appendix. (shrink)