Paul Davies - Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics

Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...89

Information and the Nature of Reality

From Physics to Metaphysics

Many scientists regard mass and energy as the primary currency of nature. In recent years, however, the concept of information has gained importance.

In this book, eminent scientists, philosophers, and theologians chart various aspects of information, from quantum information to biological and digital information, in order to understand how nature works. Beginning with a historical treatment of the topic, the book also examines physical and biological approaches to information, and the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications.

Information and the Nature of Reality
From Physics to Metaphysics

Edited by

Paul Davies

Arizona State University

Niels Henrik Gregersen

Copenhagen University

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, So Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521762250

P. Davies and N. Gregersen 2010

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2010

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-76225-0 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To the memory of Arthur R. Peacocke (19242006 )

About the authors

Philip Clayton

(PhD Yale, 1986) is Ingraham Professor of Theology, Claremont School of Theology, and Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Claremont Graduate University. His areas of research include science and religion, philosophical theology, constructive theology, and metaphysics. He is author of God and Contemporary Science (1998) and Mind and Emergence (2004) and he has more recently written Adventures in the Spirit (2008) and In Quest of Freedom: The Emergence of Spirit in the Natural World (2009). Among his influential edited books are The Re-Emergence of Emergence (2006, with Paul Davies) and The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (2006).

Paul Davies

(PhD London, 1970) has held university positions at Cambridge, London, Newcastle, Adelaide, and Sydney before joining Arizona State University as Professor and Director of Beyond: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He has helped develop quantum field theory, and alongside his scientific work in cosmology and atomic astrophysics he has maintained interests in the origin of time asymmetry and astrobiology. He has written more than 25 books, both popular and specialist works, including About Time (1995), The Fifth Miracle (1998), How to Build a Time Machine (2002), The Goldilocks Enigma (2007) and The Eerie Silence (2010). He has received many awards, including the 2001 Kelvin Medal, the 2002 Faraday prize, and in 1995 the Templeton Prize.

Terrence W. Deacon

(PhD Harvard, 1984) taught for many years at Harvard University and Boston University, until in 2002 he joined the Department of Anthropology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at University of California, Berkeley. In his many articles and book chapters, Deacons research combines human evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the investigation of the evolution of human cognition. His acclaimed book, The Symbolic Species: the Co-Evolution of Language and Brain , was published in 1997, and has been translated into several languages. In 2007 he was awarded the Staley Prize by the School of American Research.

Niels Henrik Gregersen

(PhD Copenhagen University, 1987) is Professor of Systematic Theology at Copenhagen University, and Co-Director of the Centre for Naturalism and Christian Semantics. His areas of research are contemporary theology and science and religion, with a special emphasis on the complexity sciences and current developments in evolutionary biology. He is author of four books and more than 150 scholarly articles. He has edited or co-edited 15 books on science and religion, including Design and Disorder (2001), From Complexity to Life (2003), and The Gift of Grace (2005).

John F. Haught

(PhD Catholic University, 1970) is Senior Fellow, Science & Religion, Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University. His area of specialization is systematic theology, with a particular interest in issues pertaining to science, cosmology, evolution, ecology, and religion. He is the author of 17 books, most of them on the subject of science and religion. His latest books are: God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens (2008) and Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and the Drama of Life (2010).

Jesper Hoffmeyer

is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen. Hoffmeyer did work in experimental biochemistry in the 1970s, but gradually turned his research interests towards questions of theoretical biology: since 1988 in biosemiotics. Recent publications include A Legacy of Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics (2008) (as editor) and his major work Biosemiotics : An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs (2008).

Bernd-olaf Kppers

studied physics and mathematics at the universities of Bonn and Gttingen. From 1971 to 1993 he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Gttingen. Since 1994 he has been Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and since 2008 also Director of the Frege Centre for Structural Sciences. Books include Molecular Theory of Evolution (1985), Information and the Origin of Life (1990), Natur als Organismus (1992), Nur Wissen kann Wissen beherrschen (2008) and Wissen statt Moral (2010). He is a member of Germanys National Academy of Sciences and of the Academia Europaea, London.

Seth Lloyd

received his BA in physics from Harvard, his MPhil in philosophy of science from Cambridge, and his PhD in physics from Rockefeller University under the supervision of Heinz Pagels. After working at Caltech and Los Alamos, he joined the faculty at MIT, where he is Professor of Quantum-Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses on how physical systems process information. Lloyd was the first person to develop a realizable model for quantum computation. He is the author of Programming the Universe (2006) and is currently the Director of the W. M. Keck Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory at MIT.

Ernan Mcmullin

is the OHara Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Founder Director of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science at the Notre Dame University. As a philosopher of science he has written and lectured extensively on subjects ranging from the relationship between cosmology and theology to the impact of Darwinism on Western religious thought. Among the books he has written or edited are The Concept of Matter (1963), Newton on Matter and Activity (1978), Construction and Constraint: The Shaping of Scientific Rationality (1988), The Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory (with James Cushing, 1989), The Church and Galileo (2005).

Next page

1234567...89

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics»

Look at similar books to Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Jonathan D Oldfield

The Soviet Union and Global Environmental Change: Modifying the Biosphere and Conceptualizing Society-Nature Interaction

David Kreps

Against Nature: The Metaphysics of Information Systems

Renes

Quantum Information Theory: Concepts and Methods (De Gruyter Textbook)

Douglas Raber

The Problem of Information: An Introduction to Information Science

Young

Information security science: measuring the vulnerability to data compromises

Davies

The demon in the machine: how hidden webs of information are solving the mystery of life

Dessalles Jean-Louis

Information, the Hidden Side of Life

Aguirre Anthony Nicholas

It From Bit or Bit From It?: On Physics and Information

Koji Tsuboi

Proton Beam Radiotherapy: Physics and Biology

Vinod K. Mishra

An Introduction to Quantum Communication

Werner Loewenstein

Physics in Mind: A Quantum View of the Brain

Jan Eijck

Logic and information flow

Discussion, reviews of the book Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.