An exploration of life through a transdisciplinary lens.
LIFE: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry explores life through the lenses of relationships among communication, nature, and society. The contributors, who come from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, investigate everyday life and expand upon an integrative account of media as environments and technologies. By including collaborations from internationally known scholars from the physical sciences, life sciences, cognitive sciences, and the arts, LIFE addresses issues from a transdisciplinary perspective, emphasizing how information and communication are instrumental in and for living systems.
LIFE: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry explores life through the lenses of relationships among communication, nature, and society. The contributors, who come from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, investigate everyday life and expand upon an integrative account of media as environments and technologies. By including collaborations from internationally known scholars from the physical sciences, life sciences, cognitive sciences, and the arts, LIFE addresses issues from a transdisciplinary perspective, emphasizing how information and communication are instrumental in and for living systems.
424 pages | 38 halftones | 6.69 x 9.61 | © 2023
Earth Sciences: Environment
Physical Sciences: History and Philosophy of Physical Sciences
Table of Contents
Preface to a Trilogy
Introduction
Genealogy
1. ‘Life, Nature and Systems’, Fritjof Capra
2. ‘What is Life?’, Mark A. Bedau
3. ‘Why Life Cannot Be Defined’, Carol E. Cleland
Information and Ecologies
4. ‘Propagating Organization: An Enquiry’, Stuart Kauffman, Robert K. Logan, Robert Este, Randy Goebel, David Hobill and Ilya Shmulevich
5. ‘Friends, Neighbours and Enemies: An Overview of the Communal and Social Biology of Plants’, Roza D. Bilas, Amanda Bretman and Tom Bennett
6. ‘The Conceptual Ecology of the Human Microbiome’, Nicolae Morar and Brendan J. M. Bohannan
Enactions and Values
7. ‘From Life to Mind’, Mark L. Johnson
8. ‘Metabolism and Drift’, Thomas Nail
9. ‘From ALife to No Life: On Mediatic Contexts of Life and Death’, Jussi Parikka
Ecomediations and Education
10. ‘Media and Information Literacies for a Living World: Engaging with a Cyberist Era’, Divina Frau-Meigs
11. ‘Journalistic Learning and Intentional Teaching with Technologies: STEM and Rural Communities’, Ed Madison
12. ‘Dirtying Ecocinema Studies’, Salma Monani and Stephen Rust
Syntheses and Biodesigning
13. ‘System Dynamics, Machine Learning and Structural Validation’, William A. Schoenberg and Jeremy Swartz
14. ‘Life from the Edge of Synthetic Biology’, Pier Luigi Luisi
15. ‘Templating Life: DNA as Nature’s Hard Drive, Version 2.0’, Mél Hogan and Tessa J. Brown
Artful Lives and Metaliving
16. ‘Aqueous Mediums, Urban Architectures, Anadromous Being’, Brook Muller
17. ‘Satoyama and the Art of Rural Regeneration’, Diane Durston
18. ‘Metaliving’, Jeremy Swartz
Appendix: Exhibition • Experience • Nature
Notes on Contributors
Index
Introduction
Genealogy
1. ‘Life, Nature and Systems’, Fritjof Capra
2. ‘What is Life?’, Mark A. Bedau
3. ‘Why Life Cannot Be Defined’, Carol E. Cleland
Information and Ecologies
4. ‘Propagating Organization: An Enquiry’, Stuart Kauffman, Robert K. Logan, Robert Este, Randy Goebel, David Hobill and Ilya Shmulevich
5. ‘Friends, Neighbours and Enemies: An Overview of the Communal and Social Biology of Plants’, Roza D. Bilas, Amanda Bretman and Tom Bennett
6. ‘The Conceptual Ecology of the Human Microbiome’, Nicolae Morar and Brendan J. M. Bohannan
Enactions and Values
7. ‘From Life to Mind’, Mark L. Johnson
8. ‘Metabolism and Drift’, Thomas Nail
9. ‘From ALife to No Life: On Mediatic Contexts of Life and Death’, Jussi Parikka
Ecomediations and Education
10. ‘Media and Information Literacies for a Living World: Engaging with a Cyberist Era’, Divina Frau-Meigs
11. ‘Journalistic Learning and Intentional Teaching with Technologies: STEM and Rural Communities’, Ed Madison
12. ‘Dirtying Ecocinema Studies’, Salma Monani and Stephen Rust
Syntheses and Biodesigning
13. ‘System Dynamics, Machine Learning and Structural Validation’, William A. Schoenberg and Jeremy Swartz
14. ‘Life from the Edge of Synthetic Biology’, Pier Luigi Luisi
15. ‘Templating Life: DNA as Nature’s Hard Drive, Version 2.0’, Mél Hogan and Tessa J. Brown
Artful Lives and Metaliving
16. ‘Aqueous Mediums, Urban Architectures, Anadromous Being’, Brook Muller
17. ‘Satoyama and the Art of Rural Regeneration’, Diane Durston
18. ‘Metaliving’, Jeremy Swartz
Appendix: Exhibition • Experience • Nature
Notes on Contributors
Index