From Matter to Life: Information and Causality

This is an outstanding review of what I believe is the central problem in all of biology: Where does the information come from?Biology is vastly easier to understand and simpler to explain in information terms than purely chemicals. This asks the question: How do you get from chemicals to code? What are the possible emergent properties?This is a survey of many views including various chemical scenarios. But it goes much, much further by looking at cellular automata, philosophy and ontology; various aspects of information theory, communication, epistemology and knowledge, by numerous top-shelf researchers.Davies and Walker are both at ASU, which is arguably the leading "deepest questions of science" research program in academia and there is a boldness here - and an honesty - that is not typically found in origin of life books. This book emphasizes the systemic, mathematical and conceptual problems as opposed to the mere physics and chemistry problems. There is no hesitation to look at philosophical questions.I thought the best chapter was actually the introduction, where the central problem of information was clearly and forcefully laid out. If you're interested in origin of life OR the information problem in biology, this book needs to be in your library.

Nice

very good actualization of the subject

A terrific review, highly recommended

Walker and Davies are eminent materialists in their fields, and have done impressive work concerning the current paradigm of science, that is, there is nothing but matter.But this paradigm was dealt a lethal blow by the likes of Maxwell, Planck , and Einstein, and 100 years later, material science is still in the ICU on ‘life’ support.The origins of the universe are chaos until we find the first organization, the Hydrogen atom. The authors make this ‘matter’ reference but do not follow with their oft-stated goal of the philosophy behind all material states. It would seem then , that the most critical philosophy would be found behind the primordial core of all existence- the hydrogen atom, without which nothing at all exists.Walker and Davies hint that there is a ‘deeper layer’but donot consider any mechanism by which this is possible.Consciousness, the principal aspect of life, can be considered here as the summit of that ‘irreducible complexity’ yet the authors do not account for the ‘deeper layer’ that even precedes the first ‘matter’ - the complex non tangible formation of the hydrogen atom.They have not considered the cyclical processes of energy creating ‘matter’ and vice- versa, as Einstein stated, thereby omitting the philosophic conundrum of the chicken and the egg. That the plan of the chicken must precede its manifestation as the egg is now 2nd grade science.Another effort by Walker and Davies to provide credibility to the shaking tower of physical sciences, without offering that very philosophy required to return it to the world of humanity.