At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity Revised ed. Edition

The basic idea of Kauffman's book is that the complexity we see in nature (including life or technology) is contingent to math, i.e. can be explained and predicted by mathematical reasoning. The same is true of statistical thermodynamics and evolution. He states that Darwin's evolutionary theory explains only how complex life emerged from simple life, but it does not explain how simple life emerged from matter. There is probably a larger jump in complexity from matter to the first simple cell, than from that simple cell to a modern human being. Darwin does not explain that first jump. Kauffman doesn't either even though he is convincing in showing that life must have started through autocatalytic sets of molecules. He points out that these sets are self-organizing, stable and can vary as a reflex to external stimuli. What he mentions, but does not explain, is that autocatalytic sets can (or must) self-reproduce, a necessary step before evolution sets in. On page 66 of the paperback edition he states that "such breaking in two happens spontaneously as such [auto-catalytic] sets increase in volume", but, maddeningly, he does not explain how or why. One has to wonder: if life is such a necessary result of matter (therefore the title "at home in the universe") why then has it proven so difficult to synthesize anything approaching life in the laboratory? He doesn't say.The book is full of incredibly interesting ideas. He explains ontogeny (the transformation of a fertilized egg to a highly complex and differentiated organism) using a simple model of on/off enzymes which allows him to build a Boolean network in which different cell types correspond to different "attractors", which are intrinsic in such a network. He shows that the same relationship that holds between number of attractors and size of a network, also holds between number of cell types and size of DNA of a wide range of organisms. Very impressive. He goes on to discuss things like fitness landscapes and genetic algorithms, the edge between boring order and supracritical instability where the really interesting stuff happens, the co-evolution of coupled systems, the structure of efficient companies or countries, and more.The only criticism I have is about his poetical language that does indeed resemble fluff; anyone who even partly understands his ideas would be excited enough without all that sauce. Also I missed a deeper development, the book does point into one interesting direction and then jumps into another matter, leaving one hungering for more. But maybe this is the author's intent.This is an excellent book even though it resembles more a symphony of ideas than a theorem. Very highly recommended: a mind opener.

Kaufman's explanation of the deep structure revealed in complex systems is far-reaching. The material emergin from the Santa Fe Institute consistently seems so expansive and innovative that I've come to expect revolutionary ideas. This book is no disappointment. I read this book 20 years ago and re-read it recently. For those who remain current in their reading on complexity theory and self organizing systems this book may seem dated. However, it was pioneering when first published and still remains broad in its scope and in its depth of understanding. If you read nothing else in this book, read the final chapter,"An Emerging Global Civilization". Last year I read "The Better Angels of Our Nature" and when I see emergent phenomena like the Arab Spring I am hopeful that the self-organizing system of civilization will reveal deep order.

In the still not quite emerged area of emergence aka complexity/systems, some rare books look even better many years after their original publication. At Home in the Universe almost ranks with Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology and Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences) in that regard. This is in part because the area has such a fragmented vocabulary, reflecting a range of approaches which Kauffman is largely across due to his leadership at Santa Fe Institute in its highly productive first decade when its search for interdisciplinary insight outranked the search for marketable applications. In a search I did for a 2007 paper, Kauffman was second only to Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine for citations from the hard science end of the complex systems spectrum.There can be challenges in reading books like this and Bateson's in that significant parts have still not gained wider awareness. They can sound unfamiliar, lack substantive follow up and, I imagine, for those who have not long been on the emergence/complex/systems track, they may seem counter-intuitive. They predate catch phrases like "unknown unknowns" or "black swans" which might make their central relevance to today's challenges more obvious.Kauffman's unifying tactic is exploring how the least accessible parts of the panarchy of natural systems improve their position on fitness landscapes, a mathematical representation reliant on ready mental movement from higher dimensional state spaces to the hills and valleys of familiar physical topography. To that end, he has applied simplified models to search for general principles. His results support a strong case that large gains and radical change come early, after which it becomes an ever more difficult struggle to gainfully inch further from an established viable position. This principle enables him to propose convincing scenarios for the origin of life, the Cambrian explosion and contemporary technological change; arguably the three most significant things we could seek to understand since the origin of the multiverse.This book reflects the peak of Santa Fe's excitement over the edge of chaos--border of order, an idea for which I had come to feel the lone defender early this decade. It is a bemusing sidelight to finally reading this book in 2009, that my own as yet unpublished current research has finally made clear something that had been hinted at but never expressed outright since Wolfram's 1983 notion of Class 4 cellular automata: that we have set up a false dichotomy between chaos and order which we need to leave behind if we are ever to understand that essential complexity arises best in circumstances where there is creative synergy between even deterministic chaos and emergent order.My only real quibble with Kauffman is that he came to this work with a wish to justify his feeling that we should be "at home in the universe" rather than totally defined by historical contingencies, aka accidents. At least he is up front about wanting that finding and, by extension, an endorsement of capitalist/American triumphalism. It would have been preferable if he had come with an open mind to whatever he might find. I suspect reality might prove a bit more contingent than he would be comfortable with, but that his broad principles of fitness landscape navigation might also prove ever more useful as they are better understood.

Not only was the book delivered very quickly, its condition is exceptionally good! I’m more than happy with it!!

Herzlichen Dank für die Vermittlung und frühestmögliche Zusendung dieser wertvollen wissenschaftlichen Arbeit. Sehr empfehlenswert!

I bought this book because I had it pdf but I really like it, unfortunately the package an ld part of the cover was sliced as if someone tried to open it with a knife. This is the first time it happens to me, but I think seller should consider this, it beats me if the damage was made during packing or through delivery service.

The book I received was a good condition and the rapping was also perfect, so that I appreciate very much your arrangement. The book contains nice description how diversity and order originate by use of an totally new idea of complexity is understood.

This is an astonishing book which explores the nature of self organising processes and their role in the origins of life. At its heart is a profound question. `Is life and humankind the product of an incredibly luck and unlikely accident, or is humankind the natural product of order emerging from chaos.Stuart Kaufman has an engaging style and an enviable talent for illuminating and explaining ideas which might otherwise be impenetrable.He constructs a powerful case for the emergence of order from seeming chaos, and challenges some of our most basic scientific beliefs. He begins with the second law of thermodynamics which defines entropy as a measure of disorder that is claimed to always increase. Yet as he writes these words he looks from his window and all he can see is order, lovely order.From this simple starting point he begins an exploration of the limitations in adequately explaining the world we experience, of a scientific mindset framed by Newtonian thinking. Kaufman constructs a compelling case that the belief in a controllable `clockwork universe' is inadequate.He explores a wide range of examples of self-organisation and with his biological background homes in one of the most intriguing examples, `Ontology' the process by which a single cell repeatedly subdivides and creates the complex structure of a creature such as you or I.I think I wrote more notes reading this book than any other I've read. It covers some complex ground but whenever the going began to become challenging he would revert to a simple illustration to bring a new concept into focus.An absolutely stunning book.