Abstract
The framework is proposed where matter can be seen as related to energy in a way structure relates to process and information relates to computation. In this scheme matter corresponds to a structure, which corresponds to information. Energy corresponds to the ability to carry out a process, which corresponds to computation. The relationship between each two complementary parts of each dichotomous pair (matter/energy, structure/process, information/computation) are analogous to the relationship between being and becoming, where being is the persistence of an existing structure while becoming is the emergence of a new structure through the process of interactions. This approach presents a unified view built on two fundamental ontological categories: Information and computation. Conceptualizing the physical world as an intricate tapestry of protoinformation networks evolving through processes of natural computation helps to make more coherent models of nature, connecting non-living and living worlds. It presents a suitable basis for incorporating current developments in understanding of biological/cognitive/social systems as generated by complexification of physicochemical processes through self-organization of molecules into dynamic adaptive complex systems by morphogenesis, adaptation and learning—all of which are understood as information processing.
Highlights
The Question of Substance “There is some elementary but not widely understood theory that glues the whole thing together.” S
Aristotle (Metaphysics, Book VII) maintained that a specific substance is a combination of matter and form
In the book VIII of Metaphysics, Aristotle concludes that the matter of the substance is its substratum [2]
Summary
The Question of Substance “There is some elementary but not widely understood theory that glues the whole thing together.”. Modern physics shows that what appears as matter on one level of organization becomes form (structure) on the lower one. The world is more than what we know—with new types of experimental and theoretical tools and through interactions with other cognitive agents and by restructuring information in already existing knowledge we will learn more and differently. Differences are central, both in governing the behavior of a living being and in the construction of knowledge, as all information about the physical world is obtained through the interaction of living agents with the world, so it is about the relation between the cognizing agent (which is a specially organized subset of the world) with the world and with itself. Deacon [10] provides a good account of that special hierarchical organization of a subset of the world, which is a biological cognizing agent, starting with abiogenesis through self-organization of biological structures, which are used as building blocks in the subsequent construction of increasingly complex organizations
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