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Embryogenesis, the process by which an organism forms and develops, has long been and still is a major field of investigation in the natural sciences. By which means, which forces, are embryonic cells and tissues assembled, deformed, and…
The dynamic instability of the living systems and the "superposition" of different forms of randomness are viewed as a component of the contingently increasing organization of life along evolution. We briefly survey how classical and…
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts…
Ever since the advent of molecular biology in the 1970s, mechanical models have become the dogma in the field, where a "true" understanding of any subject is equated to a mechanistic description. This has been to the detriment of the…
A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified, in connection with growing debate about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the key ideas can be explained…
The evolution of complexity has been a central theme for Biology [2] and Artificial Life research [1]. It is generally agreed that complexity has increased in our universe, giving way to life, multi-cellularity, societies, and systems of…
This contribution argues that the notion of time used in the scientific modeling of reality deprives time of its real nature. Difficulties from logic paradoxes to mathematical incompleteness and numerical uncertainty ensue. How can the…
Darwin's hypothesis that all extant life forms are descendants of a last common ancestor cell and diversification of life forms results from gradual mutation plus natural selection represents a mainstream view that has influenced biology…
Robustness, the ability of a system to maintain performance under significant and unanticipated environmental changes, is a critical property for robotic systems. While biological systems naturally exhibit robustness, there is no…
Let us reflect on the state of robotics. This year marks the $101$-st anniversary of R.U.R., a play by the writer Karel \v{C}apek, often credited with introducing the word "robot". The word used to refer to feudal forced labourers in Slavic…
Newton set the stage for our view of how science should be done. We remain in what I will call the `Newtonian Paradigm' in all of physics, including Newton, Einstein, and Schrodinger. As I will show shortly, Newton invented and bequeathed…
Integrative biological simulations have a varied and controversial history in the biological sciences. From computational models of organelles, cells, and simple organisms, to physiological models of tissues, organ systems, and ecosystems,…
Despite their widespread utility across domains, basic network models face fundamental limitations when applied to complex biological systems, particularly in neuroscience. This paper critically examines these limitations and explores…
For complex life to evolve, a sophisticated nervous system for handling its complexities was fundamental. The demand resulted in the emergence of brain's computational facility, the neuronal network. This facet of the brain is attested…
Understanding the origin(s) of life (OoL) is a fundamental challenge for science in the 21st century. Research on OoL spans many disciplines, including chemistry, physics, biology, planetary sciences, computer science, mathematics and…
As David Berlinski writes (1997), the existence and nature of mathematics is a more compelling and far deeper problem than any of the problems raised by mathematics itself. Here we analyze the essence of mathematics making the main emphasis…
With unprecedented advances in genetic engineering we are starting to see progressively more original examples of synthetic life. As such organisms become more common it is desirable to be able to distinguish between natural and artificial…
Ecosystems are commonly conceptualized as networks of interacting species. However, partitioning natural diversity of organisms into discrete units is notoriously problematic, and mounting experimental evidence raises the intriguing…
Although reproducibility is a core tenet of the scientific method, it remains challenging to reproduce many results. Surprisingly, this also holds true for computational results in domains such as systems biology where there have been…
The intricacy and diversity inherent in living organisms present a formidable obstacle to the establishment of a universally accepted definition. Life manifests in a multitude of forms, exhibiting various attributes such as growth,…