Related papers: A Probabilistic Framework for Quantifying Biologic…
Why life is complex and --most importantly-- what is the origin of the over abundance of complexity in nature? This is a fundamental scientific question which, paraphrasing the late Per Bak, "is screaming to be answered but seldom is even…
Despite the obvious advantage of simple life forms capable of fast replication, different levels of cognitive complexity have been achieved by living systems in terms of their potential to cope with environmental uncertainty. Against the…
The unprecedented prowess of measurement techniques provides a detailed, multi-scale look into the depths of living systems. Understanding these avalanches of high-dimensional data -- by distilling underlying principles and mechanisms --…
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…
Life has a special status, it even has its own science: biology. In many ways, the logic of life seems to differ from that of atoms, molecules, planets, or any other `inanimate object'. However, life is increasingly measured using…
The vast chemical space of possible small molecules, estimated at 10^60 compounds for molecules composed of just C, N, O, and S, is only sparsely occupied by biology. We propose that where life selects molecules within this space…
This paper explores the idea that information is an essential and distinctive feature of living systems. Unlike non-living systems, living systems actively acquire, process, and use information about their environments to respond to…
Data complexity is an important concept in the natural sciences and related areas, but lacks a rigorous and computable definition. In this paper, we focus on a particular sense of complexity that is high if the data is structured in a way…
Building blocks of life such as amino acids, nucleobases, and fatty acids are central to prebiotic chemistry and represent key targets in the search for planetary biosignatures. In planetary materials, biomolecules typically occur at trace…
Large area astronomical surveys will almost certainly contain new objects of a type that have never been seen before. The detection of 'unknown unknowns' by an algorithm is a difficult problem to solve, as unusual things are often easier…
The importance of structured, complex connectivity patterns found in several real-world systems is to a great extent related to their respective effects in constraining and even defining the respective dynamics. Yet, while complex networks…
Many standard structural quantities, such as order parameters and correlation functions, exist for common condensed matter systems, such as spherical and rod-like particles. However, these structural quantities are often insufficient for…
Although it has been notoriously difficult to pin down precisely what it is that makes life so distinctive and remarkable, there is general agreement that its informational aspect is one key property, perhaps the key property. The unique…
We propose a measure, the joint differential entropy of eigencolours, for determining the spatial complexity of exoplanets using only spatially unresolved light curve data. The measure can be used to search for habitable planets, based on…
Biology has taken strong steps towards becoming a computer science aiming at reprogramming nature after the realisation that nature herself has reprogrammed organisms by harnessing the power of natural selection and the digital prescriptive…
There is currently a rapid increase in the number of challenge problem, benchmarking datasets and algorithmic optimization tests for evaluating AI systems. However, there does not currently exist an objective measure to determine the…
The emergence of cosmic structure is commonly considered one of the most complex phenomena in Nature. However, this complexity has never been defined nor measured in a quantitative and objective way. In this work we propose a method to…
Complexity science offers a wide range of measures for quantifying unpredictability, structure, and information. Yet, a systematic conceptual organization of these measures is still missing. We present a unified framework that locates…
Chaos, or exponential sensitivity to small perturbations, appears everywhere in nature. Moreover, chaos is predicted to play diverse functional roles in living systems. A method for detecting chaos from empirical measurements should…
Discovered by Christopher Alexander, living structure is a physical phenomenon, through which the quality of the built environment or artifacts can be judged objectively. It bears two distinguished properties just like a tree: "far more…