Die Sonne des Guten

Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium vom 27. bis 30. Juni 1996 in Weimar an der Bauhaus-Universität zum Thema: ‚Techno-Fiction. Zur Kritik der technologischen Utopien

Nostradamus: Modern Methods of Prediction, Modeling and Analysis of Nonlinear Systems

This proceeding book of Nostradamus conference (http://nostradamus-conference.org) contains accepted papers presented at this event in 2012. Nostradamus conference was held in the one of the biggest and historic city of Ostrava (the Czech Republic, http://www.ostrava.cz/en), in September 2012. Conference topics are focused on classical as well as modern methods for prediction of dynamical systems with applications in science, engineering and economy. Topics are (but not limited to): prediction by classical and novel methods, predictive control, deterministic chaos and its control, complex systems, modelling and prediction of its dynamics and much more

Some elements for a history of the dynamical systems theory

Leon Glass would like to thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada) for its continuous support of curiosity-driven research for over 40 years starting with the events recounted here. He also thanks his colleagues and collaborators including Stuart Kauffman, Rafael Perez, Ronald Shymko, Michael Mackey for their wonderful insights and collaborations during the times recounted here. R.G. is endebted to the following friends and colleagues, listed in the order encountered on the road described: F. T. Arecchi, L. M. Narducci, J. R. Tredicce, H. G. Solari, E. Eschenazi, G. B. Mindlin, J. L. Birman, J. S. Birman, P. Glorieux, M. Lefranc, C. Letellier, V. Messager, O. E. Rössler, R. Williams. U.P. would like to thank the following friends and colleagues who accompanied his first steps into the world of nonlinear phenomena: U. Dressler, I. Eick, V. Englisch, K. Geist, J. Holzfuss, T. Klinker, W. Knop, A. Kramer, T. Kurz, W. Lauterborn, W. Meyer-Ilse, C. Scheffczyk, E. Suchla and M. Wisenfeldt. The work by L. Pecora and T. Carroll was supported directly by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and by ONR through the Naval Research Laboratory’s Basic Research Program. C.L. would like to thank Jürgen Kurths for his support to this project.Peer reviewedPostprintPublisher PD

Stepping Beyond the Newtonian Paradigm in Biology. Towards an Integrable Model of Life: Accelerating Discovery in the Biological Foundations of Science

The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented and less theoretical than physics. However, the key leverageable idea is that careful extension of the science of living systems can be more effectively applied to some of our most vexing modern problems than the prevailing scheme, derived from abstractions in physics. While these have some universal application and demonstrate computational advantages, they are not theoretically mandated for the living. A new set of mathematical abstractions derived from biology can now be similarly extended. This is made possible by leveraging new formal tools to understand abstraction and enable computability. [The latter has a much expanded meaning in our context from the one known and used in computer science and biology today, that is "by rote algorithmic means", since it is not known if a living system is computable in this sense (Mossio et al., 2009).] Two major challenges constitute the effort. The first challenge is to design an original general system of abstractions within the biological domain. The initial issue is descriptive leading to the explanatory. There has not yet been a serious formal examination of the abstractions of the biological domain. What is used today is an amalgam; much is inherited from physics (via the bridging abstractions of chemistry) and there are many new abstractions from advances in mathematics (incentivized by the need for more capable computational analyses). Interspersed are abstractions, concepts and underlying assumptions “native” to biology and distinct from the mechanical language of physics and computation as we know them. A pressing agenda should be to single out the most concrete and at the same time the most fundamental process-units in biology and to recruit them into the descriptive domain. Therefore, the first challenge is to build a coherent formal system of abstractions and operations that is truly native to living systems. Nothing will be thrown away, but many common methods will be philosophically recast, just as in physics relativity subsumed and reinterpreted Newtonian mechanics. This step is required because we need a comprehensible, formal system to apply in many domains. Emphasis should be placed on the distinction between multi-perspective analysis and synthesis and on what could be the basic terms or tools needed. The second challenge is relatively simple: the actual application of this set of biology-centric ways and means to cross-disciplinary problems. In its early stages, this will seem to be a “new science”. This White Paper sets out the case of continuing support of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transformative research in biology and information processing centered on paradigm changes in the epistemological, ontological, mathematical and computational bases of the science of living systems. Today, curiously, living systems cannot be said to be anything more than dissipative structures organized internally by genetic information. There is not anything substantially different from abiotic systems other than the empirical nature of their robustness. We believe that there are other new and unique properties and patterns comprehensible at this bio-logical level. The report lays out a fundamental set of approaches to articulate these properties and patterns, and is composed as follows. Sections 1 through 4 (preamble, introduction, motivation and major biomathematical problems) are incipient. Section 5 describes the issues affecting Integral Biomathics and Section 6 -- the aspects of the Grand Challenge we face with this project. Section 7 contemplates the effort to formalize a General Theory of Living Systems (GTLS) from what we have today. The goal is to have a formal system, equivalent to that which exists in the physics community. Here we define how to perceive the role of time in biology. Section 8 describes the initial efforts to apply this general theory of living systems in many domains, with special emphasis on crossdisciplinary problems and multiple domains spanning both “hard” and “soft” sciences. The expected result is a coherent collection of integrated mathematical techniques. Section 9 discusses the first two test cases, project proposals, of our approach. They are designed to demonstrate the ability of our approach to address “wicked problems” which span across physics, chemistry, biology, societies and societal dynamics. The solutions require integrated measurable results at multiple levels known as “grand challenges” to existing methods. Finally, Section 10 adheres to an appeal for action, advocating the necessity for further long-term support of the INBIOSA program. The report is concluded with preliminary non-exclusive list of challenging research themes to address, as well as required administrative actions. The efforts described in the ten sections of this White Paper will proceed concurrently. Collectively, they describe a program that can be managed and measured as it progresses

Chaos: the world of nonperiodic oscillations

Written in the 1980s by one of the fathers of chaos theory, Otto E. Rössler, the manuscript presented in this volume eventually never got published. Almost 40 years later, it remains astonishingly at the forefront of knowledge about chaos theory and many of the examples discussed have never been published elsewhere. The manuscript has now been edited by Christophe Letellier - involved in chaos theory for almost three decades himself, as well as being active in the history of sciences - with a minimum of changes to the original text. Finally released for the benefit of specialists and non-specialists alike, this book is equally interesting from the historical and the scientific points of view: an unconventionally modern approach to chaos theory, it can be read as a classic introduction and short monograph as well as a collection of original insights into advanced topics from this field

Chaotic harmony: a dialog about physics, complexity and life

This fascinating book written by Ali Sanayei and Otto E. Rössler is not a classic scientific publication, but a vivid dialogue on science, philosophy and  the interdisciplinary intersections of science and technology with biographic elements. Chaotic Harmony: A Dialog about Physics, Complexity and Life represents a discussion between Otto Rössler and his colleague and student, focusing on the different areas of science and highlights their mutual relations. The book's concept of interdisciplinary dialogue is  unusual nowadays although it has a long tradition in science. It provides insight not only into interesting topics that are often closely linked, but also into the mind of a prominent scientist in the field of physics, chaos and complexity in general. It allows a deep look into the fascinating process of scientific development and discovery and provides a very interesting background of known and unknown facts in the areas of complex processes in physics, cosmology, biology, brains and systems in general. This book will be valuable to all who are interested in science, its evolution and in an unconventional and original look at various issues. Surely it can serve as an inspiration for students, explaining the often overlooked fact that science and philosophy enrich each other