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Complexity Organizing Principles: Prerequisites for Life

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Philosophy of Systems Biology

Part of the book series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences ((HPTL,volume 20))

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“Will systems biology come to play a role in all future sciences, analogous to the role that Newton’s classical physics played across the entire range of other sciences? I think that systems biology has the potential to influence thinking in all sciences as well as the way we think about societal issues. Shifting from the input/output and complicated system paradigm to the complex multilevel system paradigm also provides a basis for better understanding how financial systems function, or ought to function. The world is multilevel: from global to local, from resources and environment to high finance and politics etc. We therefore need new theoretical frameworks for dealing with complex phenomena. I believe the time is right for a wakeup call.”

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Angiogenesis is a tissue forming process which originally was discovered as a prerequisite for cancer progression but has been identified in a number of other physiological processes as well, including wound healing, growth of neurons in the brain etc.

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Suggested Readings by Mihajlo Mesarović

  • Mesarović, M. (1968). Systems theory and biology – View of a theoretician. In M. Mesarović (Ed.), Systems theory and biology. Proceedings of the III systems symposium at case institute of technology (pp. 57–87). New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

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    Google Scholar 

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    Google Scholar 

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Correspondence to Mihajlo Mesarović .

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Mesarović, M. (2017). Complexity Organizing Principles: Prerequisites for Life. In: Green, S. (eds) Philosophy of Systems Biology. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47000-9_19

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