J. Doyne Farmer

"The basic principle of an autocatalytic network is that even though nothing can make itself, everything in the pot has at least one reaction that makes it, involving only other things in the pot. It's…"

"Speaking crudely, a living system—an organism—consists of a symbiotic relationship between a metabolism and a replicator. ...the replicator contains the blueprint of the organism, with the information…"

"It seemed that fundamental physics was stuck. The particle physicists were smashing particles into each other with ever increasing force, trying to figure out how many quarks could dance on the head o…"

"The paradox that immediately bothers everyone who learns about the second law is this: If systems tend to become more disordered, why, then, do we see so much order around us? ...It seems to conflict …"

"One of the factors that caused Spencer's ideas to lose popularity was social Darwinism... Social evolution is different from biological evolution: it's faster, it's Lamarckian, and it makes even heavi…"

"On learning more astronomy, in the phenomenon of "averted vision," I found a justification for my rationale about the roundabout path to metaphysics via physics: to see a faint star, it's necessary to…"

"We don't know what organization is. ...We do know that complex adaptive systems have to be nonlinear and capable of storing information. ...We know a little bit about what distinguishes an adaptive co…"

"Rational adventure in a physical setting is becoming increasingly rarer in the world. The evolution of technology and infrastructure has altered the kind of adventures that we can have, so that people…"