Theoretical Principles of Relational Biology: Space, Time, Organization (Human Perspectives in Health Sciences and Technology, 6)

This book proposes the foundation of the relational approach to biology, rejecting the deterministic and reductionist approach of molecular biology. Although biology has made enormous progress in the last seventy years, onto genesis is still conceived as a “revelation” of information (DNA). Recovering the geometric tradition, relational biology conceives scientific and epistemological tools (cause, probability, space etc.) of science in a new way. If probabilistic biology and organicism still proposes a biology based on physics, with a fundamental invariant, relational biology is based on variation: its fundamental invariant is variation, one of the most important elements of life. This is an indispensable book for academics who consider biology from a new theoretical approach, in particular for those working in the domains of cancer, ontogenesis and evolution. Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Bibliography Contents Part I Biological Relational Space Deterministic Biology Reduction and Reductionism Reductionism in Biology Physics Before Poincaré and Boltzmann Boltzmann: The Images of Nature Before Poincaré: Noise and Determinism Interactions in Deterministic and Reductionist Framework The Concept of Space as Container Bibliography Relational Biology The Concept of Relation and the Problem of Space The Relation The Relational Space and General Relativity From Physical Relational Space to Biological Relational Space Randomness, Probability and Measurement in Biology Physical Symmetries and Biological Breakings Bibliography Preserving Possibility Physics Biology From Possibility to Reality in Biology: The Concept of Thickness Contingency and Possibility Contingency and Context Contingency and ``Exceeding'' Possibility Thickness, Symmetrization and Variation Differences Without Concept Biology, Differences and Colors Biology and Relations Bibliography Part II Biological Times and Organizations The Problem of Time Considerations About Physical and Biological Time Measuring Time and Measuring Movement Time from Movement The Entropy Between Physics and Biology Entropy in Physics Entropy and Relational Biology Bibliography Times, Thickness and Relational Space Time, Thickness and Organization Time, Stability and Thickness Time, Stability and Organization Organization as Historical-Empirical A Priori Enablement, Thickness and Causality Cause and Enablement Enablement and Thickness Thickness and Causality Bibliography Ontophylogenesis, Interpretation and Symmetries Organisms, Plurality and Interpretation The Myth of ``Origin'' Symmetry and Plurality Traces and Symmetries Biological Traces Symmetries and Interpretation The Role of Symmetries and Traces The Interpretative Field Bibliography Conclusions Bibliography