Eons of coevolution of Earth and life seem to have favoured ecological relationships that enhanced the planet's habitability, endowing it with features resembling those of a living organism, including a capacity for self-regulation, albeit constrained. To survive in the world, living organisms must convert energy and matter from one form to another, sense their environment, and move through the world. Understanding living systems requires us to understand how information flows across many scales, from single molecules to groups of organisms. From harnessing energy dissipation for more reliable information transmission on the molecular scale to using novel network dynamics as a…
Primarily, life is a process. All living agents are constituted by elements that underlie physics and chemistry. Symbiotic relationships are an important component of life. Symbioses occurs within and across all scales of life, from microbial to macro-faunal systems. Symbiosis has also played a central role in the pre-biotic evolution, in the emergency and evolution of eukaryotes, in the origin of land plants, and in a myriad of adaptive evolutionary innovations. It is the main rule in nature, and the main evolutionary mechanism in the establishment and maintenance of biomes, as well as the foundation of biodiversity. Organisms living symbiotically and…
Staying optimistic in today's world can feel like a Herculean task. Societies and their organizational structures and systems are increasingly exposed to disruptive events. Variability and randomness are the rule in our complex world leading to deep uncertainty, often caused by the accumulation of a number of factors. The future, with its inherent unpredictability, can seem daunting, making it hard to envision a brighter tomorrow. Trespassing geobiophysical planetary boundaries, increasingly social inequality, demographic and cultural shifts, unequal distribution of health, income and wealth in a continuously globalizing world are interconnected and disruptive. Due to the growth of the world’s population, continued…
Het leven is een complex en fascinerend fenomeen dat ons al eeuwenlang bezighoudt. De zoektocht naar de betekenis van het leven en de betekenis in het leven zijn twee fundamentele vragen die vaak met elkaar verweven zijn, maar toch verschillende perspectieven bieden. De vraag naar de betekenis van het leven is een filosofische en existentiële kwestie die zich richt op het doel en de zin van het bestaan. Verschillende culturen, religies en filosofieën hebben uiteenlopende antwoorden gegeven op deze vraag. In religieuze contexten wordt de betekenis van het leven vaak gekoppeld aan een hogere macht of goddelijke bedoeling. Filosofen zoals…
