Che cos’è la vita? Complessità e significato in biologia

Abstract

This article examines the mysterious paths of self-organization, a fundamental characteristic of the bios, finally to explore, from an epistemological point of view, the profound reality of biological processes. On one hand, the article analyzes what is currently regarded as being among the most important discoveries not only in physics, namely, complex systems and deterministic chaos and, secondly, the new frontiers of contemporary biology or the functional genomics and systems biology. The central part, then, will focus on the transition epoch, within genetic epistemology, from genetic determinism to the new conception of meaning as an emergence. In other words, the brief discussion shows how the reductionism is to be completely revised in the light of new scenarios opened, in the last decade, by the study of meaning in biology.