Notes on Robert Rosen (1934 - 1998), an American theoretical biologist:
‘What are the defining characteristics of a natural system for us to perceive it as being alive?’’ - Robert Rosen in "Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry Into the Nature, Origin, and Fabrication of Life"
"I do not consider myself a philosopher. I am a biologist, attempting to grapple with the Schrodinger question, “What is Life?” It turns out that this is not an empirical question, to be resolved through observation in a laboratory" - Robert Rosen in "Boundaries and barriers: On the limits to scientific knowledge" (1996)
"No finite organism can completely model the infinite universe, but even more to the point, the senses can only provide a subset of the needed information; the organism must correct the measured values and guess at the needed missing ones."..."Indeed, even the best guesses can only be an approximation to reality - perception is a creative process." - from "Robert Rosen: The Well Posed Question And Its Answer-why Are Organisms Different From Machines?" - by Donald C. Mikulecky
The human body completely changes the matter it is made of roughly every 8 weeks, through metabolism, replication and repair. Yet, you're still you --with all your memories, your personality... If science insists on chasing particles, they will follow them right through an organism and miss the organism entirely. — Robert Rosen, (as told to his daughter, Ms. Judith Rosen)
Presentation "Anticipatory Systems Theory: What the science of Life and Mind can teach us about science, itself" - by Judith Rosen
Presentation: "Robert Rosen And George Lakoff: The Role Of Causality In Complex Systems" - by Hamid Y. Javanbakht