Complexity Measures of Life

From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Wed Aug 06 2003 - 03:47:37 MDT

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    Some years ago I read an article that talked about different measures of
    complexity and how well they applied to the age-old problem of classifying
    living vs non-living systems.

    I remember that for one measure there was a graph that showed an irregular 2D
    region in the middle that they claimed was the domain of life. Chaos was at
    one end of the graph and Order was at the other. Prions lay outside this
    'life region' while virii and dormant seeds lay on the edges.

    The trouble is that I don't remember the source of the article or much more
    than I've just related. Has this rung any bells for anyone? Or can someone
    point me in the right direction? I've been digging through tons of online
    stuff about Complexity Theory, Self-Adaptive Systems, Artificial Life and the
    like without any luck yet.

    -- 
     Stirling Westrup  |  Use of the Internet by this poster
     sti@cam.org       |  is not to be construed as a tacit
                       |  endorsement of Western Technological
                       |  Civilization or its appurtenances.
    


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