Description
Book SynopsisPresents an understanding of the individual and social behaviour of living organisms. It shows that research into work organizations led to the realization that the difference between inanimate processes and living behaviour is that living behaviour is composed of intentional goal-directed work.
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction What Is Life? Overview
A Half Century of Findings on Work, Complexity, and Capability Work as Goal-directed Choice (laboro ergo sum) Complexity and Capability in Living Organisms
Laying the Groundwork Awareness, Signaling, Language and Other Basic Concepts Minds, Bodies, Reductionism, and Systems Theory Potential and Applied Capability Throughout the Living Kingdom
Life in the Pre-Linguistic World The Choice Making Functions of All Living Organisms The Whole Organism and Its Parts The Organism in Action Reality in the Sensible World as Cause-and-effect Testing
The Language-Suffused World of Humans The Evolutionary Emergence of Homo Sapiens, with Language and Consciousness The Fruits of Evolution The Spread of Homo Sapiens Across the World The Language Suffused World: Prometheus, Pandora, and the Unicorns Modern Alchemy and the Disruption of Capitalist Democracy
Time, Science, and Freedom Toward a Science-based Art of Social Ordering Values for a Living World: Freedom and Constraint, and Mutual Trust and Morals Some Retrospective Musings Glossary Bibliography Index
