Dossier : Le groupe des Dix, des précurseurs de l'interdisciplinarité – Biology and complexity: Edgar Morin and Henri Atlan★

Abstract

This article considers the important contribution made by Edgar Morin and Henri Atlan – both members of the Groupe des Dix – to the theorisation of life and information. They have both played a major role in challenging the dominant determinist, mechanistic paradigm of molecular biology that emerged in the 1960s, and which has continued to influence thinking on biology up to the present day. The article will show how they explored key concepts, such as the principle of order from noise, in order to reorient thinking on life and information in terms of a new paradigm of complexity that stood as a radical challenge to the determinist paradigm. A key insight in this respect was the relationship between life, information and meaning.

Keywords

• research
• technology
• biology
• complexity
• information