This book discusses a fundamental problem of the natural sciences, namely the observation of physical and biological systems and the principles by which we gain information about these systems. The contributions to this book have been carefully written and edited so as to be understandable to readers from all branches of the natural sciences.

Inhalt

1. General Aspects.- Objectification as an Endo-Exo Transition.- Action Principles and Teleology.- Internal Time and Temporality.- Biological Evolution as a Process Viewed Internally.- Internal and External Representations of Mental Processes.- What Can We Learn From Internal Observers?.- The Image and the Picture of Ecology.- 2. The Perspective of Theoretical Physics.- Endophysics Descartes Taken Seriously.- Endo- and Exo-Theories of Matter.- Temporal Bell Inequalities: A Journey to the Limits of Consistent Histories.- Entropy and Evolution.- General Remarks on Complexity.- Observing Complexity and the Complexity of Observation.- Extrinsic-Intrinsic Concept and Complementarity.- 3. The Perspective of Cognitive Science.- Time A Hidden Window to Dynamics.- Sensory Perceptions and the Endo-Exo Interface: Towards a Physics of Cognitive Processes.- Circular Causality and the Human Self-Organized Endo-Exo Interface.- Epistemological Considerations of Neural Representations of Languages.- Semantic Pressure, Hyper-Systems, and Feelings.- Wigner's Friend Revitalized?.- The Mental System A Mathematical/Physical Approach.