Chaos and Order – The Complex Structure of the Living An Extract: Two Dialogues

Abstract

Recently the author has published a book (in German) with the above title. In nine chapters the problem of biological structures, their evolution and transient character are treated. This is one of the rare books in which difficult problems are dealt with in an easily readable fashion. In it, the author has used an unusual technique in order to introduce the reader to the subject: Each of the nine chapters begins with a fictitious dialogue in which in most cases Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, the famous Göttingen physicist and philosopher of the 18th century, is one of the discussion partners. The dialogues are made up of original quotations by Lichtenberg and the particular partner. Here, two of the dialogues are translated into English by the author.