Abstract
The biological forms that surround us or that are the physical manifestation of our own existence deserve particular attention. Not just because of the transcendental beauty that we ascribe to them emotionally, but also for fundamental scientific reasons. The primus inter pares of these reasons is the concept of functional form. The sunflower, the structure of a seashell or the form of our organs are not solely the result of a process optimising the emergence, robustness and reproducibility of these forms; they also include a notion of two-scale functionality: the functionality of the form itself, and its functionality in the context of a living organism composed of several forms. The ultimate functionality that can be attributed to any living organism is its reproduction. Consequently, the different functions of the constituent forms of an organism must obey this same global raison d’être.
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Smet-Nocca, C., Paldi, A., Benecke, A. (2011). From Epigenomic to Morphogenetic Emergence. In: Bourgine, P., Lesne, A. (eds) Morphogenesis. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13174-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13174-5_8
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