Biological systems on all scales are confronted with the challenge of obtaining a future state that is coherent with environmental conditions and with previous states. These states are created by the active functioning of a set of constituents of the system. This activeset is selected from the larger set available to the system. Many social organizations are constrained by the need to reconcile coherence with their present environment and coherence with their past environments. To grow and survive, research laboratories, for example, have to select an active set of workers in response to new discoveries and to new funding initiatives but must reconcile this selection with the research history of the laboratory and, in particular, with its skills, experience, and interests. To grow and survive, bacteria must also select an active set of macromolecules in response to external and internal conditions. Such responses entail both the generation of a coherent cell state, in which the...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Norris, V. (1998). Bacteria as tools for studies of consciousness. In S. Hameroff, A. Kaszniak, & A. Scott (Eds.), Toward a science of consciousness II: The second tucson discussions and debates (pp. 397–405). Cambridge, USA: MIT Press.
Norris, V., & Norris, V. (1998). Modelling E. coli: The concept of competitive coherence. Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, 321, 777–787.
Norris, V., et al. (1999). Hypothesis: Hyperstructures regulate bacterial structure and the cell cycle. Biochimie, 81, 915–920.
Norris, V., Cabin, A., & Zemirline, A. (2005). Hypercomplexity. Acta Biotheoretica, 53, 313–330.
Norris, V., Engel, M., & Demarty, M. (2012). Modelling biological systems with competitive coherence. Advances in artificial neural systems, 2012, 1–20.
Van Regenmortel, M. H. V. (2004). Emergence in biology. In P. Amar, J.-P. Comet, F. Kepes, & V. Norris (Eds.), Modelling and simulation of biological processes in the context of genomics (pp. 123–132). Evry, France: Genopole.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Norris, V. (2013). Competitive Coherence. In: Runehov, A.L.C., Oviedo, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1200
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1200
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-8264-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-8265-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law