“As I thought about this, I noted that the bacterium is just a physical system; it's just a bunch of molecules that hang together and do things to one another. So, I wondered, what characteristics are necessary for a physical system to be an autonomous agent? After thinking about this for a number of months I came up with a tentative definition.
My definition is that an autonomous agent is something that can both reproduce itself and do at least one thermodynamic work cycle. It turns out that this is true of all free-living cells, excepting weird special cases. They all do work cycles, just like the bacterium spinning its flagellum as it swims up the glucose gradient. The cells in your body are busy doing work cycles all the time.”

— Stuart Kauffman

The Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart Kauffman, 2003

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Stuart Kauffman 14

American biophysicist 1939

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“In his famous book, What is Life?, Erwin Schrödinger asks, "What is the source of the order in biology?" He arrives at the idea that it depends upon quantum mechanics and a microcode carried in some sort of aperiodic crystal—which turned out to be DNA and RNA—so he is brilliantly right. But if you ask if he got to the essence of what makes something alive, it's clear that he didn't. Although today we know bits and pieces about the machinery of cells, we don't know what makes them living things. However, it is possible that I've stumbled upon a definition of what it means for something to be alive.
For the better part of a year and a half, I've been keeping a notebook about what I call autonomous agents. An autonomous agent is something that can act on its own behalf in an environment. Indeed, all free-living organisms are autonomous agents. Normally, when we think about a bacterium swimming upstream in a glucose gradient we say that the bacterium is going to get food. That is to say, we talk about the bacterium teleologically, as if it were acting on its own behalf in an environment. It is stunning that the universe has brought about things that can act in this way. How in the world has that happened?”

Stuart Kauffman (1939) American biophysicist

The Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart Kauffman, 2003

“I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality.
We are … all aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday-Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing ("real") should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow "exist" independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend the type of measurement carried out in the part of space A; it should also be independent of whether or not a measurement is made in A.
If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.
However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I don't see at all what physics is supposed to be describing. For what is thought to be a "system" is after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about parts.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"What must be an essential feature of any future fundamental physics?" Letter to Max Born (March 1948); published in Albert Einstein-Hedwig und Max Born (1969) "Briefwechsel 1916-55", and in Potentiality, Entanglement and Passion-at-a-Distance: Quantum Mechanical Studies for Abner Shimony, Volume Two edited by Robert Cohen, Michael Horn, and John Stachel (1997), p. 121 http://books.google.com/books?id=DsNoIcQemTsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA121#v=onepage&q&f=false
1940s

“I never even think about the physicality of roles, until honestly I get the gig and I think, 'OK, now what do I have to do in this one?' Like, I approach it thinking more about the character -- do I respond to it? Is it something I think I can play? Does it seem like it'll be fun?”

Halle Berry (1966) American actress

Betsy Pickle (November 21, 2003) "Berry's tough break - Actress stretches to physical max in 'Gothika'", The Knoxville News-Sentinel, p. 12.

“The thought definitely crosses my mind, but for me, it has always been about reading great scripts and finding things I relate to, and this was one of those. As an actor, I think you always want your work to do well, and I think that’s hopefully what’s going to happen. Hopefully this movie does turn out as great as everyone wants it to be, and hopefully we don’t disappoint anyone.”

Liam Hemsworth (1990) Australian actor

On risks of becoming famous after The Hunger Games. — November 1, 2012, Q&A: Liam Hemsworth on The Hunger Games and Losing Weight for His Role, Krista Smith, November 8, 2011, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/11/Liam-Hunger-Games-Post,

“Ellen: I think one of the turning points in my life came a few years ago. I started going to sleep at night just talking to myself, saying, "You're perfect just the way you are," because I used to beat myself up about weight and working out, and no matter what I did I never felt good about myself. I decided to accept myself and know that I am good. Just those affirmations every night changed my belief in who I was because I had been told for so long, over and over, that I was something else. That brings us to another agreement: Don't make assumptions—because we assume that when people do something or say something to you, they mean just what we think they mean.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Ellen DeGeneres' interview with The Four Agreements Author don Miguel Ruiz which appeared in the October 2001 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

“I was definitely getting the hang of this skating thing. I'd started to copy a fancy cross-over turn from a German girl in front of me, and it was working pretty well. I was just about keeping up with her too, which was pleasing. She must have been about six.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

The Gun Seller (1996)

“Conventional physics deals only with closed systems, i. e. systems which are considered to be isolated from their environment… However, we find systems which by their very nature and definition are not closed systems. Every living organism is essentially an open system. It maintains itself in a continuous inflow and outflow, a building up and breaking down of components, never being, so long as it is alive, in a state of chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium but maintained in a so-called steady state which is distinct from the latter.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Source: General System Theory (1968), 7. Some Aspects of System Theory in Biology, p. 166-167 as quoted in: Eugene Thacker (2004) Biomedia. University of Minnesota Press. p. 150

“A physical system is just that: a physical system. What is systematized is matter itself, and the processes in which the system is realized are also material. But a biological system is more complex: it is both biological and physical — it is matter with the added component of life; and a social system is more complex still: it is physical, and biological, with the added component of social order, or value. … A semiotic system is still one step further in complexity: it is physical, and biological, and social —and also semiotic: what is being systematized is meaning. In evolutionary terms, it is a system of the fourth order of complexity”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Michael Halliday (2005, p. 68) as cited in: Andrew Halliday and Marion Glaser (2011) "A Management Perspective on Social Ecological Systems". In: Human Ecology Review, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2011.
1970s and later

“I lived in Hollywood and, ironically, I didn't know you could just go out and get an agent and go on auditions and try and become an actor, I thought it was like a Masonic thing, like a blood line you had to belong to - until I was 13. Then I realised what you had to do. It is the one thing I know I want to do for the rest of my life.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

“In a previous paper (Gaines, 1978) on progress in general systems research… I avoided the issue of defining a system. I noted that no definitions are satisfactory, and it seemed to me the essence of the subject area that none can be so. I went on to say that it is the systems approach—emphasizing lack of disciplinary boundaries, the freedom to apply knowledge, and techniques gathered in one field to problems in another, or to suggest that two distinct fields are in fact one, the disciplined freedom of the unconstrained intellect—that has been the source of dynamism and progress. I noted that perhaps the most telling progress of all is that we can so confidently speak of a common field of interest knowing that we could not, and would not wish to, agree on a definition of what a system is.”

Brian R. Gaines (1938) British computer scientist

Gaines is refering here to his 1978 article "Progress in general systems research". In Klir, G. J. (ed.), Applied General Systems Research, New York: Plenum Press, 1978, pp. 3-28.
General systems research: quo vadis? (1979)

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Stuart Kauffman 14

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