What is Life?

Book excerpt: Ch. 1. All the colors of a rainbow in a worm or: what is life? / Reinhard Eichelbeck -- ch. 2. Life - a problem inherent in the research context / Franz-Theo Gottwald -- ch. 3. Truth and knowledge / Wolfram Schommers -- ch. 4. The formative powers of developing organisms / Lev V. Beloussov -- ch. 5. Electromagnetic, symbiotic and informational interactions in the kingdom of organisms / Gunter M. Rothe -- ch. 6. Dead molecules and the live organism / Roeland Van Wijk -- ch. 7. Inanimate and animate matter: orderings of immaterial connectedness - the physical basis of life / Hans-Peter Dürr -- ch. 8. Communication - basis of life / Lebrecht von Klitzing -- ch. 9. Can biological effects emerge from inorganic nano-systems? / Michael Rieth and Wolfram Schommers -- ch. 10. Substantial and non-substantial structure in living systems / Jiin-Ju Chang (Jinzhu Zhang) -- ch. 11. On the essence of life - a physical but nonreductionistic examination / Hans-Jürgen Fischbeck -- ch. 12. Coherent excitations in living biosystems and their implications: a qualitative overview / G.J. Hyland -- ch. 13. Biophotonics - a powerful tool for investigating and understanding life / Fritz-Albert Popp -- ch. 14. Biophoton and the quantum vision of life / R.P. Bajpai -- ch. 15. Quantum mechanics, computability theory and life / John Swain -- ch. 16. Bose-Einstein condensation of photons, does it play a vital role in the understanding of life? / Eberhard Müller