An interdisciplinary team of scientists is presenting a newparadigm: all existing structures on earth are theconsequence of information processing. Since thesestructures have been evolved over the last five billionyears, information processing and its systems have anevolution.This is under consideration in the book. Startingwith a basic paper which summarizes the essential hypothesesabout the evolution of informaion processing systems,sixteen international scientists have tried to verify orfalsify these hypothesises. This has been done at thephysical, the chemical, the genetic, the neural, the social,the societal and the socio-technical level. Thus, the readergets an insight into the recent status of research on theevolution of information processing systems. The papers arethe result of an interdisciplinary project in whichscientists of the classical disciplines have been invited tocollaborate. Their inputs have been intensively discussed ina workshop. The book is the output of the workshop. Thefirst goal of the bookis to give the reader an insight intobasic principles about the evolution of informationprocessing systems. This, however, leads directly to a veryold and essential question: who is controlling the world,"matter" or an "immaterial intelligence"? Several authors ofthe papers are arguing that there is a basic concept ofinformation processing in nature. This is the crucialprocess, which, however, needs a material basis. The readerhas a chance to understand this paradigm as an approachwhich is valid for all levels of inorganic, organic andsocietal structures. This provocative concept is open todebate.
