This is the official listserver for the Virtual Seminar on What is Life/Living, a Special Integration Group of the International Society for Systems Science (ISSS). This is a moderated disucssion on designated topics. From time to time it will coincide with actual classes being taught. At these times information for accessing the topic material and student assignments will be posted to the list. This may also be combined with actual classes at various Universities at the discretion of participating Faculty.
THE SEMINAR is open to all graduate students and professionals interested in exploring the nature of life and implications for how we perceive nature itself. It is intended to support or supplement University courses or seminars that may be developed at varioius University campuses. This list is for participants in the ISSS What is Life/Living SIG, or a related class (exceptions on a case-by-case basis).
The accompanying website for papers and seminar discussion schedules is: www.nexial.org/life. Instructions regarding participation in the Virtual Seminar can be found at that site.
PLEASE post contributions directly to the list, or email them to me directly and I will post them. Try to follow good academic and schoolarly practice in your posts, keeping on the designated topics and referencing any literature you cite (including the designated seminar readings) as at least a starting point or point of comparison. Posts should be as self-explanatory as possible. Take special care to provide an appropriate subject line (Please precede subjects with the word "Life:" so others can find and sort messages related to this list). Quotes from previous posts as well as yours should be preceded with the initials of the author.
Everyone on the list is considered to be participating in the seminar and thus welcome to comment as you see fit, as long as it stays on topic. Topics will be selected every week or two while a seminar is running. Between seminars, open discussion on any topic is welcome. All contributions are required to be courteous, helpful, and respectful. That will be strictly enforced. Recommendations for future topics are welcome and a valid topic of discussion.
By inaugurating this virtual seminar, my thought is this. We are all students in this field. It is incredibly broad and rich and there is no one who cannot learn from the others. This can be a very valuable exchange between students and other schoolars, and will also be a great way for students to gain some experience with discussing these ideas outside the classroom. Participants can bring in points made in other contexts on other discussion lists by cross-posting their comments to both lists. The posting here will support more in-depth inquiry on the specific seminar topics at the time, while posting to other lists may solicit a wide range of comments.
The official list moderators are:
John Kineman, Chair ISSS What is Life/Living SIG
Ron Cottam, Co-Chair
1. To subscribe to the list, send an email to:
life-subscribe@nexial.org - Subscribes/adds the sender.
2. To post to this list, send email to:
life@nexial.org - (This is where all email messages to be posted are
sent. They will be automatically posted).
3. To unsubscribe, send email to:
life-unsubscribe@nexial.org - Unsubscribes/removes the sender from your
mailing list.
For technical questions you can use the following address (or my
personal email):
life-owner@nexial.org - The owner of the list.
At present, anyone can subscribe to the list. As the list owner, I can
remove inappropriate subscriptions.
This page is hosted by the Nexial Institute, Boulder
Colorado
Contact: John J. Kineman