Developments of Research on the Nature of Life from the Information Theory of Individuality ^†

The research on the nature of life from the perspective of information can be traced back to Schrödinger’s theory on the negative entropy of life. Many system scientists and system philosophers inherited Schrödinger’s research approach and emphasized the relationship between information science and the nature of life. Recently, David Krakauer, the current director of the Santa Fe Institute, and others proposed The Information Theory of Individuality, and further used information theory to define and classify formally individuals, deepening the relationship between information and the nature of life. Information individuals are divided into Organismal Individuality, Colonial Individuality, and Environmental Determined Individuality. The formal definition of information individuals is a new development in Schrödinger’s research on the nature of life, and it is also instructive for contemporary artificial life research.