A walk through time Book

The title of this book more than hints that the authors will walk the reader through the long evolution of life. The book does do this and even anchors evolution in the history of stars and the cosmos. But "time" in this way is almost incidental to what is the more fundamental theme of this book: All matter, inorganic and organic, is governed by self-assembly and self-organizing dynamics. Atoms and galaxies are not aggregates but "self-organizing communities" pulled together by forces of attraction. The power of attraction is, though, one-half of the dynamic. The othr half is resistance, and the attraction-resistance dynamic eventually leads to a balance between and among bodies that allows for the formation of a "community," or "one body in relation to other bodies." A community in this sense consists of both autonomous parts that are also parts of a greater whole. This becomes clearer in the book's description of life's evolution that is a series of wholes becoming parts, and parts becoming wholes (cells, organis, bodies, and communities of bodies). For emphasis, the book says that just as our cities look like cells, the earth is a giant cell. All life forms are not objects per se, but a "consortium" of transformed and still-living beings (bacteria; self-contained cells, etc.) that are independent and interdependent. This, not time, is the book's primary emphasis. What is striking is life's similarity in this respect to the attraction-repulsion-balance dynamics that characterize inorganic matter.