Information, Natural Law, and the Self-Assembly of Rhythmic Movement [Hardcover]

Originally published in 1987, the introduction states: the authors have successfully accomplished their program  to explain, based on physical representations, the observed relations among various parameters of wrist-pendulum oscillations. Thereby a set of new ideas and concepts, including those developed recently by the scientific school to which the authors belong, are introduced to biology. These concepts are closely related to the experimental data. This accomplishment makes the book especially attractive and demonstrates once more the productivity of applying physics to biology.

Clear language, simple figures, and physical examples illuminate rather complicated problems. These attractive features should make the book intelligible to a variety of investigators in the field of motor control, not only to the specialists with physical and mathematical education.

From the foreword: Kugler and Turvey have written strategic physical biology, and shown that, after all, dynamics (including both kinetics and kinematics) may support a unitary physical view of some of the profound operations of our brains& This is a grand start on what I hope is a larger program of demystifying behaviour.

Foreword: Physics and Biology F. Eugene Yates.  Introduction: Physical and Neurophysiological Perspectives on Movement M.B. Berkinblit and A.G. Feldman.  Preface.  1. Perspectives on Rhythmic Movement  2. Problems of Measurement and Modeling  3. Why Things Flow: An Outline of Physical Theory for Simple Atomisms  4. Why Things Flow: An Outline of Physical Theory for Complex Atomisms  5. Why Things Tick : Physical Prerequisites for Self-Sustained Oscillation  6. An Experimental Methodology for Investigating the Soft, Self-Assembly of the Pendular, Clocking Mode  7. Haptic Information as the Abstracted Morphology of MovemenlÓ4