title: Crisis in science: in search for new theoretical foundations.
abstract: Recognition of the need for theoretical biology more than half century ago did not bring substantial progress in this direction. Recently, the need for new methods in science, including physics became clear. The breakthrough should be sought in answering the question "What is life?", which can help to explain the mechanisms of consciousness and consequently give insight into the way we comprehend reality. This could help in the search for new methods in the study of both physical and biological phenomena. However, to achieve this, new theoretical discipline will have to be developed with a very general conceptual framework and rigor of mathematical reasoning, allowing it to assume the leading role in science. Since its foundations are in the recognition of the role of life and consciousness in the epistemic process, it could be called biomathics. The prime candidates proposed here for being the fundamental concepts for biomathics are 'information' and 'information integration', with an appropriately general mathematical formalism.
authors.affiliation: Akita International University, Akita, Japan. Electronic address: mjs@aiu.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Marcin J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Schroeder
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001703:Biophysics / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods*; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods*; D018511:Systems Integration
keywords: Information; Information integration; Mathematical methods; Scientific method; Theoretical biology