No label defined (Q4382873)

(The original ed. (1992) was not reviewed.) This is the second of two volumes entitled ``Reality rules'' (the first volume ``the Fundamentals'' is reviewed in Zbl 0896.00001 above). This volume is more dealing with applications and/or ``philosophy'' (but contains of course nice and interesting mathematical results!). This is reflected in the titles of the different chapters. For example ``Strategies for survival'' (where evolution and sociobiology are addressed), ``The analytical engine'' (brain, cognition,\dots), ``the geometry of human affairs'' (with some ``relations'' to Art), ``the mystique of mechanism'' (computation, complexity), etc.\dots The readers having read the first volume will go almost effortlessly to landscapes they are probably not used to visit. No doubt they will be delighted to read chapters in mathematics, applications, modeling, not to mention unexpected quotations (e.g., Flaubert and Shakespeare).