George Ellis and Emergence

Mike's Notes

Prof George F. R. Ellis is a South African Physicist. He has written the most straightforward explanations about complexity and emergence. I have used his explanations to build, test, understand, and enable Pipi's self-documentation.

All of the links to his pages at the University of Cape Town are broken, so the corrected links are below.

Update 12/06/2026

I'm currently synthesising Prof George F. R. Ellis's work on Emergence with that of Dr Alex Nugent (Knowmn) on Dissipative Structures and, eventually, with Prof Terrence Deacon's (Berkeley) on Teleodynamics to roll into the Gödel Machine that is Pipi 9.

Resources

References

  • The universe around us: An integrative view of science and cosmology.

Repository

  • Home > Ajabbi Research > Library > Authors > George F. R. Ellis
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Last Updated

12/06/2026

George Ellis and Emergence

By: Mike Peters
On a Sandy Beach: 17/12/2023

Mike is the inventor and architect of Pipi and the founder of Ajabbi.

"George Francis Rayner Ellis, FRS, Hon. FRSSAf (born 11 August 1939), is the emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world's leading theorists in cosmology. From 1989 to 1992, he served as president of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation. He is a past president of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is an A-rated researcher with the NRF.

Ellis, an active Quaker, was a vocal opponent of apartheid during the National Party reign in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was during this period that Ellis's research focused on the more philosophical aspects of cosmology, for which he won the Templeton Prize in 2004. He was also awarded the Order of the Star of South Africa by Nelson Mandela in 1999. On 18 May 2007, he was elected a fellow of the British Royal Society." - Wikipedia

Websites

The universe around us: An integrative view of science and cosmology

Talks

On the Nature of Cosmology Today (2012 Copernicus Centre Lecture)

Close to the Truth - Is Emergence Fundamental (April 2022)

Books

  • (1993). Before the Beginning: Cosmology Explained. Bowerdean/Marion Boyars.
  • Lanza, A.; Miller, J. (1993). The Renaissance of General Relativity and Cosmology (2005 paperback ed.). Cambridge: University Press.
  • (1994). Science Research Policy in South Africa. Royal Society of South Africa.
  • Murphy, Nancey (1996). On The Moral Nature of the universe: Cosmology, Theology, and Ethics. Fortress Press.
  • Wainwright, John, eds. (1997). Dynamical Systems in Cosmology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-55457-2.
  • Coles, Peter (1997). Is The Universe Open or Closed? The Density of Matter in the Universe. Cambridge Lecture Notes in Physics, vol. 7. Cambridge: University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-56689-6.
  • ed. (2002). The Far Future Universe: Eschatology from a Cosmic Perspective. Templeton Foundation Press. ISBN 978-1-890151-90-4.
  • (2004). Science in Faith and Hope: an interaction. Quaker Books.
  • (2004a). Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity. Cambridge: University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83113-0.
  • (2006). Handbook in Philosophy of Physics. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-444-53002-8.
  • Maartens, Roy; MacCallum, Malcolm A. H. (2012). Relativistic Cosmology. Cambridge: University Press.
  • (2016). How Can Physics Underlie the Mind? Top-Down Causation in the Human Context. Springer.

    • Papers

    Ellis has over 500 published articles, including 17 in Nature. Notable papers include:
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