An inventory of Waddington concepts a new concept of stability bifurcations and the epigenetic landscape pattern formation and pattern selection in reaction-diffusion systems are there rules governing patterns of gene regulation? origins of order in evolution - self-organziation and selection evolution and the generative order the physics of complex organization adaptive strategies gleaned from immune networks - viability theory and comparison with classified systems the adaptation of complex systems communication and organization in developing systems a field viewpoint of positional information membrane phase transitions coherent excitations and the physical foundations of life discrete aspect of morphogenesis and gene dynamics time and space scales in neurophysiology formal languages and theoretical molecular biology towards a grammatical paradigm for the study of the regulation of gene expression.