In this brief commentary I compare and contrast two different views of evolution: one of limited (convergent) evolution and mathematical predictability, and one of unbounded diversity and no entailing laws. Clearly these opposing views cannot both be true at the same time. Their disagreement seems to rest on different underlying assumptions, and the challenge is to see if they can be reconciled.

According to the free energy principle, life is an “inevitable and emergent property of any random dynamical system at non-equilibrium steady state that possesses a Markov blanket” :20130475, 2013). Formulating a principle for the life sciences in terms of concepts from statistical physics, such as random dynamical system, non-equilibrium steady state and ergodicity, places substantial constraints on the theoretical and empirical study of biological systems. Thus far, however, the physics foundations of the free energy principle have received hardly any attention. (...) Here, we start to fill this gap and analyse some of the challenges raised by applications of statistical physics for modelling biological targets. Based on our analysis, we conclude that model-building grounded in the free energy principle exacerbates a trade-off between generality and realism, because of a fundamental mismatch between its physics assumptions and the properties of actual biological targets. (shrink)

This article argues that agent-based modeling (ABM) is the methodological implication of Lawson’s championed ontological turn in economics. We single out three major properties of agent-based computational economics (ACE), namely, autonomous agents, social interactions, and the micro-macro links, which have been well accepted by the ACE community. We then argue that ACE does make a full commitment to the ontology of economics as proposed by Lawson, based on his prompted critical realism. Nevertheless, the article also points out the current limitations (...) or constraints of ACE. Efforts to overcome them are deemed to be crucial before ACE can make itself more promising to the current ontological turn in economics. (shrink)

C.H. Waddington’s concepts of ‘chreods’ (canalized paths of development) and ‘homeorhesis’ (the tendency to return to a path), each associated with ‘morphogenetic fields’, were conceived by him as a contribution to complexity theory. Subsequent developments in complexity theory have largely ignored Waddington’s work and efforts to advance it. Waddington explained the development of the concept of chreod as the influence on his work of Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, notably, the concept of concrescence as a self-causing process. Processes were recognized (...) as having their own dynamics, rather than being explicable through their components or external agents. Whitehead recognized the tendency to think only in terms of such ‘substances’ as a bias of European thought, claiming in his own philosophy ‘to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought.’ Significantly, the theoretical biologist who comes closest to advancing Waddington’s research program, also marginalized, is Mae-Wan Ho. Noting this bias, and embracing Whitehead’s and Waddington’s efforts to free biology from assumptions dominating Western thought to advance an ontology of creative causal processes, I will show how later developments of complexity theory, most importantly, Goodwin’s work on oscillations, temporality and morphogenesis, Vitiello’s dissipative quantum brain dynamics, Salthe’s work on hierarchy theory, biosemiotics inspired by Peirce and von Uexküll, Robert Rosen’s work on anticipatory systems, together with category theory and biomathics, can augment while being augmented by Waddington’s work, while further advancing Mae-Wan Ho’s radical research program with its quest to understand the reality of consciousness. (shrink)

We provide a new perspective on the relation between the space of description of an object and the appearance of novelties. One of the aims of this perspective is to facilitate the interaction between mathematics and historical sciences. The definition of novelties is paradoxical: if one can define in advance the possibles, then they are not genuinely new. By analyzing the situation in set theory, we show that defining generic (i.e., shared) and specific (i.e., individual) properties of elements of a (...) set are radically different notions. As a result, generic and specific definitions of possibilities cannot be conflated. We argue that genuinely stating possibilities requires that their meaning has to be made explicit. For example, in physics, properties playing theoretical roles are generic; then, generic reasoning is sufficient to define possibilities. By contrast, in music, we argue that specific properties matter, and generic definitions become insufficient. Then, the notion of new possibilities becomes relevant and irreducible. In biology, among other examples, the generic definition of the space of DNA sequences is insufficient to state phenotypic possibilities even if we assume complete genetic determinism. The generic properties of this space are relevant for sequencing or DNA duplication, but they are inadequate to understand phenotypes. We develop a strong concept of biological novelties which justifies the notion of new possibilities and is more robust than the notion of changing description spaces. These biological novelties are not generic outcomes from an initial situation. They are specific and this specificity is associated with biological functions, that is to say, with a specific causal structure. Thus, we think that in contrast with physics, the concept of new possibilities is necessary for biology. (shrink)

It is argued that quantum theory is best understood as requiring an ontological duality of res extensa and res potentia, where the latter is understood per Heisenberg’s original proposal, and the former is roughly equivalent to Descartes’ ‘extended substance.’ However, this is not a dualism of mutually exclusive substances in the classical Cartesian sense, and therefore does not inherit the infamous ‘mind-body’ problem. Rather, res potentia and res extensa are proposed as mutually implicative ontological extants that serve to explain the (...) key conceptual challenges of quantum theory; in particular, nonlocality, entanglement, null measurements, and wave function collapse. It is shown that a natural account of these quantum perplexities emerges, along with a need to reassess our usual ontological commitments involving the nature of space and time. (shrink)

What happens to the inner light of consciousness with the death of the individual body and brain? Reductive materialism assumes it simply fades to black. Others think of consciousness as indicating a continuation of self, a transformation, an awakening or even alternatives based on the quality of life experience. In this issue, speculation drawn from theoretic research are presented. -/- Table of Contents Epigraph: From “The Immortal”, Jorge Luis Borges iii Editor’s Introduction: I Killed a Squirrel the Other Day, Gregory (...) M. Nixon iv-xi Research Essays The Tilde Fallacy and Reincarnation: Variations on a "Skeptical" Argument Teed Rockwell 862-881 Death, Consciousness, and Phenomenology, Steve Bindeman 882-899 The Idealist View of Consciousness After Death, Bernardo Kastrup 900-909 Consciousness, a Cosmic Phenomenon—A Hypothesis, Eva Déli 910-930 The Theory of a Natural Afterlife: A Newfound, Real Possibility for What Awaits Us at Death, Bryon K. Ehlmann 931-950 Near-Death Cases Desegregating Non-Locality/Disembodiment via Quantum Mediated Consciousness: An Extended Version of the Cell-Soul Pathway, Contzen Pereira & J Shashi Kiran Reddy 951-968 On the Possible Existence of Quantum Consciousness After Brain Death, Massimo Pregnolato & Alfredo Pereira Jr. 969-991 Science and Postmortem Survival, Edward F. Kelly 992-1011 Explorations ISS Theory: Cosmic Consciousness, Self, and Life Beyond Death in a Hyperdimensional Physics, Chris H. Hardy 1012-1035 Does the Consciousness End, Remain Awake, or Transform After Death? Radivoj Stankovich (with Micho Durdevich) 1036-1050 Big Bang Spirituality, Life, and Death, Ken Bausch 1051-1063 Death, Consciousness and the Quantum Paradigm, Ronald Peter Glasberg 1064-1077 Living With Limits: The Continuum of Consciousness, Donald Brackett 1078-1098 Mysticism, Consciousness, Death, Mike Sosteric 1099-1118 What Dies? Eternalism and the Afterlife in William James, Jonathan Bricklin 1119-1140 Theories of Consciousness and Death: Does Consciousness End, Continue, Awaken, or Transform When the Body Dies? Roger Cook 1141-1153 It’s the Other Way Around: Matter is a Form of Consciousness and Death is the End of the Illusion of Life in the World, James P. Kowall & Pradeep B. Deshpande 1154-1208 Statements A Feminine Vision for the World Consciousness, & a New Outrageous Ontology, Lorna Green 1209-1217 The Mask of Eternity: The Quest for Immortality and the Afterlife, Iona Miller 1218-1228 Are We Really “such stuff as dreams are made on”? Chris Nunn 1229-1225 Is the Afterlife a Non-Question? (Let's Hope Not), Deepak Chopra 1226-1230 Life After Death? An Improbable Essay, Stuart Kauffman 1231-1236. (shrink)

Attempts to ‘naturalize’ phenomenology challenge both traditional phenomenology and traditional approaches to cognitive science. They challenge Edmund Husserl’s rejection of naturalism and his attempt to establish phenomenology as a foundational transcendental discipline, and they challenge efforts to explain cognition through mainstream science. While appearing to be a retreat from the bold claims made for phenomenology, it is really its triumph. Naturalized phenomenology is spearheading a successful challenge to the heritage of Cartesian dualism. This converges with the reaction against Cartesian thought (...) within science itself. Descartes divided the universe between res cogitans, thinking substances, and res extensa, the mechanical world. The latter won with Newton and we have, in most of objective science since, literally lost our mind, hence our humanity. Despite Darwin, biologists remain children of Newton, and dream of a grand theory that is epistemologically complete and would allow lawful entailment of the evolution of the biosphere. This dream is no longer tenable. We now have to recognize that science and scientists are within and part of the world we are striving to comprehend, as proponents of endophysics have argued, and that physics, biology and mathematics have to be reconceived accordingly. Interpreting quantum mechanics from this perspective is shown to both illuminate conscious experience and reveal new paths for its further development. In biology we must now justify the use of the word “function”. As we shall see, we cannot prestate the ever new biological functions that arise and constitute the very phase space of evolution. Hence, we cannot mathematize the detailed becoming of the biosphere, nor write differential equations for functional variables we do not know ahead of time, nor integrate those equations, so no laws “entail” evolution. The dream of a grand theory fails. In place of entailing laws, a post-entailing law explanatory framework is proposed in which Actuals arise in evolution that constitute new boundary conditions that are enabling constraints that create new, typically unprestatable, Adjacent Possible opportunities for further evolution, in which new Actuals arise, in a persistent becoming. Evolution flows into a typically unprestatable succession of Adjacent Possibles. Given the concept of function, the concept of functional closure of an organism making a living in its world, becomes central. Implications for patterns in evolution include historical reconstruction, and statistical laws such as the distribution of extinction events, or species per genus, and the use of formal cause, not efficient cause, laws. (shrink)

This article juxtaposes the notion of wuwei in Daoism and philosophical principles of self-organization in systems theory to re-imagine classroom dynamics in which pedagogical relationships...

In this essay we explore extensive modes of enactive engagement among humans, physical and computational media richer than the modes represented by classical notions of interaction and relation. We make use of a radically material and a potential-theoretic account of event to re-conceive ad hoc, non-pre-schematized activity in responsive environments. We can regard such activity as sense-making via dehomogenization of material that co-articulates subjects and objects.

Riassunto: Il presente contributo esamina il concetto di esperienza cosciente da una prospettiva epistemologica evoluzionista, ispirata ad un approccio naturalistico non riduzionista. Il lavoro si inserisce nel quadro concettuale delle ricerche nel campo della filosofia della mente, avanzando delle ipotesi circa i possibili processi che hanno determinato la comparsa e lo sviluppo nella nostra biosfera di una mente specificatamente umana sia dal punto di vista filogenetico che da quello ontogenetico. In quest’ottica, vengono rivisitati in chiave epigenetica alcuni tratti salienti della (...) teoria della coscienza di Edelman alla luce delle più recenti ricerche sulla misurazione dell’esperienza cosciente, condotte da Tononi e da altri studiosi nell’ambito della Integrated Information Theory. In un quadro siffatto, l’articolo analizza alcune criticità dell’approccio algoritmico della IIT, evidenziando la necessità di individuare nuove misure della complessità per quanto riguarda lo studio dei processi semantici di trasmissione dell’informazione biologica. Parole chiave: Coscienza; Evoluzione naturale; Neuroplasticità; Informazione intenzionale; Seconda natura Reflections on conscious experience. The perspectives of the integrated information theory: This paper examines the concept of conscious experience from an evolutionary epistemological perspective, inspired by a non-reductionist naturalistic approach. Situated in the conceptual framework of philosophy of mind, it considers what processes could have led to the appearance and development of a specifically human mind in our biosphere, both from a phylogenetic and an ontogenetic point of view. Salient features of Edelman’s theory of consciousness are revisited from an epigenetic perspective, in light of some of the most recent measurements of conscious experience proposed by Tononi and other scholars in the field of Integrated Information Theory. The paper analyzes some criticalities in the algorithmic approach of the IIT, highlighting the need to identify new measures of complexity for the study of semantic processes of transmission of biological information. Keywords: Consciousness; Natural Evolution; Neuroplasticity; Intentional Information; Second Nature. (shrink)

Both biosemiotics and evolutionary epistemology are concerned with how knowledge evolves. (Applied) Evolutionary Epistemology thereby focuses on identifying the units, levels, and mechanisms or processes that underlie the evolutionary development of knowing and knowledge, while biosemiotics places emphasis on the study of how signs underlie the development of meaning. We compare the two schools of thought and analyze how in delineating their research program, biosemiotics runs into several problems that are overcome by evolutionary epistemologists. For one, by emphasizing signs, biosemiotics (...) needs to delineate a semiotic threshold, which is a problem not encountered by evolutionary epistemologists. Instead, the latter recognizes that all organisms are knowers that evolve knowledge, which they recognize to extend toward phenomena produced by organisms such as behavior, cognition, language, culture, science, and technology. Secondly, biosemiotics attempts at continuing adaptationist notions on how organisms relate to their environment, while especially Applied Evolutionary Epistemology comes to redefine the nature of the organism–environment relationship in such a way that it recognizes the spatiotemporal boundedness of existence, which in turn makes adaptationist accounts obsolete. (shrink)

It is suggested that the apparently disparate cosmological phenomena attributed to so-called ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ arise from the same fundamental physical process: the emergence, from the quantum level, of spacetime itself. This creation of spacetime results in metric expansion around mass points in addition to the usual curvature due to stress-energy sources of the gravitational field. A recent modification of Einstein’s theory of general relativity by Chadwick, Hodgkinson, and McDonald incorporating spacetime expansion around mass points, which accounts well (...) for the observed galactic rotation curves, is adduced in support of the proposal. Recent observational evidence corroborates a prediction of the model that the apparent amount of ‘dark matter’ increases with the age of the universe. In addition, the proposal leads to the same result for the small but nonvanishing cosmological constant, related to ‘dark energy,’ as that of the causet model of Sorkin et al. (shrink)

This edited collection highlights the valuable ontological and creative insights gathered from anticipation studies, which orients itself to the future in order to recreate the present. The gathered essays engage with many writers from speculative metaphysics to poetic philosophy, ancient writing systems to the fringes of pataphysics. The book situates itself as a creative intervention in and with various thinkers, designers, artists, scientists and poets to offer insight into ways of anticipating. It brings together philosophical practices for which creativity is (...) both a fundamental area of consideration and a mode of working, a characterization of recent Continental Philosophy which takes a departure from traditional futures studies thinking. This book will be of interest to scholars and research in futures studies, anticipation, philosophy, creative practice and theories about creative practice, as well as the intersections between philosophy, creativity and business. (shrink)