Nuestros investigadores

The Free Energy Principle (FEP) is currently one of the most promising frameworks with which to address a unified explanation of life-related phenomena. With powerful formalism that embeds a small set of assumptions, it purports to deal with complex adaptive dynamics ranging from barely unicellular organisms to complex cultural manifestations. The FEP has received increased attention in disciplines that study life, including some critique regarding its overall explanatory power and its true potential as a grand unifying theory (GUT). Recently, FEP theorists presented a contribution with the main tenets of their framework, together with possible philosophical interpretations, which lean towards so-called Markovian Monism (MM). The present paper assumes some of the abovementioned critiques, rejects the arguments advanced to invalidate the FEP's potential to be a GUT, and overcomes criticism thereof by reviewing FEP theorists' newly minted metaphysical commitment, namely MM. Specifically, it shows that this philosophical interpretation of the FEP argues circularly and only delivers what it initially assumes, i.e., a dual information geometry that allegedly explains epistemic access to the world based on prior dual assumptions. The origin of this circularity can be traced back to a physical description contingent on relative system-environment separation. However, the FEP itself is not committed to MM, and as a scientific theory it delivers more than what it assumes, serving as a

We support the development of non-reductive cognitive science and the naturalization of phenomenology for this purpose, and we agree that the 'relational turn' defended by Gallagher is a necessary step in this direction. However, we believe that certain aspects of his relational concept of nature need clarification. In particular, Gallagher does not say whether or how teleology, affect, and other value-related properties of life and mind can be naturalized within this framework. In this paper, we argue that (1) given the phenomenological standards recognized by Gallagher, his commitment to a naturalized phenomenology should entail a commitment to a naturalized concept of value; and (2) the kind of 'relational nature' described by Gallagher in his paper is insufficient for this purpose

The philosopher Roberto Unger and the physicist Lee Smolin have recently argued that the current explanatory framework of cosmology, which presumes a timeless background of unchanging physical laws, should be replaced by a thoroughly relational framework in which time is fundamental and all laws are subject to change. Within this alternative framework, however, Unger and Smolin find themselves confronted by a dilemma: either the laws of nature evolve according to some higher set of ¿meta-laws,¿ which reinstates a timeless background at a higher level, or the laws of nature evolve randomly and the path of inquiry is blocked. In response to this dilemma, the authors propose a theory of causal events as singular, freely chosen, and self-determined optimalities constrained only by their intrinsic relations to all other events.

Reseña de Piotr ROSZAK, Credibilidad e identidad. En torno a la Teología de la Fe en santo Tomás de Aquino, Pamplona: Eunsa («Astrolabio. Serie Filosofía»), 2014, 282 pp., 14,5 x 21,5, ISBN 978-84-313-2971-6.

ICS Resumen (inglés): The Church's Magisterium has first considered human activity from the perspective of Christian anthropology in the third Chapter of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudiurn et Spes. Such treatment has proved to be both a point of arrival for precedent theology and a starting point for further theological progress on human action in the world. This study analyzes the content of the Council's text, identifies its key achievements in relation to the earlier tradition and assesses its reception from the main theological and magisterial developments it has inspired. Resumen (español): El magisterio eclesial ha considerado pot primera vez la actividad humana desde la perspectiva de la antropología cristiana en el tercer capítulo de la constitución pastoral Gaudiurn et spes. Dicho tratamiento ha resultado tanto un punto de Ilegada para la teologfía precedente como un punto de partida para ulteriores progresos teológicos sobre la acción humana en el mundo. A lo largo de este estudio se analiza el contenido del texto conciliar, se señalan sus logros fundamentales en relación con la tradición anterior y se valora su recepción a partir de los principales desarrollos teológicos y magisteriales que ha inspirado.

ICS

Despite the endless efforts of fundamental physics, it is becoming increasingly understood that our most basic scientific theories do not fully determine the existence of complex dynamical systems in nature. The revival of optimization principles can be considered a response to mere bottom-up scientific approaches which posit extremely rare boundary conditions of the universe and ad hoc coarse grainings of degrees of freedom in order to recover the classicality of the observed world. In this paper, after making the case for the insurmountable obstacles confronting basic physical theories and obtaining some hints for a possible way out, we briefly review some of the currently most promising optimization procedures trying to explain the emergence of the classical world and, more specifically, of life and consciousness. We claim that all such procedures aim at and make room for new optimizing principles in which value and teleology are fundamental concepts for understanding the self-constitution of complex dynamical systems

Ensayos finalistas del II Concurso "Educación, Ciencia y Religión"