Author Archives: amerlo

IAS-Research Seminar by Enara Garcia (EHU/UPV), “Towards a process perspective of psychopathology “

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The next meeting of the IAS Seminar will take place next Thursday, March 16th, with a talk by Enara Garcia:

Towards a process perspective of psychopathology 
“One of the aspects generally neglected by the DSM categorical system is the temporal variability of mental disorders and their symptoms. Not only individual differences apply to mental disorder categories, but also temporal differences in phases of certain pathologies. For instance, schizophrenic hallucinations are typically preceded by a prodromal phase followed by a post-hallucinatory depression. The dynamics of emergence, persistence and decay of diverse psychopathologies diverge considerably as well. While panic attacks in anxiety disorders are acute and intense phenomena followed by low-intensity chronic stress, depression onsets follow a more inconspicuous and extended-in-time trajectory. Understanding these dynamic differences is relevant for selecting interventions in therapeutic processes. With the aim of elaborating on the process perspective of psychopathology, I will critically review some recent works in complex and dynamical system models of mental disorders, such as network theories, attractor models and time-series analysis on affects.”

The talk will take place at the centro Carlos Santamaria at 4pm, room 4. 

To participate online, please contact Andrea Gambarotto andrea.gambarotto@uclouvain.be

IAS-Research Talk by Gillian Barker (University of Pittsburgh) “Geofunctions: A pragmatic approach to purposes, norms and agency at the planetary scale”

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As a follow up to the Gaia and Philosophy Seminar, Dr. Gillian Barker will give an online talk on Thursday the 12th January, at 16h, for the first IAS-Research Talk of 2023.

To participate, please contact Andrea Gambarotto andrea.gambarotto@gmail.com

Abstract
Many scientists working on global environmental patterns and their disruption are caught in a conceptual double-bind: they find that they need to see Earth as a functional system with normative and teleological dimensions, but long-standing assumptions about science, values, and purposes imply that such thinking is scientifically illegitimate. As a result, functional thinking about global-scale phenomena is expressed vaguely and inconsistently in the form of metaphors and applied frameworks. Similar problems affect thinking that draws on concepts of agency. The costs of this impasse may be high. Where there are patterns in the phenomena that are effectively captured using concepts of function or agency, failure to apply those concepts may lead to avoidable errors in prediction. A pragmatic reorientation, supported by recent developments in philosophy, could enable scientists to overcome this impasse and develop a useful conceptual framework for global-scale functions and agency.

Bio: Gillian Barker (University of Pittsburgh)

IAS-Research Talk by Bruce Clarke (Texas Tech University) “Planetary Intelligence: A Gaian Critique”

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On Thursday the 1st December 2022, 16h-18h, Biblioteka Carlos Santamaría, Room 8.
This talk will be part of the two-day seminar “Gaia and Philosophy”, organised by the Outonomy project. See full program and registration form here.

Abstract

Gaia now confronts us with states of operation and response that threaten long-term habitability for many species. Authored by a strong team of accomplished scholars—astrophysicist Adam Frank, planetary scientist David Grinspoon, and astrobiologist Sara Walker—the recent article “Intelligence as a Planetary Scale Process” probes ideas concerning a viable planetary integration of the technosphere with the biosphere. However, to my mind, the concept of intelligence comes up short in their efforts to integrate planetary biology and technological society. The authors inherit conceptual problems rooted in early SETI discourse, which centers the search for extraterrestrial intelligence on obsolete notions of technological advancement. Also, the discourse of intelligence is not well suited to the dialects of systems theory toward which they turn their enquiry. Their description of planetary intelligence wavers between a control regime and an autonomous process. Moreover, while bringing the idea of planetary intelligence toward the discourse of autopoiesis is a promising move, in this instance it leads to an equivocal blurring of the concept of cognition. Intelligent awareness is certainly one form cognition can take, but cognition also occurs both above and below the level of thought. As I hope to explain in some detail, the conceptual strains of “Intelligence as a Planetary Scale Process” indicate that the preferable, properly Gaian formulation is planetary cognition, a theoretical framing that embeds the technosphere within its biospheric conditions of possibility.

References

Bruce Clarke, Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020).

Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, “Overcoming Autopoiesis: An Enactive Detour on the Way from Life to Society,” in Advanced Series in Management, eds. R. Magalhães and R. Sanchez (Bingley: Emerald Group, 2010), 43-68.

Adam Frank, David Grinspoon, and Sara Walker, “Intelligence as a Planetary Scale Process” International Journal of Astrobiology 21 (2022): 47–61.

David Grinspoon, Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet’s Future (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2016).

Chris Otter, “Socializing the Technosphere,” Technology and Culture 63:4 (2022): 953–78.

I. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1966)

Workshop: Outonomy – Fleshing out autonomy beyond the individual, 22-24 June

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The research project ‘Outonomy: Fleshing out autonomy beyond the individual’ is holding an international workshop in Donostia between the 22nd and the 24th of June. We are pleased to have Dr. William Bechtel and Dr. Glenda Satne as keynote speakers, and 20 communications by international researchers covering a wide range of relevant topics for the project. You can find the full information of the workshop, including the program and book of abstracts, in the outonomy.net website.