Talk by Ricard Solé (UPF, Barcelona): “Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems”

Tuesday, February 25 at 11:30 in Centro Carlos Santamaria Room 3. The talk will be hybrid. If you want to participate, please contact m.aste.tb2@gmail.com

It has been argued that the historical nature of evolution makes it a highly path-dependent process. Under this view, the outcome of evolutionary dynamics could result in a diverse landscape of complex agents with different forms and functions. At the same time, there is ample evidence that convergence and constraints strongly limit the domain of the potential design principles that evolution can achieve. Are these limitations relevant in shaping the fabric of the possible? Here, we argue that fundamental constraints are associated with the logic of living matter. We illustrate this idea by considering the thermodynamic properties of living systems, the linear nature of molecular information, the cellular nature of the building blocks of life, its open-endedness, the threshold nature of computations in cognitive systems, language and the discrete nature of the architecture of ecosystems. In all these examples, we present available evidence and suggest potential avenues towards a well-defined theoretical formulation. 

Based on his recent publication: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsfs.2024.0010

IAS-research talk by Rebecca / Riccardo Cuciniello: “Plasticity and goal/s: re-examining the organisational approach”

Friday, February 14 at 13:00 in Centro Carlos Santamaria Room 3 (mind the change in the habitual room). The talk will be hybrid. If you want to participate, please contact m.aste.tb2@gmail.com

The aim of this work is to re-examine the organisational conception of teleology, in light of what I call the biological organisation’s plasticity, i.e., its capacity to change its conditions of existence as a teleological self-determining entity. The work is structured in two parts. I start by detecting a tension between two co-existing tendencies within the organisational approach (OA). One sees organisms as having one goal, or telos, namely existence, often cast as self-maintenance or maintenance of viability. The other sees organisms as having no telos, but multiple internally defined goals, i.e., their actual conditions of existence, whereby ‘conditions’ are both descriptive and normative. I take these two tendencies to be respectively the OA ‘metaphysical’ stance on living beings (in a ‘Kantian’ sense), and the model-theoretic operationalisation of such stance. While connected, the two tendencies bear implications for how we understand the organisation’s plasticity. In the first case, regulation changes the means to achieve the same telos, thus change is goal-directed (the end counterfactually determines its means). In the second, goals themselves change, but this change is not goal-directed (there is no ‘higher’ telos beyond present conditions). Afterwards, I propose to consider more closely the relationship between teleology and plasticity, to possibly conciliate these two perspectives. Here I take plasticity as the organisation’s capacity to accommodate external or internal inputs by exploring new configurations. On the one hand, “when the end modifies its means” (Moczeck 2022), plasticity keeps the organisation viable. However, ends, seen as a ‘benchmark’ for regulated change (Nicoglou 2024), also underdetermine their means. I suggest that when viability is multiply realisable, the determination of its realisability need not be goal-oriented, introducing a non-teleological dimension to self-determination beyond simply self-maintenance.

IAS-research talk by Alejandro Merlo: “How is Global Warming Bad for the Planet?Towards a theory of Earthly wellbeing and planetary functions.”

Friday, January 31 at 14:00 (mind the change in the habitual meeting time) in Centro Carlos Santamaria Room 4. The talk will be hybrid. If you want to participate, please contact m.aste.tb2@gmail.com

Abstract: References to what is good for the planet or harmful for the planet are ubiquitous in current discourse. However, it is generally unclear whether this attribution of normativity to our planet should be understood metaphorically, metonymically, or literally. Based on an understanding of the Earth as an interconnected, self-sustaining system, we claim that, indeed, different states of the Earth system can be considered “better” or “worse” relative to the organisation of the system as a whole.
To show this, first we identify the recent Quaternary period as a good state of the Earth system, based on three interrelated dimensions: (1) a cooler climate with enhanced thermodynamic capacity, which enables the Earth system to perform more work; (2) a slower, endogenous pacing of climate variation and (3) an increased biological complexity which culminates in the emergence of unprecedented capacities, such as symbolic reasoning and technological agency – which we take as a sign of the maturity of the system but whose role in planetary wellbeing is today an open, practical question.
Based on these three dimensions, we work towards a definition of Earthly well-being, which refers to the degree of autonomy of the planetary system, understood as its ability to perform work, self-regulate, and do things.
The current climatic crisis and the destabilization of planetary tipping points risk moving the system out of the boundaries of the Quaternary period. An organisational account of planetary (mal)function needs to refer both to the integrity of this particular climatic-geological regime and to the increased planetary autonomy that it sustains.