The key assumption behind evolutionary epistemology is that animals are active learners or ‘knowers’. In the present study, I updated the concept of natural learning, developed by Henry Plotkin and John Odling-Smee, by expanding it from the animal-only territory to the biosphere-as-a-whole territory. In the new interpretation of natural learning the concept of biological information, guided by Peter Corning’s concept of “control information”, becomes the ‘glue’ holding the organism–environment interactions together. The control information guides biological systems, from bacteria to ecosystems, (...) in the process of natural learning executed by the universal algorithm. This algorithm, summarized by the acronym IGPT (information-gain-process-translate) incorporates natural cognitive methods including sensing/perception, memory, communication, and decision-making. Finally, the biosphere becomes the distributed network of communicative interactions between biological systems termed the interactome. The concept of interactome is based on Gregory Bateson’s natural epistemology known as the “ecology of mind”. Mimicking Bateson’s approach, the interactome may also be designated “physiology of mind”—the principle behind regulating the biosphere homeostasis. (shrink)

In their seminal work, Dialectics of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno interpreted capitalism as the irrational monetization of nature. In the present work, I analyze three 21st century concepts, Anthropocene, Capitalocene and Machinocene, in light of Horkheimer and Adorno’s arguments and recent arguments from the philosophy of biology. The analysis reveals a remarkable prescience of the term “instrumental reason”, which is present in each of the three concepts in a profound and cryptic way. In my interpretation, the term describes the propensity (...) of science based on the notion of physicalism to interpret nature as the machine analyzable and programmable by the human reason. As a result, the Anthropocene concept is built around the mechanicist model, which may be presented as the metaphor of the car without brakes. In a similar fashion, the Machinocene concept predicts the emergence of the mechanical mind, which will dominate nature in the near future. Finally, the Capitalocene concept turns a perfectly rational ambition to expand knowledge into an irrational obsession with over-knowledge, by employing the institutionalized science as the engine of capitalism without brakes. The common denominator of all three concepts is the irrational propensity to legitimize self-destruction. Potential avenues for countering the effects of “instrumental reason” are suggested. (shrink)

This paper aims to justify the concept of natural intelligence in the biosemiotic context. I will argue that the process of life is (i) a cognitive/semiotic process and (ii) that organisms, from bacteria to animals, are cognitive or semiotic agents. To justify these arguments, the neural-type intelligence represented by the form of reasoning known as anthropic reasoning will be compared and contrasted with types of intelligence explicated by four disciplines of biology – relational biology, evolutionary epistemology, biosemiotics and the systems (...) view of life – not biased towards neural intelligence. The comparison will be achieved by asking questions related to the process of observation and the notion of true observers. To answer the questions I will rely on a range of established concepts including SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence), Fermi’s paradox, bacterial cognition, versions of the panspermia theory, as well as some newly introduced concepts including biocivilisations, cognitive/semiotic universes, and the cognitive/semiotic multiverse. The key point emerging from the answers is that the process of cognition/semiosis – the essence of natural intelligence – is a biological universal. (shrink)

Biocivilisations is an important, original rethinking of the mystery of life and its deep uncertainty, exploring the complex civilisations that existed on Earth long before humans. -/- What is life? Many scientists believe life can be reduced to ‘mechanistic’ factors, such as genes and information codes. Yet there is a growing army of scientists, philosophers and artists who reject this view. The gene metaphor is not only too simplistic but deeply misleading. If there is a way to reduce life to (...) a single principle, that principle must acknowledge the creativity of life, turning genetic determinism on its head. -/- The term biocivilisations is the acknowledgement of this uncertainty of life, as opposed to a quasi-certainty of the human position governed by a narrow time window of the scientific revolution. Life existed without humans for more than 99.99 percent of the Earth’s existence. Life will also continue without humans long after our inevitable extinction. -/- In Biocivilisations, Dr Predrag Slijepčević shows how bacteria, amoebas, plants, insects, birds, whales, elephants and countless other species not only preceded human beings but demonstrate elements of how we celebrate human civilisation – complex communication, agriculture, science, art, medicine and more. -/- Humans must try to adopt this wisdom from other biocivilisations that have long preceded our own. By rethinking the current scientific paradigm, Dr Slijepčević makes clear that a transformation – from a naïve young species into a more mature species in tune with its surroundings – will save us from our own violence and the violence we inflict on the rest of our living planet. (shrink)

Numerous studies in microbiology, eukaryotic cell biology, plant biology, biomimetics, synthetic biology, and philosophy of science appear to support the principles of the epistemological theory inspired by evolution, also known as “Evolutionary Epistemology”, or EE. However, that none of the studies acknowledged EE suggests that its principles have not been formulated with sufficient clarity and depth to resonate with the interests of the empirical research community. In this paper I review evidence in favor of EE, and also reformulate EE principles (...) to better inform future research. The revamped programme may be tentatively called Research Programme for Distributed Biological Intelligence. Intelligence I define as the capacity of organisms to gain information about their environment, process that information internally, and translate it into phenotypic forms. This multistage progression may be expressed through the acronym IGPT (information-gain-process-translate). The key principles of the programme may be summarized as follows. (i) Intelligence, a universal biological phenomenon promoting individual fitness, is required for effective organism-environment interactions. Given that animals represent less than 0.01% of the planetary biomass, neural intelligence is not the evolutionary norm. (ii) The basic unit of intelligence is a single cell prokaryote. All other forms of intelligence are derived. (iii) Intelligence is hierarchical. It ranges from bacteria to the biosphere or Gaia. (iv) The concept of “information” acquires a new meaning because information processing is at the heart of biological intelligence. All biological systems, from bacteria to Gaia, are intelligent, open thermodynamic systems that exchange information, matter and energy with the environment. (v) The organism-environment interaction is cybernetic. As much as the organism changes due to the influence of the environment, the organism’s responses to induced changes affect the environment and subsequent organism-environment interactions. Based on the above principles a new research agenda can be formulated to explore different forms of biological intelligence. (shrink)

Serial Endosymbiosis Theory, or SET, was conceived and developed by Lynn Margulis, to explain the greatest discontinuity in the history of life, the origin of eukaryotic cells. Some predictions of SET, namely the origin of mitochondria and chloroplasts, withstood the test of the most recent evidence from a variety of disciplines including phylogenetics, biochemistry, and cell biology. Even though some other predictions fared less well, SET remains a seminal theory in biology. In this paper, I focus on two aspects of (...) SET. First, using the concept of "universal symbiogenesis”, developed by Freeman Dyson to search for commonalities in astronomy and biology, I propose that SET can be extended beyond eukaryogenesis. The extension refers to the possibility that even prokaryotic organisms, themselves subject to the process of symbiogenesis in SET, could have emerged symbiotically. Second, I contrast a recent “viral eukaryogenesis” hypothesis, according to which the nucleus evolved from a complex DNA virus, with a view closer to SET, according to which the nucleus evolved through the interplay of the archaeal host, the eubacterial symbiont, and a non-LTR transposon, or telomerase. Viruses joined in later, through the process of viral endogenization, to shape eukaryotic chromosomes in the process of karyotype evolution. These two proposals based on SET are a testament to its longevity as a scientific theory. (shrink)

All SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) programmes that were conceived and put into practice since the 1960s have been based on anthropocentric ideas concerning the definition of intelligence on a cosmic-wide scale. Brain-based neuronal intelligence, augmented by AI, are currently thought of as being the only form of intelligence that can engage in SETI-type interactions, and this assumption is likely to be connected with the dilemma of the famous Fermi paradox. We argue that high levels of intelligence and cognition inherent (...) in ensembles of bacteria are much more likely to be the dominant form of cosmic intelligence, and the transfer of such intelligence is enabled by the processes of panspermia. We outline the main principles of bacterial intelligence, and how this intelligence may be used by the planetary-scale bacterial system, or the bacteriosphere, through processes of biological tropism, to connect to any extra-terrestrial microbial forms, independently of human interference. (shrink)

An assessment is offered of the recent debate on information in the philosophy of biology, and an analysis is provided of the notion of information as applied in scientific practice in molecular genetics. In particular, this paper deals with the dependence of basic generalizations of molecular biology, above all the 'central dogma', on the socalled 'informational talk'. It is argued that talk of information in the 'central dogma' can be reduced to causal claims. In that respect, the primary aim of (...) the paper is to consider a solution to the major difficulty of the causal interpretation of genetic information: how to distinguish the privileged causal role assigned to nucleic acids, DNA in particular, in the processes of replication and protein production. A close reading is proposed of Francis H. C. Crick's On Protein Synthesis and related works, to which we owe the first explicit definition of information within the scientific practice of molecular biology. (shrink)

This book is the first to systematically develop, explain, and apply diagrammatic projection operators to construct all semi-simple Lie algebras, both classical and exceptional.

The most recent resurgence of philosophical attention to the so-called ‘functional talk' in the sciences can be summarized in terms of the following questions: (Q1) What kind of restrictions, and in particular, what kind of evolutionary restrictions as well as to what extent, is involved in functional ascriptions? (Q2) How can we account for the explanatory import of function-ascribing statements? This paper addresses these questions through a modified version of Cummins' functional analysis. The modification in question is concerned with phylogenetical (...) restrictions on causal role functions, and it stems from an analysis of some primary areas in molecular biology. I examine how evolutionary consideration affects the so-called ‘function-analytical explanatory strategy' (Cummins [1975] 1998, 2002). Finally, I argue that the neo-functional analysis here proposed accounts for a certain convergence between the main rival theories of biological function. ‡I wish to thank David Davies, Eva Jablonka, Thomas Reydon, and Marcel Weber for their helpful comments. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Rijeka, Omladinska 14, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The philosophy of Albert Schweitzer has proved widely influential in modern thinking, especially in the field of ethics. His leading ethical idea can be summarized in the phrase "reverence for life" - namely, that good consists in maintaining and perfecting life, and evil consists in destroying and obstructing life. For Schweitzer, all life is sacred. Ethics thus deals with human attitudes and behavior toward all living beings.Unlike many moral philosophers, Schweitzer argues that knowledge of human nature does not provide a (...) sufficient foundation for any adequate moral theory. That is why he bases his ethics on much broader foundations, articulated in his philosophy of civilization and the philosophy of religion. Schweitzer argues that the material aspect of our civilization has become far more important than its spiritual counterpart. Even organized religion has put itself in the service of politics and economy, thereby losing its vitality and moral authority.Schweitzer's ethics of reverence for life, argues Predrag Cicovacki, offers a viable alternative at a time when traditional ethical theories are found inadequate. Schweitzer's robust and un-dogmatic idealism may offer the best antidote to the prevailing relativism and nihilism of the postmodern epoch. His ethical vision directs us toward a new way of building a more just and more peaceful world. Collecting sixteen of Schweitzer's most effective essays, this volume serves as a compelling introduction to this remarkable thinker and humanist. (shrink)

Can human nature be defined? The author advocates for describing the human nature, wherein he sees the possibility of pointing out its essential traits, not only the differences but also the sameness. The very question of human nature speaks about the necessity of philosophical reflection on all things human. Thus, the question regarding human nature is perpetual and open.

Let $\mathcal M=$ be a linearly ordered first-order structure and T its complete theory. We investigate conditions for T that could guarantee that $\mathcal M$ is not much more complex than some colored orders. Motivated by Rubin’s work [5], we label three conditions expressing properties of types of T and/or automorphisms of models of T. We prove several results which indicate the “geometric” simplicity of definable sets in models of theories satisfying these conditions. For example, we prove that the strongest (...) condition characterizes, up to definitional equivalence, theories of colored orders expanded by equivalence relations with convex classes. (shrink)

Enkulturacija u sociologiji označava uključivanje neke osobe, najčešće djeteta, u obrasce kulture u kojoj se razvija i odrasta. Stoga možemo reći da su i moralni obrasci koje je ta osoba stekla proizišli iz te kulture. Otuda je očevidno da ne postoji jedan univerzalan moral, već se on razlikuje od kulture do kulture. Teza enkulturacije uklapa se u govor o moralnom relativizmu, koji tvrdi da su moralne tvrdnje istinite samo u odnosu na neki standard ili okvir, a ujedno ni taj standard (...) nije isključivo moralno opravdan. Stoga se nameću sljedeća pitanja: smijemo li uopće moralne vrijednosti neke kulture proglasiti nemoralnima?; postoje li granice do kojih bi moral neke kulture bio prihvatljiv i gdje te granice prestaju?; pomaže li stav o prihvaćanju kulture koja ima drukčije moralne vrijednosti njegovanju tolerancije i smanjivanju napetosti među ljudima? U ovoj raspravi nezaobilazni su rezultati istraživanja antropologa koji su se putujući svijetom susretali s kulturama koje niti malo ne nalikuju njihovoj.Enculturation in sociology signifies the inclusion of a person, most often a child, into the patterns of a culture it is developed and grows up in. Thus, we can say that the moral patterns that person acquired are the product of this culture. Hence, it is obvious that there is no universal morality, but that it is different from one culture to another. The thesis of enculturation fits into the discourse about moral relativism, which claims that moral postulates are only true relative to a standard or framework, and that even this standard is not exclusively morally justified. So the following questions arise: can we even announce that the moral values of a culture are amoral; are there limits to which a morality of a culture is acceptable, and where those limits stop; does the attitude about the acceptance of a culture with different moral values helps cherishing of tolerance and the reduction of tensions between people? In this discussion the results of research by anthropologists who met with cultures unlike their own in their travel around the world, are unavoidable. (shrink)

Deklaracija o svjetskome ethosu, što su ju predstavnici velikih svjetskih religija i manjih duhovnih konfesija usvojili na drugom Parlamentu religija svijeta u Chicagu 1993., utrla je put prema onoj vrsti sporazumijevanja koju nije imala nikada do sada. Naime, pokušaji dijaloga među religijama, ekumenizam i tolerancija, koji su bili ključni pojmovi u drugoj polovini 20. stoljeća, imali su bazični nedostatak, a to je pokušaj prihvaćanja i uvažavanja tuđeg učenja, koje se razlikuje od vlastitoga, tj. sve se svodilo na »vježbanje tolerancije«. Naspram (...) navedenih nastojanja u međureligijskoj i međukonfesionalnoj suradnji, svjetski ethos nastoji doći do zajedničkih temelja, i to ne samo zajedničkih u religijama već i u nereligijskim etičkim sustavima, te se trudi pronaći i odrediti ethos na kojemu bi se zasnivale profesije koje čine bazu razvoja suvremenog društva.Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, adopted by representatives of great world religions and lesser spiritual confessions at II. Parliament of World Religions in Chicago 1993, have paved the way towards that kind of understanding that was never reached before. Namely, attempts of dialogue between religions, ecumenisms of tolerances, that were key terms in the second half of 20th century, all have basic failure, i.e., an attempt to accept and respect doctrines of the others, different from our own, i.e. everything was reduced to “practicing tolerance”. Against the above mentioned efforts in interreligious and interconfessional cooperation, the global ethic try to reach the common grounds, not just common in religion but also in unreligious ethical systems, and it attempts to find and determine the ethos which should serve as fundamentals for professions that make basics of contemporary society development. (shrink)

An assessment is offered of the recent debate on information in the philosophy of biology, and an analysis is provided of the notion of information as applied in scientific practice in molecular genetics. In particular, this paper deals with the dependence of basic generalizations of molecular biology, above all the ‘central dogma’, on the so-called ‘informational talk’ (Maynard Smith [2000a]). It is argued that talk of information in the ‘central dogma’ can be reduced to causal claims. In that respect, the (...) primary aim of the paper is to consider a solution to the major difficulty of the causal interpretation of genetic information: how to distinguish the privileged causal role assigned to nucleic acids, DNA in particular, in the processes of replication and protein production. A close reading is proposed of Francis H. C. Crick's On Protein Synthesis (1958) and related works, to which we owe the first explicit definition of information within the scientific practice of molecular biology. Introduction 1.1 The basic questions of the information debate 1.2 The causal interpretation (CI) of biological information and Crick's ‘central dogma’ Crick's definitions of genetic information The main requirement for (CI) Types of causation in molecular biology 4.1 Structural causation in molecular biology 4.2 Nucleic acids as correlative causal factors The ‘central dogma’ without the notion of information Concluding remarks This is a new version of this article as there were errors in the abstract and full text in the previous version. (shrink)

Let T be a complete, countable, first-order theory having infinite models. We introduce types directed by constants, and prove that their presence in a model of T guaranties the maximal number of non-isomorphic countable models : I=2.

The paper discusses the relation of the absolutism of sovereign?s power and the freedom of the citizens, against the background of the influence of biblical paradigms on Hobbes. U radu je razmotren problem odnosa apsolutizma suverenove vlasti i slobode podanika, na zaledju uticaja biblijskih paradigmi na Hobsa.

This article considers Descartes? doctrine of eternal truths, in connection with the status of the principle of no contradiction. It is shown that the rear created and uncreated eternal truths; the former are eternal truths about creatures and the se truths are the object of divine will, while the latter are the truths about God him self, which are founded in his existence, so he can not change them. Concerning the question whet her the principle of no contradiction is a (...) created or a no created eternal truth, different Descartes? claims on this subject, potentially incongruent, are pointed out. Based on the fact that this principle does not have absolute validity, the conclusion is that in Descartes? metaphysics the status of the principle of no contradiction is not relevant, because God?s infinite power is in different to ward it. U tekstu je razmatrana Dekartova doktrina o vecnim istinama, s obzirom na status principa neprotivrecnosti. Pokazano je da kod Dekarta postoje stvorene i nestvorene vecne istine; prve jesu vecne istine o stvorevinama i jesu objekat Bozje volje, druge jesu vecne istine o Bogu samom, temelje se u njegovoj egzistenciji i on ih ne moze menjati. U vezi sa pitanjem da li je princip neprotivrecnosti stvorena ili nestvorena vecna istina, ukazano je na razlicite, potencijalno nesaglasne Dekartove tvrdnje o ovom problemu. Na osnovu cinjenice da on ne vazi vise apsolutno, izveden je zakljucak da u Dekartovoj metafizici njegov status jeste irelevantan, zato sto je Bozja beskonacna moc prema njemu indiferentna. (shrink)

Na osnovu analize relevantnih mesta iz Dekartovih spisa u clanku se pokazuje da Dekartove ideje reprezentuju stvari u duhu, ali da on nije reprezentacionalista u malbransovskom smislu: kod Dekarta se percipira reprezentovani objekt a ne reprezentacija objekta. Nakon toga, analiziraju se tri smisla ideje kod njega, objektivni, formalni i materijalni, a potom i razumevanje pojmova conceptus formalis i conceptus objectivus kod Franciska Suareza sto cini neposredan istorijskofilozofski izvor Dekartove teorije ideja. U zakljucku se istice centralnost pojma ideje uzete formalno i (...) iznose se razlozi za tvrdnju da u okviru Dekatove teorije ideja reprezentacionalizam i direktni realizam jesu ekvivalentni. Na kraju se daje sumarni pregled uticaja i preobrazaja razumevanja ideja u ranoj modernoj filozofiji. PR Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179049. (shrink)

The article analyzes the role of the presidents of French Fifth Republic in the process of the French reconciliation with its Vichy past, i.e. with collaboration and participation in the Final solution of Jewish question in Europe during Second World War. It is analyzed De Gaulle?s creation of?resistancialist myth?; Mitterrand?s Pre-War as well as War past, his friendship with R. Bousquet and his refusal to speak at the Commemoration in 1992; Chirac?s speech in which he admitted collective responsibility of France (...) and Frenchmen. In the final chapter, on the basis of the French experience, some conclusions have been drawn which could be relevant for Serbia today. These are the most important ones: the building of the myth immediately following a traumatic period is an unavoidable phase; neither the political left nor right are a priori a positive factor in the process of the reconciliation with the past; the president of the state must have a?vision of the statesman?; the explicit verbal recognition of the responsibility is necessary. (shrink)

The most recent resurgence of philosophical attention to the so-called ‘functional talk’ in the sciences can be summarized in terms of the following questions: (Q1) What kind of restrictions, and in particular, what kind of evolutionary restrictions as well as to what extent, are involved in functional ascriptions? (Q2) How can we account for the explanatory import of function-ascribing statements? This paper addresses these questions on the basis of a modified version of Cummins’ functional analysis. The modification in question is (...) concerned with phylogenetical restrictions on causal role functions, and it stems from an analysis of some primary areas in molecular biology. I examine how evolutionary consideration affects the so-called “function-analytical explanatory strategy” (Cummins [1975] 1998, 2002). Finally, I argue that the neo-functional analysis here proposed accounts for a certain convergence between the main rival theories of biological function. (shrink)

The article analyses Aquinas’s derivation of the transcendental notions in the first article of the first question of The Disputed Questions on the Truth. After showing the way for adding to ens, there is a detailed analysis of the notions res, unum, aliquid, verum and bonum. The analysis of the notion of thing has shown the special position of ens as a transcendental, namely as a primary, “transcendentalizing” transcendental. In the context of verum and bonum, it is pointed to the (...) difference between the true and the good as the transcendental notions and the true and the good in a cognitive and ethical sense. In the end, the three features of transcendentals in Aquinas concerning reality were singled out, as well as the three features concerning their meaning. (shrink)

U ovom tekstu pokusacu da protumacim promene kod Nea, glavnog lika trilogije Matriks, na zaledju Platonovih i Dekartovih ideja, kao i Hegelovih iz Filozofije istorije i Fenomenologije duha. Iako?filozofski?, Matriks nije razvucen niti dosadan film: umesto da beskrajno pricaju, likovi neprestano rade i taj ih rad menja. Suprotno rasirenom misljenju, ova interpretacija ne nalazi Dekartovu radikalnu sumnju u prvom delu trilogije, vec ga vidi kao dosledni platonizam. No, u njemu ima kartezijanskih motiva. Rezultat prvog dela jeste hegelovska nesretna svest. Sve (...) je to tek priprema za kljucni momenat cele trilogije, tj. dijalog Nea i Arhitekte. Neova odluka da odabere spas Triniti protumacena je u Hegelovim kategorijama beskonacnog prava subjekta da zadovolji sebe u onom sto radi; zbog toga je sesti Neo nov. Nakon pokazivanja razlika u ciljevima Nea i Agenta Smita, kao i preobrazaja ciljeva ljudi, treci deo teksta bavi se samim krajem Matriks revolucija i analizira ga koristeci Marksove ideje, s referencama na Platona i Nicea. (shrink)

The article analyzes the meaning of the concept of res in Descartes? metaphysics. The basic meaning is that thing is an essence that could have even real existence. Through the analysis of Descartes? works that meaning has made more precise against the background of the rational distinction between essence and existence. The relations among the thing and the notions of reality, the degrees of reality and the modes of reality were shown. The special attention is dedicated to the relation between (...) the thing and the causality, i.e., to the problems how the things could cause and what is the cause of things. The problem of causality is connected with Descartes? teaching concerning the creation of eternal truths; that connection expresses the difference between his and scholastics? concept of thing, which is obvious in his concept of the causation of the degrees of reality. At the end the late, scholastics? notion of supertranscendental meaning of thing is shown in Descartes. (shrink)

The article analyzes Aquinas?s arguments for real distinction between essence and being as presented in the chapters 52-54 of the second book of the Summa contra gentiles, in the wider context of his metapyhsics. First, the paper analyzes the determinations of God on the basis of real distinction, and after that it analyzes the role of the act and potency, priority of act, separation of the act from the form in Aquinas?s understanding of esse, as well as the concept of (...) existential participation; in doing so, the difference among those concepts in Plato and Aristotle and in Aquinas is accentuated. At the end, the paper analyzes the role of two kinds of causality, efficient and formal in real distinction. (shrink)