DSpace Collection:
https://hdl.handle.net/10171/16828
2024-03-29T14:04:22ZBiological functions are causes, not effects: A critique of selected effects theories
https://hdl.handle.net/10171/69293
Title: Biological functions are causes, not effects: A critique of selected effects theories
Abstract: The theory of Selected Effects (SE) is currently the most widely accepted etiological account of function in
biology. It argues that the function of any trait is the effect that past traits of that type produced that contributed
to its current existence. Its proper or etiological function is whatever effect was favoured by natural selection
irrespective of the trait’s current effects. By defining function with respect to the effects of natural selection, the
theory claims to eschew the problem of backwards causality and to ground functional normativity on differential
reproduction or differential persistence. Traditionally, many have criticised the theory for its inability to
envisage any function talk outside selective reproduction, for failing to account for the introduction of new
functions, and for treating function as epiphenomenal. This article unveils four additional critiques of the SE
theory that highlight the source of its critical problems. These critiques follow from the fact that natural selection
is not a form of work, but a passive filter that merely blocks or permits prior functioning traits to be reproduced.
Natural selection necessarily assumes the causal efficacy of prior organism work to produce the excess functional
traits and offspring from which only the best fitted will be preserved. This leads to four new incapacities of the SE
theory, which will be here analysed: (i) it provides no criterion for determining what distinguishes a proper from
an incidental function; (ii) it cannot distinguish between neutral, incidental, and malfunctioning traits, thus
treating organism benefit as irrelevant; (iii) it fails to account for the physical work that makes persistence and
reproduction possible, and (iv) in so doing, it falls into a vicious regress. We conclude by suggesting that, inspired
by Mills and Beatty’s propensity interpretation, the aporia of backward causation implicit in anticipatory accounts of function can also be avoided by a dispositional approach that defines function in terms of work that
synchronously counters the ubiquitous tendency for organism entropy to increase in the context of far-fromequilibrium thermodynamics.2024-01-01T00:00:00ZInmaterial knowledge as ultimate emergence
https://hdl.handle.net/10171/68626
Title: Inmaterial knowledge as ultimate emergence
Abstract: Current discussions on the philosophy of Nature hinge on the concept of emergence.
Such a concept has long succeeded in the Life sciences and is increasingly receiving the
focus of Physics and Philosophy of Physics alike. Remarkably enough, even for basic
scientists, there is no agreement on whether emergence should be considered
fundamental (ontological) or just an elegant and more straightforward (epistemic) way of
referring to complex arrangements of basic stuff. In this paper: (1) I evince said
disagreement by confronting two distinguished approaches, namely Bishop and Ellis’s,
and Sean Carroll’s. (2) I intend to move beyond the loggerheads by supporting
ontological emergence as a widespread feature in Nature. I invoke Penrose’s argument
of functional freedom as an epistemic hint for ontological emergence, i.e. the necessary
recourse to additional - apparently non-fundamental - criteria to justify the coarsegraining of finer, lower levels into coarser, higher levels in Nature. Said move, if
understood in keeping with a minimum scientific realism, points towards a different kind
of causality at work in the universe, classically referred to as formal causation. (3) Once
ontological emergence is naturalized, one can frame the emergence of immaterial
knowledge as an ontological apex - dubbed ultimate emergence - that reverses the trend
of coarse-graining.2022-01-01T00:00:00ZClassicality first: why zurek’s existential interpretation of quantum mechanics implies Copenhagen
https://hdl.handle.net/10171/68624
Title: Classicality first: why zurek’s existential interpretation of quantum mechanics implies Copenhagen
Abstract: Most interpretations of Quantum Mechanics alternative to Copenhagen interpretation try to
avoid the dualistic favor of the latter. One of the basic goals of the former is to avoid the ad
hoc introduction of observers and observations as an inevitable presupposition of physics.
Non-Copenhagen interpretations usually trust in decoherence as a necessary mechanism to
obtain a well-defned, observer-free transition from a unitary quantum description of the
universe to classicality. Even though decoherence does not solve the problem of the defnite outcomes, it helps to explain why we do not observe superpositions and, according to
Zurek’s existential interpretation, why a specifc preferred basis emerges through system–
environment interactions. The aim of this paper is to show why such interpretation ends up
begging the question and provides little progress in understanding the quantum-to-classical
transition; the ultimate reason being that preferred bases always correlate to human observation. Beneftting from the technical discussion, some remarks will be ofered in the last
section regarding the role of classical observations as a necessary condition to make workable the formalism of Quantum Mechanics and scientifc activity itself.2019-01-01T00:00:00ZFormal causation in integrated information theory: an answer to the intrinsicality problem
https://hdl.handle.net/10171/68622
Title: Formal causation in integrated information theory: an answer to the intrinsicality problem
Abstract: Integrated Information Theory (IIT) stands out as one of the most promising theories for
dealing with the hard problem of consciousness. Founded on fve axioms derived from
phenomenology, IIT seeks for the physical substrate of consciousness that complies with
such axioms according to the criterion of maximally integrated information (Φ). Eventually, IIT identifes phenomenal consciousness with maximal Φ or, what is the same thing,
with the strongest cause-efect power in the system. Among the scholars critical of this
theory, some point to the so-called Intrinsicality Problem (IP), namely that consciousness
cannot be an intrinsic property of the system because maximal Φ crucially depends on the
possible existence of bigger values of Φ if the initial system is appropriately linked to or
embedded in larger systems. Although proposals in the recent literature aim to solve the
IP by going beyond reductionism and physicalism, none of them tackle the real issue, i.e.,
the insufciency of IIT’s causal-metaphysical structure. This papers endeavors to provide
a solution to the IP in IIT within a hylomorphist ontology that includes formal causation.
Complementing IIT with formal causation provides the theory with a criterion of individuation that solves the IP and, by relaxing identifcation between maximal Φ and consciousness, it lends a more robust metaphysical structure. To wit, maximal Φ is a necessary but
not sufcient condition for the existence of consciousness.2021-01-01T00:00:00Z