New Paper (2024): Eating and Cognition in Two Animals without Neurons: Sponges and Trichoplax

17 June 2024

New Paper (2024): Eating and Cognition in Two Animals without Neurons: Sponges and Trichoplax

Published open-access in Biological Theory as part of the upcoming special issue on Ladislav Kováč and the Origins of Cognitive Biology. Abstract: Eating is a fundamental behavior in which all organisms must engage in order to procure the material and energy from their environment that they need to maintain themselves. Since controlling eating requires procuring, […]

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Life beyond the free energy principle: how to survive without invariance

28 February 2024

Life beyond the free energy principle: how to survive without invariance

Since emerging onto the stage as ‘a theory of cortical responses’ in 2005[1], Karl Friston’s free energy principle has undergone numerous costume changes. In its most modest dress, it appears as nothing more than a tautological truism[2]: in its most eye-catching ensemble it is “an existential dyad from which everything of interest about life and […]

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Life and Mind: The common tetradic structure of organism and consciousness – a phenomenological approach

31 January 2024

Life and Mind: The common tetradic structure of organism and consciousness – a phenomenological approach

The question of the holistic structure of an organism is a recurring theme in the philosophy of biology and has been increasingly discussed again in recent years.[2] Organisms have recently been described as complex systems[3] that autonomously create, maintain and reproduce themselves[4] while constantly interacting with their environment. Key focal points include their autopoiesis[5], autonomy[6], […]

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CFA: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND E-COGNITION

23 January 2024

CFA: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND E-COGNITION

Call for abstract for a conference to be held at the University of Granada on June 25th-27th. Confirmed speakers include Alva Noë, Louise Barrett, Dan Hutto, Tony Chemero, Glenda Satne, Annemarie Kalis, Carls Sachs, Luis Favela, and Gloria Andrada. Deadline for abstract submission is February 28th. Here the description from the conference website: The embodied […]

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New Paper (2023): Enacticism: Utopian & Scientific

16 December 2023

New Paper (2023): Enacticism: Utopian & Scientific

Published open access in the new issue of Constructivist Foundations and followed by a rich series of open peer-review commentaries. Context: Our target article concerns the direction and growth of enactivism, a framework portrayed as a revolutionary shift in understanding cognition. While enactivism continues to be a lively position, it is unclear how its contributions relate […]

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New Book (2023): Organization in Biology

22 November 2023

New Book (2023): Organization in Biology

Published open access by Springer From the editor’s introduction: For most of the twentieth century, biology forgot or largely neglected organization. By this term, I mean a certain mode of interaction among the parts of a system, which is by hypothesis distinctively realized by biological systems. While a systemic trend is progressively pervading various biological […]

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The free energy principle—a precis

17 October 2023

The free energy principle—a precis

1. Introduction Here, we present the free energy principle (FEP) in a simple manner to a broad audience. Alongside other cornerstones of mathematical physics—for instance, variational principles such as the principles of stationary action or the principle of maximum entropy—the FEP serves as the basis for a new class of mechanics or mechanical theories (in […]

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New paper (2023): A revised central dogma for the 21st century: All biology is cognitive information processing

10 October 2023

New paper (2023): A revised central dogma for the 21st century: All biology is cognitive information processing

This new paper advances the provocative thesis that we should revise the central dogma of molecular biology in the direction of a biology of cognition, based on a regime of self-reference that is operational already at the level of the cell. Paper available here. Abstract: Crick’s Central Dogma has been a foundational aspect of 20th […]

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New Paper (2023): Using neurons to maintain autonomy: Learning from C. elegans

12 September 2023

Published open access on BioSystems Abstract: Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous—maintain themselves far from equilibrium through their own activities—requires understanding how they regulate those activities. In multicellular animals, such control can be exercised either via endocrine signaling through the vasculature or via neurons. In C. elegans this control is exercised by a well-delineated relatively […]

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