Contemporary nuclear physics, molecular biology, and evolutionary theory each address their domains through independent frameworks with empirical parameters and no shared derivational foundation. This paper derives the origin of life and all three core conditions of Darwinian evolution — self-replication, mutation, and selection pressure — as necessary consequences of a single algebraic structure: M₃(ℂ), the unique minimal non-commutative algebra of Cognitional Mechanics (CM). No free parameters are introduced at any stage. -/- The derivation proceeds in two stages. First, the (...) spectral position κ* = 1/6 is derived internally from CM Axioms 1–4 alone: the minimum occupied-state count generating non-commutativity is n = 2 (Axioms 1 and 4), and the unique Ad-invariant positive-definite metric scalar is A = 12 (Axioms 2 and 4), yielding κ* = 2/12 = 1/6 with no empirical input. This value determines the four-dimensional bonding space V_C on which all subsequent structure is built. -/- Second, life (Condition P) and Darwinian evolution (Condition Q) are shown to be algebraically distinct. A system satisfies Condition P if it sustains idempotent self-referential computation — the algebraic definition of life, substrate-independent in principle and realised at minimum cost by carbon. Condition Q additionally requires mutation, derived as the structural action of off-diagonal root operators forced by Axioms 1 and 3, and positive selection pressure, derived as N²-scaled relative entropy with the parameter-free coefficient 25/1296. A κ-space scan confirms κ* = 1/6 as the minimum-cost simultaneous realisation of both conditions within Z = 1–36. Biogenesis and Darwinian evolution are thermodynamic projections of M₃(ℂ) spectral structure; molecular biology is their Tier-2 image. -/- Published on April, 19 2026 DOI:10.5281/zenodo.19648298 . (shrink)

Contemporary science finds itself caught in a profound epistemic contradiction: while presenting itself as the primary engine of knowledge, it increasingly operates within a techno-economic apparatus that reduces inquiry to commodity production, managerial optimization, and competitive games of prestige. This structural entanglement with capitalist rationality produces a mode of knowledge that is self-referential, conservative, and fundamentally extractive—one that filters novelty through bureaucratic metrics, rewards strategic assimilation over conceptual risk, and neutralizes ideas that do not reinforce existing circuits of power. The (...) resulting scientific landscape is not merely limited; it is systematically incapable of generating the transformative frameworks required to address the evolutionary, ecological, and civilizational challenges of our time. This manuscript argues that such limitations are not correctable from within. They arise from the core architecture of the scientific-academic system itself, whose epistemic, institutional, and economic foundations preclude the emergence of genuinely alternative thought. In response, we propose the construction of a new organizational and conceptual ecology for knowledge: EVOLUTIO. Conceived as a life-centered research ecosystem, EVOLUTIO advances an epistemic orientation in which inquiry unfolds as a creative, relational, and ontologically grounded process, rather than as a market-driven production of publishable artifacts. It is organized to protect conceptual originality, to nurture long-form inquiry, and to cultivate a mode of science that is aligned with the generativity of life rather than the logics of capital. By articulating the conditions that impede renewal in the current system and proposing the foundations of a life-centered science, the manuscript outlines a disruptive and necessary reconfiguration of how knowledge can be produced, sustained, and allowed to evolve. (shrink)

The article aims to define the management mechanism of complex, open dynamic systems with human participation. The following parts of the system life-cycle were identified and unified in the theoretical scope: general and specific compositional elements of repeating changes, marginal index boundaries, the dynamics of the compositional elements of the lifecycle, the key points of the change in the character of the index dynamics. In the practical scope, two common trends of socio-economical system life-cycle management are considered. The (...) first trend is the regulation of the comprising element ratio, which provides the increase in the duration of the maximally effective performance of a functioning system. The second trend is the regulation of the reproduction time of a new system. The systems life cycle aspects are investigated in almost all sciences and studied within many disciplines in the field of higher education. Therefore, deepening the mastery of scientific and methodological foundations of the life cycle of a complex open dynamic system is useful for any subject in everyday and practical activities. A human being – in the formation of own human capital. Families – when it is formed, the birth of children, the distribution of income and expenses. Companies – for efficient business activities. As well as local communities, local self-government bodies, public authorities and global entities within their profile activities. The results of the research provide the possibility of the development of applicable mechanisms for effectiveness and stability enhancement of managerial and entrepreneurial operation in business projects. (shrink)

We live longing for a utopia. However, we live in increasingly dystopian times. Whenever we imagine possible futures, a continuity of human progress in the direction of greater scientific-technological development comes to mind. We are completely certain that the reason that brought us current modern science and technology will lead us to this utopia, to a promising future. There is an association as intimate as it is indubitable between future, progress, technoscience and utopia. Isn't it time to question this undisputed (...) certainty? Is it true that reason, progress, science, technology and utopia will lead us to a healthy future for man and nature? Isn't it time to open our eyes and mind to see things differently? Isn't it time to stop frantically producing in pursuit of progress and take a rest to think? There is a fundamental and radical difference between reason and thinking. This book proposes a journey through the worlds of science fiction, utopianism, socialism, communism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, existentialism, Zen Buddhism, art, medievalism, alchemy, science, technology and philosophy. This book proposes to abandon the utopian-dystopian reason to embrace the eutopian life, a new mode of existence in which man needs to regain his rootedness with Earth to be able to think again and live in harmony with himself and nature. (shrink)

This article aimed to show the analytical potential of the life-world concept in the field of public health, which has not received much attention in the phenomenological literature. Specifically, based on phenomenologically grounded qualitative research, we aimed to show how the life-world concept, as worked out in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy, can offer new insights on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Although there are many ways in which the life-world can motivate vaccine hesitancy, we have narrowed our focus to one (...) of them. Our aim is to argue that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is motivated by discrepancies and conflicts between the perceptual life-world and the scientific knowledge. If the scientific knowledge about the pandemic and the vaccine is not integrated in the life-world—which in its core is an embodied, perceptual world—and instead conflicts with it, people are more likely to become disinclined to get vaccinated rather than motivated to pursue vaccination. We conclude the discussion by outlining ideas on how the insights offered by our analysis could be potentially used in devising management and communication strategies in public health crises, such as a pandemic outbreak. (shrink)

In the theory of life and death drives, formulated by Sigmund Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), two opposing forces are described as guiding human behavior: the life drive, which seeks preservation and connection, and the death drive, which tends toward destruction and a return to the inorganic. Over time, this dichotomy has often been interpreted as the presence of two opposing forces, suggesting the psyche’s search for balance between them. However, we may reexamine the classical examples (...) used to explain the action of these drives. The act of eating, though considered a life drive, destroys the food during mastication. Freud also associated the death drive with the search for peace, or the absence of stimuli, referring to soldiers who returned from World War II. Looking again at the eating example: wouldn’t the destruction of food essentially serve as a means to fulfill the life drive? And in the case of the soldiers — isn’t the desire for peace or for the absence of harmful stimuli actually a desire for the realization of the life drive? This article thus aims to review the conception of the life and death drives by proposing an alternative interpretation in which the death drive is not an original and equivalent force to the life drive, but rather a phenomenon that results from the obstruction of its original flow. (shrink)

Life expectancy prediction, a pivotal facet of public health and policy formulation, has witnessed remarkable advancements owing to the integration of neural network models and comprehensive datasets. In this research, we present an innovative approach to forecasting life expectancy in diverse countries. Leveraging a neural network architecture, our model was trained on a dataset comprising 22 distinct features, acquired from Kaggle, and encompassing key health indicators, socioeconomic metrics, and cultural attributes. The model demonstrated exceptional predictive accuracy, attaining an (...) impressive 99.27% and an average error of 0.0034, underscoring the potency of deep learning in tackling complex, real-world challenges. Furthermore, our study delved into feature importance analysis, identifying critical determinants such as HIV/AIDS prevalence, income composition of resources, and socioeconomic status that significantly influence life expectancy. These findings provide actionable insights for healthcare policymakers and practitioners, emphasizing the importance of addressing health disparities, promoting economic development, and implementing targeted interventions. This research bridges the gap between data-driven methodologies and global health, offering a robust predictive tool and enriching our understanding of the multifaceted dynamics that shape life expectancy across nations. (shrink)

What makes a person's life meaningful? Thaddeus Metz offers a new answer to an ancient question which has recently returned to the philosophical agenda. He proceeds by examining what, if anything, all the conditions that make a life meaningful have in common. The outcome of this process is a philosophical theory of meaning in life. He starts by evaluating existing theories in terms of the classic triad of the good, the true, and the beautiful. He considers whether (...) meaning in life might be about such principles as fulfilling God's purpose, obtaining reward in an afterlife for having been virtuous, being attracted to what merits attraction, leaving the world a better place, connecting to organic unity, or transcending oneself by connecting to what is extensive. He argues that no extant principle satisfactorily accounts for the three-fold significance of morality, enquiry, and creativity, and that the most promising theory is a fresh one according to which meaning in life is a matter of intelligence contoured toward fundamental conditions of human existence. (shrink)

In the past, philosophers, scientists, and even the general opinion, had no problem in accepting the existence of consciousness in the same way as the existence of the physical world. After the advent of Newtonian mechanics, science embraced a complete materialistic conception about reality. Scientists started proposing hypotheses like abiogenesis (origin of first life from accumulation of atoms and molecules) and the Big Bang theory (the explosion theory for explaining the origin of universe). How the universe came to be (...) what it is now is a key philosophical question. The hypothesis that it came from Nothing (as proposed by Stephen Hawking, among others), proves to be dissembling, since the quantum vacuum can hardly be considered a void. In modern science, it is generally assumed that matter existed before the universe came to be. Modern science hypothesizes that the manifestation of life on Earth is nothing but a mere increment in the complexity of matter — and hence is an outcome of evolution of matter (chemical evolution) following the Big Bang. After the manifestation of life, modern science believed that chemical evolution transformed itself into biological evolution, which then had caused the entire biodiversity on our planet. The ontological view of the organism as a complex machine presumes life as just a chance occurrence, without any inner purpose. This approach in science leaves no room for the subjective aspect of consciousness in its attempt to know the world as the relationships among forces, atoms, and molecules. On the other hand, the Vedāntic view states that the origin of everything material and nonmaterial is sentient and absolute (unconditioned). Thus, sentient life is primitive and reproductive of itself – omne vivum ex vivo – life comes from life. This is the scientifically verified law of experience. Life is essentially cognitive and conscious. And, consciousness, which is fundamental, manifests itself in the gradational forms of all sentient and insentient nature. In contrast to the idea of objective evolution of bodies, as envisioned by Darwin and followers, Vedānta advocates the idea of subjective evolution of consciousness as the developing principle of the world. In this paper, an attempt has been made to highlight a few relevant developments supporting a sentient view of life in scientific research, which has caused a paradigm shift in our understanding of life and its origin. (shrink)

This paper investigates the concept of behavioral autonomy in Artificial Life by drawing a parallel to the use of teleological notions in the study of biological life. Contrary to one of the leading assumptions in Artificial Life research, I argue that there is a significant difference in how autonomous behavior is understood in artificial and biological life forms: the former is underlain by human goals in a way that the latter is not. While behavioral traits can (...) be explained in relation to evolutionary history in biological organisms, in synthetic life forms behavior depends on a design driven by a research agenda, further shaped by broader human goals. This point will be illustrated with a case study on a synthetic life form. Consequently, the putative epistemic benefit of reaching a better understanding of behavioral autonomy in biological organisms by synthesizing artificial life forms is subject to doubt: the autonomy observed in such artificial organisms may be a mere projection of human agency. Further questions arise in relation to the need to spell out the relevant human aims when addressing potential social or ethical implications of synthesizing artificial life forms. (shrink)

Do trees of life have roots? What do these roots look like? In this contribution, I argue that research on the origins of life might offer glimpses on the topology of these very roots. More specifically, I argue (1) that the roots of the tree of life go well below the level of the commonly mentioned ‘ancestral organisms’ down into the level of much simpler, minimally living entities that might be referred to as ‘protoliving systems’, and (2) (...) that further below, a system of roots gradually dissolves into non-living matter along several functional dimensions. In between non-living and living matter, one finds physico-chemical systems that I propose to characterize by a ‘lifeness signature’. In turn, this ‘lifeness signature’ might also account for a diverse range of biochemical entities that are found to be ‘less-than-living’ yet ‘more-than-non-living’. (shrink)

Life is the center of our existence. One would be tempted to say that first of all we live. However, our existence does not seem to pass in that modality. The exacerbated materialism in which our existence takes place, displaces life from the center of the scene. Our society is organized around production, consumerism, exploitation, efficiency, trade and propaganda. That is to say, our existence seems to have economy as the center of organization of our activities. The struggle (...) of this century that is beginning is to put life at the center of our existence, and to put economy in its proper place, that is, in the service of life. (shrink)

In the future, human destiny may depend on our ethics. In particular, biotechnology and expansion in space can transform life, raising profound questions. Guidance may be found in Life-centered ethics, as biotic ethics that value the basic patterns of organic gene/protein life, and as panbiotic ethics that always seek to expand life. These life-centered principles can be based on scientific insights into the unique place of life in nature, and the biological unity of all (...) life. Belonging to life then implies a human purpose: to safeguard and propagate life. Expansion in space will advance this purpose but will also raise basic questions. Should we expand all life or only intelligent life? Should we aim to create populations of trillions? Should we seed other solar systems? How far can we change but still preserve the human species, and life itself? The future of all life may be in our hands, and it can depend on our guiding ethics whether life will fulfil its full potentials. Given such profound powers, life-centered ethics can best secure future generations. Our descendants may then understand nature more deeply, and seek to extend life indefinitely. In that future, our human existence can find a cosmic purpose. (shrink)

In the Eudemian Ethics II 1, 1219a34–b8, Aristotle defines happiness as ‘the activity of a complete life in accordance with complete virtue’. Most scholars interpret a complete life as a whole lifetime, which means that happiness involves virtuous activity over an entire life. This article argues against this common reading by using Aristotle’s notion of ‘activity’ (energeia) as a touchstone. It argues that happiness, according to the Eudemian Ethics, must be a complete activity that reaches its end (...) at any and every moment. The upshot of this reading is that life reaches completeness within a lifetime and that death cannot be the requirement for making life complete. (shrink)

One of the ideas that characterises the enactive approach to cognition is that life and mind are deeply continuous, which means that both phenomena share the same basic set of organisational and phenomenological properties. The appeal to phenomenology to address life and basic cognition is controversial. It has been argued that, because of its reliance on phenomenological categories, enactivism may implicitly subscribe to a form of anthropomorphism incompatible with the modern scientific framework. These worries are a result of (...) a lack of clarity concerning the role that phenomenology can play in relation to biology and our understanding of non-human organisms. In this paper, I examine whether phenomenology can be validly incorporated into the enactive conception of mind and life. I argue that enactivists must rely on phenomenology when addressing life and mind so that they can properly conceptualise minimal living systems as cognitive, as well as argue for an enactive conception of biology in line with their call for a non-objectivist science. To sustain these claims, I suggest that enactivism must be further phenomenologised by not only drawing from Hans Jonas’s phenomenology of the organism (as enactivists often do) but also from Edmund Husserl’s thoughts on the connection between transcendental phenomenology and biology. Additionally, phenomenology must be considered capable of providing explanatory accounts of phenomena. (shrink)

Abstract: How does purposive agency emerge in a universe of blind physical laws? This paper answers by deriving and defending: T6: The Life‐Agency Isomorphism Theorem: Life and minimal agency are isomorphic. A system is alive if and only if it possesses Hormē (the striving to persist), and it possesses Hormē if and only if it is an agent. I argue that Hormē (Ὁρμή) is not a metaphor but a measurable thermodynamic state: the continuous work performed by a far-from-equilibrium (...) system to maintain its boundaries. This constitutes the capacity to “direct causal flow”—altering the stream of cause and effect to secure persistence. By identifying this shared physical basis, the framework dissolves two persistent philosophical gaps: the Life/Mind Gap, by showing agency is the thermodynamic condition of life; and the Mechanism/Teleology Gap, by demonstrating that purposiveness is the immanent logic of dissipative structures. Finally, I sketch how this agency scales evolutionarily—from bacterial taxis to the human Nous (the meta-cognitive capacity for abstraction and self-modeling)—providing a naturalistic foundation for intrinsic normativity. -/- Keywords: agency, teleonomy, autopoiesis, thermodynamics, Hormē, philosophy of biology, en- activism, dissipative structures, Life-Mind Continuity, Life-Agency Isomorphism, Mechanism- Teleology Gap. (shrink)

The article explores the concept of ‘life’ via processual ontology, contrasting the approaches of substance and processual ontologies, and investigates the link between ontological assumptions and sociopolitical discourses, stating that the predominant substance ontologies also promote an objectifying and anthropocentric framework in sociopolitical discourses and ethical approaches. Arguing for a necessary shift in the ontological conceptualization of life to enable environmentally-minded ethics for the future, the article explores the tie between the sociopolitical discourses embedded in a worldview that (...) is grounded in substance ontology and ethical frameworks. Whilst affirming this tie, this study also explicates the limitations and potential feasibility of a processual understanding of life, in the context of the existential disposition of the self-alienated lived-body self that is ontologically predisposed to objectification as a necessary pre-condition to human self-awareness. (shrink)

The philosophy of biology faces three interrelated foundational problems that have resisted unified treatment. The first is the problem of biological function: what constitutes the function of a biological trait, and what distinguishes proper functioning from mere causal contribution? The second is the species problem: what makes a collection of organisms a species, and what criterion of species membership is both biologically adequate and philosophically principled? The third is the problem of the levels of selection: at which level or levels (...) of biological organisation does natural selection operate, and what determines whether a candidate entity is a unit of selection? These problems have been treated as largely independent, generating extensive literatures that rarely connect. -/- This paper proposes that all three receive unified treatment within Constraint Theory (CT) — the thesis, established by transcendental argument, that constraint is the ontological primitive constitutive of determinate existence as such. On the CT account, biological systems are hierarchically organised constraint structures: living entities are constituted by nested constraint profiles operating at molecular, cellular, organismal, and populational levels, each generating and being generated by the constraint structures at adjacent levels. Life itself is the condition of maintaining a constraint profile against the entropic tendency toward constraint dissolution. Biological function, on the CT account, is the constraint-propagation contribution of a trait to the maintenance of the organism’s integrated constraint profile. This account integrates the selected-effects account (Millikan) and the causal-role account (Cummins), explaining what each gets right and why: the selected-effects history identifies which constraint propagations were adaptive, and the causal-role contribution identifies which constraint propagations are currently operative. Malfunction is constraint-propagation failure: the inability of a trait to make its characteristic constraint contribution to the organism’s integrated profile. -/- The species problem receives a constraint-structural resolution: a species is a constraint configuration maintained across generations through reproduction, where the reproductive constraint propagates the characteristic constraint structure of the species from parent to offspring. Speciation is constraint divergence: the progressive development of incompatible constraint profiles in populations that are reproductively isolated. The species concept is neither purely biological nor purely ecological but constraint-structural, which explains why different species concepts capture different aspects of the same underlying phenomenon. -/- The levels-of-selection debate receives a CT analysis: a candidate entity is a unit of selection if and only if it possesses a constraint profile with sufficient integration and heritability to be selectively differentially reproduced. This analysis identifies what is missing from particle-level reductionism and what grounds group selection without invoking mysterious emergent properties. The paper engages the principal positions in the philosophy of biology and addresses the principal objections. (shrink)

This paper critiques the anthropocentric foundations of modern civilization, arguing that human progress is frequently achieved through the systematic exploitation and destruction of non-human life. The author, Mayank Singh, explores the "illusion of human centrality," wherein animals and ecosystems are reduced to commodities, luxury products, or secondary participants in the planet's life system. A significant focus is placed on "conditioned demand"—consumption driven by luxury and convenience rather than survival—and the "economy of cruelty" that sustains it. ​The work further (...) identifies a contradiction in "symbolic respect," noting that many societies grant sacred status to specific animals based on religious mythology while remaining indifferent to the industrial-scale suffering of others. Singh proposes a shift toward "clear perception," a secular and non-utilitarian framework that recognizes all organisms as equivalent living processes. Ultimately, the paper suggests that a truly conscious civilization must redefine progress not through economic or technological growth, but through its capacity for ecological coexistence and respect for the full diversity of life. (shrink)

If humans eventually attain the ability to create new life forms, how will it affect the value of life? This is one of several questions that can be sources of concern when discussing synthetic life, but is the concern justified? In an attempt to answer this question, I have analyzed some possible reasons why an ability to create synthetic life would threaten the value of life in general (that is, not just of the synthetic creations), (...) to see if they really give us reason to worry. The main conclusion is that it is unlikely that a future human ability to create life will really have a great negative impact on these characteristics of life. It therefore seems unlikely that the value of life will be negatively affected by the ability to create synthetic life, though it is possible that the properties in question will be less salient in the synthetic life and thus that the value of the synthetic life will be lower than that of existing life, which in turn can lead to a disturbing difference in value between different kinds of life. (shrink)

Some philosophers think that life is worth living not merely because of the goods and the bads within it, but also because life itself is good. I argue that such views face a dilemma: either (1) good human lives are worse than very long lives wholly devoid of pleasure, desire-satisfaction, knowledge, or any other goods, or (2) very short lives containing nothing but suffering are worth living.

Hegel contends that judgements are contradictory, finite and untrue. Prominent schol- ars argue that Hegel’s issue with judgements is resolved in the later stages of his Logic. Specifically, Ng suggests that this solution is found in Hegel’s discussion of life. In this article, I argue that not only does life fail to resolve Hegel’s problem with judgement— death highlights its insolubility. To support this claim, I examine Hegel’s discussion of judgements in the Logic, showing that judgements are inherently (...) contradictory because they both unite and separate individuals and universals. Instead of being resolved ret- rospectively, I demonstrate that contradiction, finitude and untruth are intrinsic to judgements. Moreover, since judgements play a constitutive and determinative role in Hegel’s metaphysics, they pass their contradictions, finitude and untruth onto the objects they constitute. Specifically, I argue that for living beings, judgement is literally a matter of life and death, because the contradiction of judgements implies the finitude of the objects they constitute—namely, the perishability of things and the mortality of organisms. (shrink)

Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and focus on (...) the second. In doing so, I make three arguments. First, I argue that there are good reasons to embrace non-work and that these reasons become more compelling in an era of technological unemployment. Second, I argue that the technological advances that make widespread technological unemployment possible could still threaten or undermine human flourishing and meaning, especially if they do not remain confined to the economic sphere. And third, I argue that this threat could be contained if we adopt an integrative approach to our relationship with technology. In advancing these arguments, I draw on three distinct literatures: the literature on technological unemployment and workplace automation; the antiwork critique—which I argue gives reasons to embrace technological unemployment; and the philosophical debate about the conditions for meaning in life—which I argue gives reasons for concern. (shrink)

Is life valuable? This article uses family members as examples. How can I tell my family members, "You should consider life valuable"? After attempting to answer others' value judgments with "facts" and "values," this article answers the question "Is life valuable?" by analyzing the options that nature reveals to humanity.

In Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement, Nicholas Agar presents a novel argument against the prospect of radical life-extension. Agar’s argument hinges on the claim that extended lifespans will result in people’s lives being dominated by the fear of death. Here we examine this claim and the surrounding issues in Agar’s discussion. We argue, firstly, that Agar’s view rests on empirically dubious assumptions about human rationality and attitudes to risk, and secondly, that even if those assumptions are (...) granted, the fears that Agar adverts to are unlikely to dominate people’s lives if and when radical life-extension is made possible. Further, we claim that the structure of the decision-making process around life-extension is unlikely to be the way that it would have to be in order for Agar’s claims about fear of death to make sense. Finally, we argue that Agar is implicitly committed to a narrow conception of human value. In response, we suggest that the pursuit of life-extension can itself be seen as an expression of certain important aspects of our distinctively human nature. (shrink)

This paper considers questions about continuity and discontinuity between life and mind. It begins by examining such questions from the perspective of the free energy principle (FEP). The FEP is becoming increasingly influential in neuroscience and cognitive science. It says that organisms act to maintain themselves in their expected biological and cognitive states, and that they can do so only by minimizing their free energy given that the long-term average of free energy is entropy. The paper then argues that (...) there is no singular interpretation of the FEP for thinking about the relation between life and mind. Some FEP formulations express what we call an independence view of life and mind. One independence view is a cognitivist view of the FEP. It turns on information processing with semantic content, thus restricting the range of systems capable of exhibiting mentality. Other independence views exemplify what we call an overly generous non-cognitivist view of the FEP, and these appear to go in the opposite direction. That is, they imply that mentality is nearly everywhere. The paper proceeds to argue that non-cognitivist FEP, and its implications for thinking about the relation between life and mind, can be usefully constrained by key ideas in recent enactive approaches to cognitive science. We conclude that the most compelling account of the relationship between life and mind treats them as strongly continuous, and that this continuity is based on particular concepts of life (autopoiesis and adaptivity) and mind (basic and non-semantic). (shrink)

For Michel Henry, the Cartesian notion of “videre videor” (“I seem to see”) provides the clearest schema of the type of self-affection in which life is experienced, and through which one can provide a properly phenomenological conception of life. It is above all in Henry’s exemplification of the ‘videor’ in terms of affective experience (in undergoing a passion, feeling pain) that one is able to pin down his two principle arguments concerning the nature of this self-affection. -/- The (...) one, regarding the videor as a form of self-awareness, ultimately fails to convince, whereas the same cannot be said for Henry’s analyses of those types of affective experience whose primary characteristic is precisely a form of resistance internal to life itself. This leads to a demonstration of how Henry’s phenomenology of the videor founds an understanding of life that presupposes a form of impotence and limitation, and even finitude, as the very implication of its appearance. (shrink)

Chapter 6 looks at the earliest forms of life stories, dating from the invention of writing in the third millennium B.C.E. We then follow the evolution of these stories over time. We may qualify them as imaginary, although they originate in what are often real lives but magnified into epics, myths, novels, and other narratives that nourish our minds. First, we discuss the notion of genre, which aims to define more precisely the different ways of inventing or transforming lives (...) so as to express deeper reflections on the society and culture in which they take shape. We begin with the Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, who defined epic, tragedy, and comedy by their characteristics. The Middle Ages saw the appearance of a new genre: the novel. In our time, the focus has shifted away from the formal characteristics of genres to their underlying mental processes and the devices they use to bring readers to reflect on and live in their society. Here, we encounter the notion of “comprehension” proposed by hermeneutic philosophy as the opposite of “explanation.” To better understand this approach, we take a closer look at how three examples of the genres were introduced and used. First, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which enables us to understand Mesopotamian civilization; second, Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Tyrannus, which give us an understanding of divine causality and human freedom among the Greeks; third, the romances on the life of Henri de Joyeuse, which give us an insight into Christian thought in seventeenth-century France. The chapter concludes with a fuller discussion of the notion of “comprehension.”. (shrink)

This article discusses an anomaly in the English law of reproductive liability: that is, an inconsistency between the law’s approach to wrongful life claims and its approach to cases of negligent selection of gametes or embryos in infertility treatments (the selection cases). The article begins with an account of the legal position, which brings into view the relevant inconsistency: while the law treats wrongful life claims as non- actionable, it recognises a cause of action in the selection cases, (...) although the selection cases bear a relevant resemblance to wrongful life claims. The article then considers arguments that may be invoked in an attempt to reconcile the above two strands of the law. Three of these counterarguments consist in attempts to distinguish the selection cases from wrongful life claims. It is argued that these attempts fail to reveal a valid basis for treating these situations differently. A fourth possible counterargument levels against the present analysis a charge of reductio ad absurdum. It is shown that this argument suffers from a fundamental flaw caused by confusion between different senses of the term “identity”. Finally, the article discusses possible changes to the legal position that could rectify the problem. It argues that one of these changes, which focuses on legal redress for violation of personal autonomy, is particularly apt to resolve the problem at hand, but also highlights the need for further inquiry into the broader implications of introducing this form of redress into the law of torts. (shrink)

In the *Science of Logic*, Hegel states unequivocally that the category of “life” is a strictly logical, or pure, form of thinking. His treatment of actual life – i.e., that which empirically constitutes nature – arises first in his *Philosophy of Nature* when the logic is applied under the conditions of space and time. Nevertheless, many commentators find Hegel’s development of this category as a purely logical one especially difficult to accept. Indeed, they find this development only comprehensible (...) as long as one simultaneously assumes that Hegel breaks his promise to let the logic do the leading. However, if Hegel were to in fact allow the logical development to be led by biological analogies at this point, problems would ensue. Not only would it contradict his own speculative method, which should secure the necessity of the categories, but it would also endanger the ontological generality of the category of life itself. Beyond undermining his method and the logical integrity of the category, however, I will argue that such a reading makes the transition to the next category of “cognition” unintelligible and problematic. My aim in the first part of this paper is to argue how logical life can be read as a pure category. I then argue in the second part how my reconstruction makes the transition to cognition intelligible without resorting to profane or supernatural interpretations. (shrink)

The influence of Kurt Goldstein on the thinking of Georges Canguilhem extended throughout his entire work. This paper seeks to examine this relationship in order to conduct a study of the norm as a nexus or connection between the concept and life. Consequently, this work will be a reflection on the approach to life as a normative activity and self-realization. For this, it will be necessary to redefine the concepts of health and disease, and make a crossover between (...) the two. At the end of this trajectory, it will be found that these concepts can explain the identity between the concept and life, which leads to the unexpected conclusion that the cure is ultimately self-healing. (shrink)

Both science and theology involve philosophy. They both involve reasoned argument, evaluation of possible explanations, clarification of concepts, ways of interpreting experience, understanding the present significance of what has gone before us, and other such eminently philosophical tasks. They both involve philosophy, especially when they enter into dialogue with each other. In fact, they involve philosophical thinking even when they may not be aware of it. In this paper I will explore a specific area of philosophy that is particularly important (...) as a bridge between theology and science. I am referring to the area of meaning. Questions regarding meaning are fundamental because whatever is said about the nature of life, by scientists, by theologians, or by anyone else, must be expressed in meaningful words. Meaning is like the ground we walk on. It constitutes what we need to proceed with our activity. Without solid ground under our feet, we cannot go anywhere. (shrink)

Some philosophers and theologians argue that if God will save everyone, then earthly life is pointless. No matter how good earthly life is, heaven would be far better. So we would have been better off if God had started us off in heaven. I present and defend two objections to this argument. First, time on earth does not result in a deduction from time in heaven. Pick whatever amount of time you might wish to spend in heaven. You (...) will spend that much time in heaven whether you are on earth first or not. Second, given origin essentialism, we could not start off in heaven rather than earth. Our very existence depends on our earthly origins. (shrink)

In Chapter 7, we turn to real biographies of famous figures, trying to identify which aspects of their lives are highlighted and which are left out, depending on the period in which the events occurred. The aspects on which ancient biographers focused were clearly very different from those recorded today. Another crucial issue is the veracity of the facts gathered. Ancient biographies were often written long after the person’s death, when the memory of that life had faded considerably and (...) was influenced by external events. For biographies written during a person’s lifetime, the biographer’s interests are more important to keep in mind than those of the subject. These interests intermingle with the story told, turning the account into a view reflected by a distorted mirror. In the case of autobiography, we must pay critical attention to the aspects most frequently emphasized by the writer. The more recent interest in the life stories of more ordinary people should also be examined. The biography by Thomas and Znanieki (1919) of Polish peasants who migrated to the United States offers a perfect example, followed by many other similar studies. At the same time as the “comprehensive” approach, another more “explanatory” approach to life stories emerged with the recourse to population sciences. We extensively describe the evolution of the paradigms adopted by these sciences and the relevance of the “explanatory” approach, which we compare with the “comprehensive” approach. We then discuss the methods used by the social sciences to analyze the outline of a human life recorded in one or more interviews and depending on whether the survey is retrospective or prospective. While the approaches to event histories may differ substantially from one science to another, the basic material is the same: the collection, in an interview, of a very small portion of the life of one or more persons. We describe these different methods in detail, including the statistical tools used for the analysis and the scientific foundations of the methods. (shrink)

Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva's controversial article ‘After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?’ has received a lot of criticism since its publishing. Part of the recent criticism has been made by pro-life philosopher Christopher Kaczor, who argues against infanticide in his updated book ‘Ethics of Abortion’. Kaczor makes four arguments to show where Giubilini and Minerva's argument for permitting infanticide goes wrong. In this article I argue that Kaczor's arguments, and some similar arguments presented by other philosophers, are (...) mistaken and cannot show Giubilini and Minerva's view to be flawed. I claim that if one wants to reject the permissibility of infanticide, one must find better arguments for doing so. (shrink)

In this present article I want to explore Sri Aurobindo's theory of Life Divine.

This is the introductory essay to the special edition of 'Cosmos & History' focusing on the question 'What is Life?'.

A general sketch on how the problem of space dimensionality depends on anthropic arguments is presented. Several examples of how life has been used to constraint space dimensionality (and vice-versa) are reviewed. In particular, the influences of three-dimensionality in the solar system stability and the origin of life on Earth are discussed. New constraints on space dimensionality and on its invariance in very large spatial and temporal scales are also stressed.

The theoretical biology movement originating in Britain in the early 1930’s and the biosemiotics movement which took off in Europe in the 1980’s have much in common. They are both committed to replacing the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and they have both invoked theories of signs to this end. Yet, while there has been some mutual appreciation and influence, particularly in the cases of Howard Pattee, René Thom, Kalevi Kull, Anton Markoš and Stuart Kauffman, for the most part, these movements have developed (...) independently of each other. Focussing on morphogenesis understood as vegetative semiosis, in this paper I will argue that the ideas of these movements are commensurate. Furthermore, synthesising them would enable us to see life processes as proto-narratives. Doing so will involve synthesising biohermeneutics, Peircian biosemiotics with Waddington’s theoretical biology and Piagetian genetic structuralism, and this, I claim, would strengthen the challenge of these traditions to mainstream biology. At the same time, this should contribute to overcoming the opposition between the sciences and the humanities, developing a broader tradition of Schellingian thought which involves developing the humanities and then demanding of the physical and biological sciences that they are consistent with and can make intelligible the emergence of humans as conceived by the humanities. (shrink)

The origin of life is commonly treated as a biochemical anomaly or as the result of a rare coincidence of favorable conditions. In this work, a fundamentally different framework is proposed, in which life is defined as a stable nonequilibrium phase state of matter. Within this approach, the emergence of life is understood not as a singular chemical event, but as a phase transition driven by extreme entropy production and subsequent negentropic self-organization. It is argued that the (...) decisive physical environment for this transition is the nanodust phase formed at the interface between planetary matter and interplanetary space under conditions of mega-impacts, intense meteoritic bombardment, and accompanying cosmic ionizing radiation. These processes lead to catastrophic fragmentation of macroscopic crystalline structures, plasma formation, aerosol condensation, and continuous traversal of matter across a broad spectrum of phase states. A central role is assigned to proton invasion, which acts as a global entropic factor producing persistent deviation from equilibrium. Life is interpreted as a stabilizing response of matter to proton overload, realized through partial proton assimilation, sustained energy dissipation, and the formation of stable nonequilibrium regimes. Both first-order and second-order phase transitions are essential: the former provide repeated structural restructuring, while the latter enable symmetry breaking, collective behavior, chirality, and self-organization. In contrast to local terrestrial scenarios restricted to narrow physical conditions, the nanodust scenario spans an exceptionally wide phase-space—from plasma to solid and liquid-crystalline phases, and from temperatures of millions of degrees to cryogenic conditions. This breadth makes the phase transition toward living matter statistically expected rather than exceptional. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Filtered Configuration Framework (FCF), a formal account of how observable structures arise from a broader space of possible configurations. The framework challenges a common assumption in discussions of abiogenesis: that the set of observed biochemical structures reflects the space of locally generable configurations. -/- FCF distinguishes four classes of constraints—generation, transformation, survival, and observability—and formalizes their interaction through explicit operators. Configurations are not treated as isolated objects, but as elements of environment-dependent transformation processes. Two principles are (...) introduced: environmental filtering, according to which observable configurations are those compatible with given conditions, and generation–survival decoupling, according to which the conditions required for formation may differ from those required for persistence. -/- From these principles, it follows that observability does not imply local generability, and that absence in empirical data does not constitute evidence of impossibility. The observable domain is instead a systematically biased subset shaped by successive filtering stages. -/- The framework is extended through Coherent Observational Epistemology (COE), where observation is treated as an interface-constrained process. This introduces an additional epistemic filter, implying that only configurations compatible with both environmental and observational constraints can be registered. -/- A central implication of FCF is that the constructive synthesis of specific configurations under controlled conditions is not, in general, invariant with respect to environment-dependent transformation processes. This reveals a structural limitation in standard experimental approaches to abiogenesis, which target isolated molecular outcomes rather than transformation regimes. -/- Within this formulation, external generation and transfer scenarios (e.g., panspermia) become logically admissible without requiring additional assumptions. More generally, FCF provides a unified account of how configurations are generated, transformed, filtered, and rendered observable across physical and epistemic domains, and reframes abiogenesis as a problem of filtered persistence and transformation rather than probabilistic emergence. (shrink)

An apathetic life is not the sort of life that most of us would want for ourselves or believe that we have a duty to strive for. And yet Kant argues that we have a duty of apathy, a duty to strive to be without affects (Affecten) and passions (Leidenschaften). But is Kant’s claim that there is a duty of apathy really as problematic as it sounds? In arguing that it is not, this paper investigates in detail in (...) Kant’s accounts of affects and passions and defends Kant’s argument that we have a duty of apathy. This investigation reveals Kant’s nuanced view on the role that sensible motivating states play in moral agency and the development of a virtuous character. (shrink)

What is it for a life to be meaningful? In this article, I defend what I call Consequentialism about Meaning in Life, the view that one's life is meaningful at time t just in case one's surviving at t would be good in some way, and one's life was meaningful considered as a whole just in case the world was made better in some way for one's having existed.

The concept of autopoiesis --- a living system as a network of processes that continuously produces the very components constituting that network --- has remained without a computable formalization since its introduction by Maturana and Varela in 1973. This paper proposes that complex-valued adaptive signal processing provides the missing formal language: if all knowledge of the physical world passes through an electromagnetic channel, then the formalism native to that channel is the natural one for characterizing the systems we call living. (...) Accepting this epistemological constraint leads, through a sequence of forced steps, to a specific architecture --- coupled networks of recursive widely linear complex adaptive filters operating in predictive configuration on a shared background field, without an external teacher --- in which every element of the autopoietic definition (operational closure, self-production of components and boundary, structural coupling, the distinction between organization and structure) maps to a computable quantity. Self-production is realized as the self-referential adaptation of recursive filter poles: the system continuously reorganizes its own memory architecture through a process that depends on the very architecture being reorganized. A \emph{coherent cluster} within such a network --- a subset satisfying differential coherence, self-produced noncircularity, Fisher identifiability, energy balance, and recursive stability --- provides a substrate-independent characterization of a living system with constructive bridges to the Free Energy Principle (prediction error as variational free energy; the Markov blanket as a partial coherence boundary) and to artificial life simulations (explaining, in particular, why life-like behavior in Particle Lenia requires local rather than global energy minimization). Evolution is reformulated entirely in the frequency--phase domain, without time or space as independent variables. The genotype is the vector of reflection coefficients; the natural genotype space is the Poincar\'e polydisk $\mathbb{D}^P$ with hyperbolic metric, in which neutral evolution is a geometric property of the disk interior and lethal mutations correspond to the stability boundary $|\kappa_m| \to 1$. The genotype-to-phenotype map is the Levinson--Durbin recursion --- analytic, invertible, and Lamarckian. Evolutionary equilibrium is the water-filling solution from information theory; spectral competition is the cognitive radio problem; growth is heterodyne frequency conversion. The convergence of five independent formalisms on a single mathematical object suggests that the frequency--phase domain is not an arbitrary language but the natural one for describing life and evolution. An interactive browser-based simulation is provided; even at the minimal scale of several dozen filters, the system exhibits spontaneous self-organization from a purely endogenous regime, observer-dependent dimensionality of perceptual space, transitions between Lamarckian and Darwinian evolutionary regimes, and proto-communication through stable phase channels. Structural parallels with ideas independently articulated across more than forty contemplative and indigenous traditions spanning 65\,000~years of human testimony are examined in a dedicated appendix. (shrink)

This paper elaborates some of the conceptual implications of Derrida’s call for “another thinking of life” in Voyous: Deux essais sur la raison. The paper first argues that Derrida’s deconstruction of the opposition between metaphorical and literal uses of the discourse of life in La vie la mort is radicalized in Voyous when he argues that democracy’s “autoimmunitary suicide” should be the point of departure for rethinking life in general. To understand further these autoimmune-suicidal tendencies, the paper (...) turns to Derrida’s engagement with Aristotle’s conceptual figure of the prime mover in Voyous. The paper argues that Derrida turns to Aristotle because the prime mover illustrates the ways in which the concept of life remains historically and structurally informed by the philosophical value of ipseitocratic sovereignty, which is allergic to the disseminatory, proliferating, and improper qualities that the philosophical tradition has always ascribed to democracy. Autoimmunity thus provides a way for thinking of a democratic life that is not entirely determined by the teleological power of any divinely good life. (shrink)

There has been much criticism of the idea that Friston's free-energy principle can unite the life and mind sciences. Here, we argue that perhaps the greatest problem for the totalizing ambitions of its proponents is a failure to recognize the importance of evolutionary dynamics and to provide a convincing adaptive story relating free-energy minimization to organismal fitness.

One’s life can be meaningful, but not worth living, or worth living, but not meaningful, which demonstrates that an evaluation of whether life is worth living differs from an evaluation of whether one’s life is meaningful. But how do these evaluations differ? As I will argue, an evaluation of whether life is worth living is a more comprehensive evaluation than the evaluation of whether one’s individual life is meaningful. In judging whether one finds life (...) worth living, one takes into account, not only whether one’s life is meaningful, but undesirable aspects of life such as chronic pain and suffering. For example, a person who is suffering greatly, but who has lived a meaningful life, might still conclude that his or her life is not worth living. Although the famed question about the meaning of life has received most of the attention, I argue that the better and more fruitful question is “Is life worth living?” One should want, not just for one’s life to be meaningful, but for it to be worth living. (shrink)

Scientific principles can undergo various developments. While philosophers of science have acknowledged that such changes occur, there is no systematic account of the development of scientific principles. Here we propose a template for analyzing the development of scientific principles called the ‘life cycle’ of principles. It includes a series of processes that principles can go through: prehistory, elevation, formalization, generalization, and challenge. The life cycle, we argue, is a useful heuristic for the analysis of the development of scientific (...) principles. We illustrate this by discussing examples from foundational physics including Lorentz invariance, Mach’s principle, the naturalness principle, and the perfect cosmological principle. We also explore two applications of the template. First, we propose that the template can be employed to diagnose the quality of scientific principles. Second, we discuss the ramifications of the life cycle’s processes for the empirical testability of principles. (shrink)

Sam Harris (2010) argues that, given our neurology, we can experience well-being, and that seeking to maximize this state lets us distinguish the good from the bad. He takes our ability to compare degrees of well-being as his starting point, but I think that the analysis can be pushed further, since there is a (non-religious) reason why well-being is desirable, namely the finite life of an individual organism. It is because death is a constant possibility that things can be (...) assessed as “for” or “against” one (Champagne 2011a; Smith 2000). Such an account lets us objectively adjudicate moral questions, as Harris desires. However, by anchoring itself in the mortal body as a whole and not just the brain, such an account dampens the claim that neuroscience would have all the answers. Moreover, it pivots on an affirmation of one’s life that can seem mysterious by regular scientific standards. This chapter thus explains why the trade-off is worthwhile. (shrink)