Seminar given by Lorenzo Baravalle, professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Valencia.
Thursday, January 15th at 4:00 p.m.
Format: In person, Palau de Cerveró Auditorium.
Access code: 423378
The seminar will be held in Spanish.
Biography:
Lorenzo Baravalle studied philosophy at the University of Turin and then obtained a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and Language at the University of Barcelona and the University Rovira i Virgili. Before joining the Department of Philosophy at the University of Valencia, Lorenzo worked at the University of Lisbon (where he also obtained a minor in mathematics), the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of ABC (Brazil). Lorenzo is interested in conceptual problems related to mathematical and computational modelling of evolutionary dynamics and biological processes.
Summary:
In this talk, I will examine some assumptions that are often taken for granted when organisms and machines are compared. First, I will show that the concept of a “machine” has never had a single, stable definition, but has instead depended historically on the technologies available at different times.
I will then argue that many persistent controversies stem from an overly vague notion of similarity between organisms and machines. I will defend the claim that this way of comparing organisms and machines is conceptually problematic and should be abandoned.
Instead, I will propose a more precise notion of machine–organism analogy, based on the identification of shared invariants between specific mechanisms and specific biological phenomena. Understood in this way, the analogy does not claim that organisms are machines, but rather allows mechanical models to be used in a localized and rigorous manner to understand certain organic processes.
