MIguel Garcia

Este artículo examina la filosofía de la biología de Leonardo Polo a través del principio vita in motu, quizá la tesis más fundamental de la biología filosófica de Aristóteles. La vida solo puede existir y mantenerse mediante procesos de cambio y transformación. Polo contrasta los procesos vitales con la kinēsis, o movimiento transitivo, y sugiere que los seres vivos se distinguen por su prāxis teleia: una actividad inmanente y regulada desde el interior. Al reanalizar las cuatro causas aristotélicas, Polo reinterpreta la psychē como una potencia formal que se manifiesta a través de procesos como el crecimiento, la diferenciación y la unidad reguladora –entre los cuales el código genético es ejemplo elocuente.

The aim of this study is to use a wearable system for monitoring spinal posture and mobility among nursing professionals in intensive care units (ICUs) and operating rooms (ORs). It is also aimed to identify the biomechanical demands in each environment and assess the potential of the wearable device to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). A longitudinal descriptive observational study was conducted. The wearable device tracked spinal mobility in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar levels. Data were collected from 12 nursing students during their clinical rotations in ICU and OR services at the University Hospital of Salamanca. Spinal mobility data were captured in real-time, and pain levels were asked using the visual analog scale (VAS) before and after working shifts.

This paper reassesses Searle’s Chinese Room argument in light of Large Language Models (LLMs). While Searle criticized computational systems for being mere “syntax manipulators,” transformer models of the kind exemplified by LLMs complicate this characterization. Earlier computational systems relied on a more rigid logical foundation, based largely on pattern recognition and mechanical substitution. By tracking patterns of use, maintaining rich contextual dependencies, and exploiting implicit regularities in large datasets, LLMs show an unprecedented capacity for semantic modelling. And yet, LLMs remain limited in several respects. For instance, even the most advanced AI model suffers from impaired referential grounding and a good model of the external world. I argue that this is because they fail to successfully reproduce the spontaneous, nonsymbolic, biologically entrenched forms of semiosis that characterize the simplest biological organizations. After examining two plausible strategies to cope with these deficits, I conclude that the algorithmic implementation of formal symbol systems diverges in fundamental ways from experience-based intentional representations. This, in turn, warrants skepticism toward bald attributions of intentionality to LLMs and substantiates the core of Searle’s original argument against strong AI.

In contrast to an RNA-first origin-of-life scenario, we describe an alternative proto-life process called “autogenesis” to explain how a molecule’s structure (for example, nucleotide sequence) can become exapted to record and convey information about other molecular relationships. No attempt is made to account for the evolution of the genetic code. Instead, we only explore the necessary and sufficient conditions for molecular information to initially evolve. Beginning with a model system described as an autogenic (that is, nonparasitic) virus, constituted only by peptides, we show how reciprocal constraints produced by self-organizing molecular interactions can become self-maintaining and then offloaded onto a nucleotide polymer like an RNA molecule. We argue that nucleotide monomers may have initially evolved as by-products of autogenesis because of their energy-transfer capacity and were preserved by polymerization when free energy would be deleterious. In polymeric form, an RNA molecule can assume both linear and “folded” 3D configurations depending on surrounding conditions. In its 3D configuration, it can serve as a catalyst by biasing the probability of specific peptide interactions due to the ways they bind to it. Because the 3D folding of an RNA polymer is largely determined by the affinities of its complementary bases, there is a high correlation between its linear nucleotide sequence and its 3D configuration. This correlation enables a replicable nucleotide sequence to correspond to a specific catalytic function and thereby become susceptible to selection for its information-conveying capacity. This provides an evolutionary scenario that accounts for the plausible de novo origin of molecular information, whereas all other current origin-of-life paradigms merely equate information with pattern replication or else just assume it as an intrinsic molecular property.

From how a whirlpool is formed behind a rock to how temperature speeds up a chemical reaction, constraints are pervasive in nature. They are also essential for explaining the emergence of dissipative structures, the far-from-equilibrium systems responsible for increasingly complex forms of organization. In this article, we argue that the constraints on change exert a non-derivative causal influence on microphysics by introducing selection rules, and that they are causal not by what they produce, but by what they prevent. However, recent approaches in the philosophy of science, such as the one we call “higher-level causal eliminativism” (HLCE), deem constraints as non-causal explanations or derivative causal explanations. HLCE is a microphysicalist perspective according to which reality is the result of an interplay of microphysical interactions. It denies the causality of constraints; only their explanatory value is recognized. In so doing, HLCE commits itself to superdeterminism, the theory for which some unknown non-local hidden variables and the laws of nature utterly determine the outcomes of all events, including those of quantum physics. Superdeterminism considers all higher-order relationships as nothing but statistically salient effects of global microphysical field interactions. By undermining the dependence of mathematical selection on ontological processes, superdeterminism leads to an arbitrary selection of initial conditions for the universe. Yet we will argue that this arbitrariness undermines itself and the hopes of HLCE.

Notarized documents serve as certified records of acts and contracts overseen by notaries, conferring unchallengeable legal authority. These documents significantly reduce transaction costs in goods and services markets, with millions produced and utilized annually by stakeholders, including banks, insurance companies, and government agencies. Extracting information from these unstructured documents is essential for automating business processes reliant on their content. However, this task is challenging due to the distinct characteristics of these legal documents and the limited availability of datasets and language models in Spanish. This paper addresses the issue of Information Extraction from Spanish notarized documents. We propose a framework that relies solely on end-to-end data usage, enabling the extraction of legal elements without labeled datasets. Our framework is effective in legal domains, particularly with notarized documents, where text extraction from scanned documents is common and often affected by optical character recognition noise. We created a new dataset from a corpus of notarized documents and fine-tuned several pretrained multilingual language models, including mT5, mBART, and the large language model BLOOMZ. Additionally, we developed a model from scratch based on the T5 architecture, utilizing a corpus of Spanish notarized documents. The promising results, with an F1 score of 96.13, validate the effectiveness of our proposed framework compared to existing methods in legal document information extraction.

If it is possible to think that human life is temporal as a whole, and we can make sense of Wittgenstein’s claim that the psychological phenomena called ‘dispositions’ do not have genuine temporal duration on the basis of a distinction between dispositions and other mental processes, we need a compelling account of how time applies to these dispositions. I undertake this here by examining the concept of expectation, a disposition with a clear nexus to time by the temporal point at which the expectation is satisfied. However, it seems that we cannot always identify the beginning of an expectation, and in a few cases, its end. If so, the reduction of expectations to neural events or accompanying feelings which spread over time in the usual way seems a hard enterprise, because these processes, much as other physical processes, have a definite and largely measurable time span. Only at a higher level, that is, as part of human life, expectation can be said to be temporal.

Michel Henry’s philosophical, literary, theological, and aesthetical proposal is a rare event which clearly marks the difficult time from the late 20th century to the early 21st century. It may be said that he went against the tide with all his efforts, to the point of death to remember the tradition which he really valued. It is obvious from the title of his apocalyptic story about the end of the world written in 1976, La Barbarie. I totally agree with the essential part of Henry’s thesis which evoked the reality and truth of many things in me from the start. However, it lacks something decisive to follow his teaching without any doubt. There are many things to learn from the discussion of Henry’s thought. Therefore, in this article I would like to discuss my identifying points and my disagreements with him. It seems to be contrary to the usual method, but, instead of starting with his first work, I prefer to take up his last one, Paroles du Christ. This is an exceptional book in terms of its rare beauty and extraordinary depth.

Michel Henry’s philosophical, literary, theological, and aesthetical proposal is a rare event which clearly marks the difficult time from the late 20th century to the early 21st century. It may be said that he went against the tide with all his efforts, to the point of death to remember the tradition which he really valued. It is obvious from the title of his apocalyptic story about the end of the world written in 1976, La Barbarie. I totally agree with the essential part of Henry’s thesis which evoked the reality and truth of many things in me from the start. However, it lacks something decisive to follow his teaching without any doubt. There are many things to learn from the discussion of Henry’s thought. Therefore, in this article I would like to discuss my identifying points and my disagreements with him. It seems to be contrary to the usual method, but, instead of starting with his first work, I prefer to take up his last one, Paroles du Christ. This is an exceptional book in terms of its rare beauty and extraordinary depth.

After going through the essentials of the most relevant philosophical positions on happiness offered by the history of thought, the author emphatically defends Miguel de Unamuno’s position. It is shown indeed how a Unamunian version of Platonism approaches truth very successfully, just in relevant points where conflicting theories fail in various senses. The critical descriptions are devoted mainly to Aristotelianism and Stoicism, while Epicureanism is valued in an unusual way. Post-Shoah thought obliges, as it is shown later, to deepen the understanding of hope that had been glimpsed in existential philosophy, especially in Kierkegaard and in Unamuno.

Externalist theories of teleology are views that explain the actions and ends of living beings in terms of nonnormative phenomena. “Field theory” (FT) adds to them that teleology arises from external guidance. Embracing an artifact model, it considers all systems as functional by-products of their field relationships, whether these are internal or external to an organization. The key categories to understand how they do this are persistence (the tendency of an entity to return to the same trajectory after being perturbed) and plasticity (the tendency of an entity to find a particular trajectory from varying starting points). While FT offers a nuanced analysis of field relationships, it describes too many physical processes as teleological. Emblematic of it is that it pays no attention to the difference between two types of asymmetric change: the linear processes governed by global thermodynamic tendencies, which I call “terminal” because their end is increasing entropy, and the processes that utilize these same tendencies to stay away from equilibrium by creating local deviations of the second law, which I call “targeted”. Living systems use terminal field effects to prevent thermodynamic degradation and promote their own forms of organization. They generate their sources of guidance and are not just targeted with respect to external fields but also to themselves. Since the artifactual model of FT does not seem able to account for targeted tendencies, adopting the distinction between terminal and targeted processes could help FT overcome some of the perceived limits of its deflationary stance.

Language is an essential tool that shapes human interactions and understanding from birth, blending innate abilities with environmental factors. Oral language is the first form of communication, while written language develops through structured learning. Piaget's theory suggests a strong connection between language development and cognitive growth, with cultural context playing a significant role. Sociolinguistic theory also emphasizes how social and cultural factors influence linguistic interactions, shaping expression in different settings. This study examined the relationship between reading comprehension and cultural identity. A reading test, featuring texts reflecting diverse linguistic and cultural realities, was administered to 120 students in Barranquilla. The test included informal, informational, and literary readings, each tied to specific contexts. The results demonstrated that students more easily understood culturally familiar texts, while unfamiliar contexts posed greater challenges. This suggests that cultural familiarity significantly enhances reading comprehension, while cultural distance can hinder interpretation. The findings highlight the critical role of cultural and linguistic context in reading comprehension. Texts aligned with a reader's cultural experiences improve understanding and retention, pointing to the need for educational approaches that integrate students' cultural backgrounds to enhance learning and motivation.

This paper seeks to comprehend the narratives that allow a persuasive use of shitposting and that indirectly cause ethical and political problems through ideological radicalization. We differentiate shitposting from memes, pointing out its ideological character as opposed to the ludic character that memes can have. Subsequently, we show examples of shitposting that encourage violence by some individuals, among which the Christchurch massacre stands out. Likewise, the emotional nature of shitposting is clarified and some philosophical incidences are pointed out, such as the creation of an otherness based on the dissemination of racist and xenophobic ideologies and the difficulty of establishing criteria to verify what is true.

Cet article est consacré à la philosophie henryenne de la religion. Michel Henry a mené un programme philosophique d’une ambition inouïe depuis l’époque de Fichte, inspiré par la méthode husserlienne de l’intuition. Une intuition d’ordre transcendantal, qui opère une réduction de l’ensemble des epistêmai qui encombrent la lumière de chair qu’est la vie subjective individuelle. En parcourant ce chemin, les œuvres formidables de ces phénoménologues critiques de Husserl que furent notamment Heidegger et Merleau-Ponty, ont dû céder à l’élan originel de la méthode telle qu’elle fut premièrement conçue.

Practice theory has lately taken a turn towards modelling the evolution of practices, which appear situated at the centre of the study of social action. I argue in this paper, following previous criticisms, that such centrality can be revised in order to better incorporate elements of agency and normativity, which are much determinant of the emergence and development of practices. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative heuristic which advances on lefebvrean trialectics, in order to better account for process in the study of practices. For this I rely on previous concepts from anthropology and sociology, such as fetishisation, ritualisation and bricolage. A relevant case study is merely outlined in order to illustrate how such a conceptual framework can identify agencies and situate practices in relation to power structures and performance at an early stage within the research process.