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196Emerging plurality of life: Assessing the questions, challenges and opportunitiesFrontiers Human Dynamics 5 1153668. 2023.Research groups around the world are currently busy trying to invent new life in the laboratory, looking for extraterrestrial life, or making machines increasingly more life-like. In the case of astrobiology, any newly discovered life would likely be very old, but when discovered it would be new to us. In the case of synthetic organic life or life-like machines, humans will have invented life that did not exist before. Together, these endeavors amount to what we call the emerging plurality of li…Read more
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70The integrated structure of consciousness: phenomenal content, subjective attitude, and noetic complexPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 18 (4): 731-758. 2019.We explore the integrated structure of consciousness by examining the “phenomenological axioms” of the “integrated information theory of consciousness ” from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology. After clarifying the notion of phenomenological axioms by drawing on resources from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, we develop a critique of the integration axiom by drawing on phenomenological analyses developed by Aron Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty. This axiom is ambiguous. It can be re…Read more
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389A Strategy for Origins of Life Research (review)Astrobiology 15 1031-1042. 2015.Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address inc…Read more
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40Chapter 6 Different Ways of Attending to Experience: Formalizing the Phenomenological Epoché to Translate Between Science and PhilosophyIn Maren Wehrle, Diego D'Angelo & Elizaveta Solomonova (eds.), Access and Mediation: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Attention, De Gruyter. pp. 135-160. 2022.
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362Hidden Concepts in the History of Origins-of-Life StudiesOrigins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres 1. 2019.In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absen…Read more
Olaf Witkowski
Cross Labs
University of Tokyo
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Cross LabsDirector of Research
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Areas of Specialization
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Other Academic Areas |