Societat, política i COVID-19: les cultures (científiques) de l'epidemiologia

En aquest escrit s’ofereix un anàlisi de la situació de pandèmia que estem vivint, aproximant-hi des de la filosofia de la ciència i l’epistemologia. La idea central rau en mostrar que l’epidemiologia, igual que la resta de pràctiques científiques, és una activitat humana i social. En aquest sentit, és necessari ressaltar la mirada esbiaixada i socialment compartida que es té de la ciència, entesa com constructora de certeses, les quals erigeixen un decàleg de saber considerat veritat a mercè de la tipologia del mètode emprat per aconseguir-les. Per això, s’ha volgut aquí presentar la cara bruta de la recerca, la del científic entès com a membre d’una societat, de la que comparteix el llenguatge, els prejudicis i les creences; el qual s’enfronta a diferents incerteses, intentant adaptar coneixement més o menys segur a esdeveniments nous i mutables, amb el risc que tot l’edifici de coneixement trontolli sense parar. En aquest sentit hem volgut separar-nos de la concepció hipoteticodeductiva capturada en el mètode científic i anar directament al problema causal de la seva aplicació i la necessitat abductiva per regenerar-lo constantment. Finalment, en tant que filòsofs, hem cregut pertinent oferir una crítica a certes reaccions per part de col·legues de professió, els qui, a causa d’una mirada vaga i senzilla de la ciència, moltes vegades provinent d’una concepció congelada de fa dos segles, han barrejat qüestions fonamentals per l’epidemiologia amb tot l’entrellat de retallades de llibertats que estem patint des d’abans de la pandèmia, crítica de les quals compartim amb ells sense cap mena de dubte

Social practices and embubblement

The present contribution describes the nature of social practices based on habitual behavior. The first part concerns the notion of “habit” from a perspective that crosses philosophy and science. Habits structure our daily life and possess also a social nature showed by informally shared habits and institutionalized rituals. After a brief reference to the philosophical debate, we point out the fundamental dimensions of habitual behavior i.e. routine and goal-directed behavior. They characterize also shared social habits like rituals because we need (a) to simply follow social institutional practices and (b) actively cooperate to reach a certain goal. Our descriptive strategy aims at promoting the aspect of “control” in habitual behavior namely the possibility of accepting or refusing to do something. This control does not work in many pathological cases and cases of auto-illusion. The second part of the article will illustrate the interesting but disregarded case of the epistemic and moral embubblement, explaining it as an individual cognitive process and as a specific social practice that once followed or institutionalized becomes a shared practice routinely performed. The main features of an epistemic bubble concern the widespread situation in which the cognitive agents always resolve the tension between their thinking that they know P and their knowing P in favor of knowing that P”. The related case of the moral bubble indicates the situation in which agents are potentially or actually violent and unaware of it. This cognitive process expresses how difficulties in recognizing one’s own violence lead to disregard the possible or actual inflicted harm: in this case a process of what can be called “autoimmunity” is at play. We will contend that the concept of moral bubble can provide an integrated and unified perspective able to interpret in a novel way many social practices in which morality and violence are intertwined

Science, Scientism, and the Disunity of Science: Popular Science during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Unsurprisingly, science has been conferred growing expectations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the issue of dissemination and popularization of scientific outcomes has come to the fore. The article describes the main features of the so-called dominant view in popular science, which is claimed to be implicitly connected to scientism, a stance identifying science as the most (if not the only) reliable source of legitimate knowledge. Scientism’s implicit philosophical roots are argued to lie in naturalism and a trivialized neopositivist concept of science, which underscores the supposed unity of the scientific enterprise. However, in the context of the pandemic, science’s disunity is more than ever visible. It is herein asserted that the untimely glimpse into science’s inner workings, clashing with the dominant view in popular science, promotes a distorted image of science and hinders people’s trust in science. Finally, this article provides wide-ranging recommendations in order to tackle scientism and promote a balanced outlook on science in the fodder consumed by the masses

The role of robotics and AI in technologically mediated human evolution: a constructive proposal

This paper proposes that existing computational modeling research programs may be combined into platforms for the information of public policy. The main idea is that computational models at select levels of organization may be integrated in natural terms describing biological cognition, thereby normalizing a platform for predictive simulations able to account for both human and environmental costs associated with different action plans and institutional arrangements over short and long time spans while minimizing computational requirements. Building from established research programs, the proposal aims to take advantage of current momentum in the direction of the integration of the cognitive with social and natural sciences, reduce start-up costs and increase speed of development. These are all important upshots given rising unease over the potential for AI and related technologies to shape the world going forward

Què #®¥§≠@ és la creativitat?

La creativitat és el sant grial de les ciències cognitives i té especial importància per als investigadors de les ciències de la computació i la intel·ligència artificial. És obvi que la creativitat forma part essencial de la intel·ligència, tot i que la majoria d'estudis que intenten explicar-la o fins i tot replicar-la han fallit. En el present article proposem dues aproximacions innovadores: d'una banda, entendre els processos cognitius com a seguidors de regles o heurístiques, tot i que d'una manera flexible o fins i tot contradictòria o caòtica, però que ens mena en qualsevol dels casos a un context d'ús desacomplexat de multiheurístiques, que és el que hem denominat la «cognició mixta»; d'altra banda, proposem un mecanisme poc explorat de forma general en la literatura acadèmica cognitiva per tal de servir de punt de fulcre entre els models antics i una visió alternativa: l'abducció. Mitjançant aquestes dues estratègies, alhora que analitzant casos específics relacionats amb la capacitat creativa dels éssers humans, podem albirar un nou paradigma cognitiu més realista i sincer amb les capacitats humanes, fet que permetrà en un futur no gaire llunyà el disseny de sistemes de raonament artificials més potents i complexos.Creativity is The Holy Grail of the Cognitive Sciences and it is very important for researchers in the Computer Sciences and AI fields. Although all attempts to explain and replicate intelligence have so far failed, the quest remains a key part of their research. This paper takes two innovative approaches. First, we see cognitive processes as involving rule-following and as flexible, even chaotic, heuristics. This first concept uses a multi-heuristic concept without any complexes as mixed-cognition. Second, we propose abduction which, though seldom employed in this specific debate, is nonetheless a good way to explore creativity. Using both strategies, along with analysis of specific human creativity cases, we suggest a new cognitive paradigm that is both more realistic and truthful than hitherto. The idea is to offer a new way to achieve more powerful, complex artificial reasoning systems

Concerning the Epistemology of Design : The Role of the Eco-Cognitive Model of Abduction in Pragmatism

Altres ajuts: the PRIN 2017 Research 20173YP4N3-MIUR, Ministry of University and Research, Rome, ItalyDesign has usually been linked to art and applied in scenarios related to everyday life. Even when design has, on occasion, made its way into the world of academia, it has always been closely linked to art and scenarios related everyday life. At last, however, the idea of design has reached the field of epistemology: an area within the very heart of philosophy that has always focused, in theory, on the foundations of knowledge. Consequently, design is being studied from different approaches interested in the foundation of knowledge, theoretical and practical. This is one of the reasons why abduction and pragmatism have been considered relevant from a design perspective. This paper first shows the main features of abduction and pragmatism, describes their evolution and considers their mutual implications. Second, the epistemology of design is analysed considering its most relevant characteristics. Third, the connection between abduction and, on the one hand, pragmatism and, on the other, design epistemology is addressed. Finally, the role of abductive inference in grounding a real epistemology for design theory from the naturalised cognitive perspective of abduction is outlined. The central proposition is that this approach is essential as a methodological innovation, as it allows us to analyse both the inquiry process and the design process as interdependent when dealing with practical problems of a social and cultural nature. This approach allows us to analyse how human actions determine changes in the theoretical framework from which we make our inquiry. In short, the world is an open-ended project that humans design through our daily inquiry

The Abductive Structure of Scientific Creativity. An Essay on the Ecology of Cognition

This book employs a new eco-cognitive model of abduction to underline the distributed and embodied nature of scientific cognition. Its main focus is on the knowledge-enhancing virtues of abduction and on the productive role of scientific models. What are the distinctive features that define the kind of knowledge produced by science? To provide an answer to this question, the book first addresses the ideas of Aristotle, who stressed the essential inferential and distributed role of external cognitive tools and epistemic mediators in abductive cognition. This is analyzed in depth from both a naturalized logic and an ecology of cognition perspective. It is shown how the maximization of cognition, and of abducibility – two typical goals of science – are related to a number of fundamental aspects: the optimization of the eco-cognitive situatedness; the maximization of changeability for both the input and the output of the inferences involved; a high degree of information-sensitiveness; and the need to record the “past life” of abductive inferential practices. Lastly, the book explains how some impoverished epistemological niches – the result of a growing epistemic irresponsibility associated with the commodification and commercialization of science – are now seriously jeopardizing the flourishing development of human creative abduction

A model towards hurricane preparedness communication in the state of Florida, USA

Hurricanes are hazards that become disasters when they interact with the human environment. It is critical to elucidate how the minimally investigated hurricane preparedness communication paradigm impacts vulnerable populations. This study was conducted in a hurricane-prone U.S. region: Central and West Florida. The aim was to develop a model for hurricane-focused Disaster Management professionals that informs social-centric hurricane preparedness communication that is tailored to high-risk building occupants in Florida, and verify its accuracy. The research design was derived from the literature review and document review covering Disaster Management, hurricanes, hurricane preparedness plans, high-risk buildings, and communication. Interviews were conducted with six Disaster Management professionals and 12 high-risk building occupants. Five linguistic analysis techniques guided the data collection and analysis: Personal Experience Narrative, frame analysis, paradigmatic analysis, discourse analysis, and template analysis. Research results, including 10 exemplars and 27 themes, were synthesised to develop a model that incorporates hurricane preparedness language input from these stakeholders: Disaster Management professionals, high-risk building occupants, and academic institutions. Three Disaster Management professionals and four high-risk building occupants reviewed the model and found that it accurately represented their interview responses; the model was refined further based on these responses. This collaborative model offers a framework to generate holistic hurricane preparedness language by combining prescriptive language used by Disaster Management professionals and academic institutions with descriptive language used by high-risk building occupants. The hurricane preparedness language from this model can be utilised by Disaster Management professionals to optimise hurricane preparedness communication for high-risk building occupants in Florida

Intuition: The Experience of Formal Research

A new concept of Intuition, the Deep Unconscious is considered on the basis of the Paradigm of limiting generalizations. The book describes a high-level sketch. The results of the study can be used in education, economics, medicine, artificial intelligence, and the management of complex systems of various natures