Summer Update #2: "The Roles of Agency in Open Evolution", ISHPSSB 2023, Toronto

(Yogi)

Later in July, Yogi crossed the Atlantic to present his views on agency & evolution, and to introduce the PhD students on the project to the philosophy of biology at the biannual meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB) which took place in Toronto this year.

Yogi's talk was part of a workshop called "Advancing biological explanation: purpose, variation, default state, and agency" organized by Ana Soto. He provided a brief overview on three central principles of our current project:

1. The fact that the basic unit of evolution is an organismic agent (not a naked replicator), and that this fact is crucial for the open-endedness of evolution.
2. The self-manufacturing organization of the organism provides the most fundamental constraints within which ontogenesis and evolution by natural selection must occur.
   
3. All living organisms (and only living organisms) can solve the problem of relevance through a process that is fundamentally not computational (see also here).
   

The talk drew a good crowd of eminent (and less eminent) philosophers of biology, and Yogi's talk was very well received, based on feedback received after the workshop.