Synthesis

Begin forwarded message:

From: Maël Montévil (via phibiotheo Mailing List) <phibiotheo@services.cnrs.fr>

Bonjour à toutes et tous,

ci dessous l'annonce du colloque annoncé lors de l'inauguration.

Bien à vous,

Marie Chollat-Namy, Maël Montévil, Anton Rober

OPEN HISTORICITY OF LIFE: THEORY, EPISTEMOLOGY, PRACTICE

9 - 10 November 2023, 9h30

Salle Dussane, École Normale Supérieure, 45 rue d'Ulm, Paris

ORGANIZATION: Marie Chollat-Namy, Maël Montévil, Anton Robert

Participants :
Stuart Kauffman, Giuseppe Longo, Armand Hatchuel, Pascal Le Masson, Maël Montévil, Andrea Loettgers, Tarja Knuuttila, Marina Cortes, Alessandro Sarti, Paul Antoine Miquel, Andrea Roli, Sélène Domino, Johanes Jäger, Marie Chollat-Namy, Anton Robert, Mathilde Tahar

Programme
https://republique-des-savoirs.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-11-910-col-mm-program-v3.pdf

Downloadable papers by the speakers:
https://mycore.core-cloud.net/index.php/s/zC9NL2KYZettzVo

Zoom Link:
https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/98339431287?pwd=VWJXK2c0NjRqSzBVVVFTc1VCN2xhZz09

In the theory of evolution, the forms of life change, and these changes are critical for the understanding of living beings. However, the nature of these changes, and the way to understand them, remains a matter of open discussion. In the XIXth century, physics, especially classical mechanics, was the paradigm of science, and physics understands change as a displacement in an abstract mathematical space. This method has been imported into biology, for example, in population genetics; however, philosophers, notably Bergson, called into question the notion that things (always) exist as a possibility before they become actual. Bergson concludes that there are limits to our ability to understand living being that is intrinsic to mathematics and come from the creativity of evolution. To our knowledge, the only field of biology that built explicitly on this notion is phylogenetic systematics --- however this field also has very specific purposes.

In the last decade, the notion that new possibilities appear over time in biological phenomena has received renewed and growing attention. Kauffman approaches it as the adjacent possible, Sarti and Citti as heterogenesis, and Longo and Montévil as symmetry change and specific objects. Accordingly, there is a growing understanding that this notion is a significant shift and challenge in the way to do science.

However, there has yet to be a systematic effort to bring together the different perspectives on this question in biology and in other fields confronted with it. In this conference, we intend to create bridges between the different perspectives that have been developed, mostly independently, on the question of changing possibility spaces in biology. We aim to discuss the status of this notion: Do new possibilities appear by principle, or can their existence be proven? The second major topic of discussion will be the scientific possibilities and limits that this notion leads to. In particular, can it be captured by existing mathematics, new mathematics, something somewhat different, or no theoretical construct at all? In general, what kind of scientific practice does this question open?