The professor of the School Ecclesiastic of Philosophy of the University of Navarra Rubén Herce, engineer, philosopher and priest, analyzes in his new book, "De la física a la mente", the contributions that the English physicist-mathematician Roger Penrose makes to a philosophical understanding of reality based on the scientific data . Some anomalies of current physical theories," Herce argues in the introduction to his book, "have a reflection in the philosophical understanding of reality, such as indeterminism, Platonism or the existence of freedom". The intimate connection between science and Philosophy can also be seen in the eagerness "to know how things are and not only how they work".

Roger Penrose was an interdisciplinary scientist, as his interests ranged from the geometric techniques that drove the research in the theory of relativity, to quantum mechanics, through a wide variety of physical, mathematical and philosophical topics, such as the search for physical correlates of free human action or the criticism of the possibility of creating artificial intelligence from computational systems. "It was the attitude and the approach of Roger Penrose's scientific essays that moved me to delve into his work," says Professor Herce. The philosophical understanding of reality, which underlies Penrose's work, is the object of study of his book.

The professor of the Ecclesiastical School of Philosophy of the University of Navarra does not intend "to solve philosophical problems of great depth, such as mathematical platonism or quantum indeterminism, but to bring to light the pros and cons, the virtues and defects, of Penrose's approach to some of these problems". Rubén Herce hopes that "the present work will contribute to raise new perspectives and new interests on the relationship between science and Philosophy, physics and freedom, mathematics and consciousness, just as Penrose's work has raised them in me".