Biological reason as part of cosmic reason
Author: David Jou i Mirabent.
Date of publication: Pamplona, 21 April 2015.
David Jou i Mirabent, holds a PhD in Physics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona where he is currently Full Professor of Condensed Physics subject . His research has focused mainly on the thermodynamics of irreversible processes. He is also the author of an extensive poetic work that includes philosophical, scientific and religious themes. In addition to his extensive scientific production, he has also written several essays in which he addresses multidisciplinary issues and is developing a wide dissemination work. He has received several awards from research. He is a member of the Science and Technology Section of the high school de programs of study Catalanes, of the Reial Acadèmia de Doctors, and a corresponding member of the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales de Madrid and of the Accademia Peloritana de Mesina.
summaryIn the world of science, we can approach reason from different perspectives. For the sake of simplicity, here we will consider a biological perspective, seeing reason as a product of the human brain, arrived at evolutionarily; and a physical perspective: cosmic rationality, as abstract rationality, broad, prior to any galaxy and any star, which has preceded life and will survive it.
We will consider some relations between both types of rationality: under what conditions does a cosmic rationality admit a biological rationality? What structure and what ruptures of symmetry must occur for a universe to admit a rationality interior to it? To what extent can biological reason know cosmic reason? What is - or could be - the nature of this cosmic reason? Does biological rationality create its own sphere of reason, or does it discover a sphere of reason prior to it?
bibliography:
- David Jou, Rewriting Genesis. De la gloria de Dios al sabotaje del Universo, Destino, Barcelona, 2008.
- David Jou, Cerebro y Universo: dos cosmologías, Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Colección "El espejo y la lámpara", Bellaterra, 2011.
- David Jou, Introduction to the quantum world. De la danza de las partículas a las semillas de las galaxias, Pasado & Presente, Barcelona, 2012.