Physis. From Elementary Particles to Human Nature

Some findings of contemporary physics have come to constitute nothing less than a challenge to reason, clashing with our ideas about the laws and mechanisms that govern the world and, accordingly, undermining our general conception of nature. Physics is therefore pointing in the direction of meta-physics (reflection after physics) based on the natural science or our times, which is what Heisenberg called for.

However, other disciplines are also playing a decisive role in this appearance of a new natural philosophy, among them genetics and neurobiology, which are essential in today’s attempts to come up with answers in the eternal philosophical inquiry into human nature.

At the Barcelona sessions in the Tenth International Ontology Congress, which is also to be held in San Sebastian from 1 to 6 October, these questions will be addressed by a number of eminent philosophers in discussion with some of the scientists who have been most prominent in the philosophical adventure in which contemporary science is now engaged.

Monday, 8 October

At 5 pm

Anton Zeilinger, experimental and theoretical physicist and Simon Kochen, mathematician.

Seminar: Quantum Mechanics and revolutions in the representations of nature.
With the participation of Alberto Cordero, professor of philosophy at the City University of New York and Frank Wilczek, physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nobel Laureate in Physics

Moderated and presented by: Ulises Moulines, philosopher and professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich.

At 7 p.m.

Frank Wilczek, physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nobel Laureate in Physics.
Natural Philosophy Today: The Beauty of the Quantum

Moderated and presented by: Ulises Moulines, philosopher and professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich.

Daniel Dennett, philosopher and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.
How Cultural Evolution Shapes Human Nature

Moderated and presented by: Francisco J. Ayala, geneticist and professor at the University of California·Irvine.

Tuesday 9 Octobe

At 7 p.m.

Ulises Moulines, philosopher and professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich.
Theoretical Concepts in Physics: An Attempt at Realistic Interpretation

Francisco J. Ayala, geneticist and professor at the University of California·Irvine.
From Biology to Ethics

Moderated and presented by: Salvador Giner, President of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (Institute for Catalan Studies).