Notas Para El Review

Assuming that the relationship between science and philosophy is changing in a radical way in our present time, and that it is not possible to tell a single and exclusive story about something that is really complex The aim of this book was to stimulate transdisciplinary discussion on the subject of complexity “Complexity” and “postmodern” are both controversial notions The objective of the book is to illuminate the notion of complexity from a postmodern, or perhaps, more accurately, post-structural perspective Throughout I tried to intertwine philosophical and scientific discourses. The idea was not only to show how philosophical considerations can benefit scientific practice, but also the other way round. It was specifically the burden of the final chapter to show how a practical understanding of complexity can contribute to some of the key areas in postmodern philosophy.

Apart from introductory chapters on connectionism and post-structuralism, and a dismissal of Searle’s contributions to the debate, the central issues discussed are representation and self-organisation In the light of these examples, it is certainly strange that when it comes to descriptions of the functioning of the brain, an obviously relational structure, there is still such a strong adherence to atomic representation and deterministic algorithms. One of the reasons for this must surely be that cognitive science inherited its methodological framework from a deterministic, analytical tradition. Post-structural theory, I claim, assists us in revising this position. The interaction between post-structuralism and cognitive science could have mutual benefits. On a methodological level, a post-structural approach could affirm the nonalgorithmic nature of cognition. It could help to suppress the desire to find complete and deterministic models by arguing that models based on a system of relationships are less restrictive, and just as useful. It can also help to legitimise activities that do not aspire to fill in the “big picture”, but only to be of local use. One can also argue for a number of interesting similarities between connectionism and Derrida’s model of language (as will be done in the next chapter). If post-structural arguments can help us to implement better models of complex systems, it will help to dispel the delivered opinion that poststructural concepts are confined to the realm of theory and have no practical value

but also by the history of the system. These aspects interact in a non-linear, recursive way that can by no stretch of the imagination be described in terms of first-order predicate logic. At the same time that science loses the clarity of this objectivity, philosophy loses the luxury of avoiding the contingent. This will be a lasting characteristic of postmodernity, namely that scientists and philosophers alike, have lost their innocence. Since a certain theory of representation implies a certain theory of meaning – and meaning is what we live by – our choice of such a theory has important ethical implications