The brain and the nervous system are usually studied and interpreted, particularly in cognitive neuroscience, from a personal point of view. We start by considering typically human, high-level cognitive and intellectual psychological functions, and then try to find how is that the brain and the nervous system achieve such feats. This brings the temptation to project the very functions we try to explain into the machinery and dynamics of the nervous system, depicting the brain as elaborating hypotheses, predicting results, and correcting errors. Contemporary theories such as the Free Energy Principle (FEP) might be viewed as falling under this kind of temptation. In this talk, I offer a different approach that considers the dynamics of the brain from the point of view of the brain itself. Understood as a biophysical system, and not as a cognitive one, the brain appears as a natural system whose dynamics respect and follow the principles and restrictions that rule for every natural system in general. I discuss some of those general naturalistic principles, paying attention to the thermodynamic nature of the nervous system as an energy homeostatic machine.

Bio :
Mario Villalobos obtained a Masters in philosophy at the University of Chile, and received his PhD in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science from the University of Edinburgh. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the School of Psychology and Philosophy, University of Tarapacá, Chile, and Associate Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Complexity Sciences (IFICC), Chile. His main areas of research are the autopoietic theory of living beings, the enactive approach, and cybernetics.