This response engages with critical reviews of After the Internet to advance three central theses. First, it refines technoliberalism as the Foucauldian political rationality of the Corporate Platform Complex, arguing we are now witnessing a neoreactionary turn where tech capital repurposes this infrastructure for illiberal ends. Second, it examines the platform-driven reconfiguration of the social, where neoliberal epistemologies reduce sociality to networks of individuals, attacking social reproduction-yet collective and oppositional forms of the social persist. Finally, the article posits that our conjuncture is defined by ambivalence, bifurcation, and superposition: the coexistence of incompossible worlds like Capital/Common and exploitation/solidarity. Rejecting both technosolutionism and pessimism, it argues for embracing this irreducible complexity as the ground for a speculative politics that must organise to foreclose the worst possible futures while navigating an open and volatile field of potentiality.

• Organic conceptions of irreducible complexity offer inferential advantages over mechanical conceptions reducing wholes to sums of their parts. • Caring for our technologies as we do our children closely attends to their conception, gestation, midwifing, and nurturing. • Irreducible complexity integrates discontinuous nonlinearities across operational, collective, and constitutional levels. • The Caliper STEM instrument and reports seamlessly and holistically situate measurement as a medium of STEM ecosystem stakeholder empowerment. • Caliper applies Edison’s lesson that innovation lies not in inventions but in nurturing social ecologies of infrastructural standards. Metrology extends everyday language’s organic ecosystem capacities for virally contagious and communicable expressions of meaning. Ecologized education implies a key role for metrological standards by similarly seeking to systematically extend learning out of classrooms and into the environments in which knowledge is put to use. Metrological concepts could inform the culturing of STEM learning ecosystems by suggesting how to better coordinate and align the activities of teachers, students, employers, government offices, informal educators, philanthropists, and others involved at differing micro, meso, and macro levels. A metrologically-oriented mathematical measurement model of hierarchically complex relations of mutable individual operational level data, phenotypic collective level measurements and instruments, and genotypic constitutional level theory is proposed. The model facilitates orchestration of opportunities for natural selection to amplify adaptive integrations of innovations and their environments in the same manner that Edison capitalized on the insight that innovation lies in the integration of the invention with its network environment. The proposed model structures STEM ecosystem success measurements metrologically as a common language simultaneously replicating and translating the focal construct across organizational levels and boundaries. New forms of sociotechnical life might then be adaptively integrated with their environments in a manner analogous to Edison’s culturing of the evolutionary potentials of electrical forms of life transformed from the telegraph to the telephone to radio and television to the Internet and wi-fi. A metrology of this kind may enable the maximization of evolutionary potentials for successfully addressing today’s urgent needs for solutions to problems of human suffering, social discontent, and environmental degradation.

This article examines how E. P. Thompson’s Beyond the Frontier: The Politics of a Failed Mission: Bulgaria 1944 (1997), a hybrid work of affectionate commemoration, historiographic investigation, and political intervention, redefines the practice of historiography. I argue that the book is driven by what I term historiographic agency: a historian’s capacity to mediate between past and present, to resist ideological distortions, and to construct meaning through evaluative and interpretive judgment. For Thompson, such agency entails a dual responsibility: to recover the irreducible complexity of past lives and simultaneously to intervene in the political dilemmas of his own time. By confronting state-sponsored myths in both Britain and Bulgaria, and by resisting the abstraction of lived experience into scholarly categories, Beyond the Frontier amplifies the tension between agency and structure that had long preoccupied Thompson’s political, pedagogical, and historiographic practice. I try to demonstrate that, rather than representing a pessimistic break with Thompson’s romanticism evident in his earlier works, the book reflects a strategic shift: from depicting and celebrating the agency of historical actors themselves, to foregrounding the historian’s own role in negotiating between events, myths, and lived experiences. In this sense, Thompson’s mourning becomes historiography, and his historiography itself a form of political engagement.

This essay argues that one of the key objectives of teaching Anthropocene literature is an appreciation of the irreducible complexity of our planetary condition. Somewhat counterintuitively, it is poetry, rather than narrative literature, that holds a lot of promise for conveying such an appreciation to students. Drawing on an MA course on American literatures of the Anthropocene taught in a comparative literature program, this essay develops a reading of Evelyn Reilly’s 2009 collection Styrofoam to illustrate how it affords classroom discussion of different forms of complexity and difficulty. A work of ecopoetics, Styrofoam showcases many kinds of intertextual and formal complexity that lend themselves quite well to elaboration in the classroom. Especially salient is the dimension of scale. One of the most discussed topics in the study of Anthropocene literature, scale is often invoked as central to human experience in an age of planetary derangement. The sustained focus on the minutiae of language that difficult works of poetry demand, this essay argues, adds a dimension of scalar complexity that is less easily activated in the narrative forms which most Anthropocene literary studies privilege.

In defence of empirical reductionism - Rejecting the hidden dualism of irreducible brain complexity.

This literature review examined the evolution and contemporary significance of cosmological and teleological arguments as philosophical and theological proofs for the existence of God. The review deconstructed how these arguments have been shaped by the dynamic interplay between theology, philosophical reasoning, and scientific discovery from ancient Greek philosophy through modern scientific developments. The cosmological arguments are examined through the Leibnizian framework, based on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and the Kalam argument, which posits that whatever begins to exist must have a cause. The review explores how these arguments engage with contemporary scientific theories including the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, and multiverse hypotheses, while addressing persistent philosophical challenges such as infinite regress and the problem of explanation. The teleological arguments are analysed through William Paley’s watchmaker analogy and Michael Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity, examining how these design-based arguments have adapted to advances in biological science. The review evaluated how evolutionary theory, molecular biology, and modern genetics have challenged and these arguments, while refining and exploring their theological implications for understanding the question of the existence of God and the nature of life as we know it. The analysis revealed that while mainstream science has not accepted the design/creation inferences these arguments allude to, they remain fluxive in theological and philosophical debate about the boundaries between the scientific and the metaphysical. The review concludes that cosmological and teleological arguments remain influential in contemporary philosophical theology, bridging reason and faith while adapting to new scientific understanding. These arguments continue to raise fundamental questions about the nature of existence, the limits of human knowledge, and The relationship between science and religion

The varied leaf morphologies of seed plants provide an attractive system for studying the development and evolution of biological forms. Here, we consider the genetic mechanisms underlying variation in leaf margin geometry, as leaves can bear protrusions ranging from shallow serrations to lobes to fully separated leaflets. Leaflet formation in the complex-leaved species Cardamine hirsuta requires the REDUCED COMPLEXITY (RCO) homeobox gene. RCO was lost in the lineage of its simple-leaved relative Arabidopsis thaliana, and re-introduction of ChRCO into A. thaliana as a transgene increases leaf complexity by triggering the generation of deep lobes in the leaf margin. As the genetic mechanisms for RCO-mediated outgrowth formation are only partially understood, we performed a mutagenesis screen for suppressors of lobe formation in A. thaliana plants harboring a ChRCO transgene. From this screen, we identified CUP-SHAPED COTYLEDON 2 (CUC2), PIN-FORMED 1 (PIN1), CYCLOPHILIN 71 (CYP71), NUCLEOLAR PROTEIN 2A (NOP2A), RIBOSOMAL PROTEIN L34 (RPL34), and RIBOSOMAL PROTEIN L10aB/PIGGYBACK1 (PGY1). We also showed that the C. hirsuta CYP71 gene is required for leaflet development, as the cyp71 mutant has simplified leaves. Our results suggest that CUC2-auxin-PIN1-mediated marginal patterning, the CYP71 gene, and ribosome biogenesis are required for RCO to drive increased leaf complexity.

The article examines the contemporary contradictions surrounding objectivity in the philosophy of science. On the one hand, historians and philosophers of science regard objectivity as a criterion of scientificity, a marker of scientific value, and a scientific virtue. On the other hand, they highlight its contested status, irreducible complexity, and question its continued relevance. The article proposes a framework for engaging with the concept of objectivity, one that reveals the historical problems it addresses, traces its transformations over time, and demonstrates how the diversity of its meaningsas well as doubts about its significanceremain relevant today. This approach bridges the philosophy of science and historical epistemology while also illustrating the growing community of stakeholders invested in preserving objectivity. In this analysis, objectivity is explored in three key dimensions. First, it is examined in its origins as a concept that addresses the problem of connecting the elements of cognition, emphasizing its mediating function. Second, objectivity is interpreted as a regulative ideal, the pursuit of which seeks to overcome the subjectivity of the knower. Third, it is analyzed in its historicity, understood as its capacity to renew itself in response to evolving challenges. The article identifies the weakness of the concept, which leads to skepticism about objectivity, as its tendency to devolve into objectivism. Conversely, its strength lies in its potential to engage the modern scientific community and researchers of science, particularly through interpretations that do not seek to eliminate subjectivity but rather to expand its boundaries.

New Atheism declares God to be “a scientific hypothesis” that can be tested like any other. An examination of their claim, and the approaches they employ to substantiate it, reveals a particular understanding of God and causality, where God’s action would entail an observable rupture of causal closure. The modern Western intelligent design (ID) movement posits very specific ID arguments, all of which, under examination, share assumptions about an external designer and the nature of the designing act. The argument from irreducible complexity entails more than an object’s irreducibility, but particularly the idea that natural causal mechanisms are inadequate to account for the complex object. Specified complexity argues that certain patterns of information cannot come about by natural processes alone. The fine-tuning argument also presupposes a lack of plausible naturalistic explanations for the universal constants identified by science. It becomes clear that they share an underlying assumption of the New Atheists’ “God hypothesis,” that a complete, natural causal account would render the resulting phenomena unconvincing as evidence for an external designer’s existence. These assumptions are compared with the concept of God’s action in the divine action models (DAMs) of the three Sunnī theological schools: Ashʿarī, Māturīdī, and Salafī. Upon examination, all three models assume a maximally active God and allow natural phenomena to be accounted for by continuous and unbroken natural causal processes. The paper concludes that Sunnī concepts of God’s divine action are immune to New Atheist critiques, particularly their manner of weaponizing science against religion, because the underlying assumptions about God are different. Moreover, the responses to New Atheism made by the Western ID movement are equally inapplicable from the standpoint of Sunnī DAMs, since those responses share with New Atheism metaphysical assumptions the DAMs dismiss.

The evolution of major taxa is often associated with the emergence of new gene families. In all multicellular animals except sponges and comb jellies, the genomes contain Hox genes, which are crucial regulators of development. The canonical function of Hox genes involves the collinear patterning of body parts in bilateral animals. This general function is implemented through complex, precisely coordinated mechanisms, not all of which are evolutionarily conserved and fully understood. We suggest that the emergence of this regulatory complexity was preceded by a stage of cooperation between more ancient morphogenetic programs or their individual elements. Footprints of these programs may be present in modern animals to execute non-canonical Hox functions. Non-canonical functions of Hox genes are involved in maintaining terminal nerve cell specificity, autophagy, oogenesis, pre-gastrulation embryogenesis, vertical signaling, and a number of general biological processes. These functions are realized by the basic properties of homeodomain protein and could have triggered the evolution of ParaHoxozoa and Nephrozoa subsequently.

Ageing brings together biological, personal, and social horizons. Attempts to reduce it or to privilege one of these dimensions over the others fail to fully capture the phenomenon. The temporality of ageing presents an irreducible complexity. It is the inextricable intertwinement of three temporalities, three rhythms on different scales: biological time, personal-narrative time, and historical time. In all these dimensions something is of crucial concern: time and temporality. Yet, many philosophers who have thought about time (even those who take seriously the lived experience of temporality) have paid little attention to ageing. Drawing from Heidegger, Scheler, and Schutz, this paper argues that ageing is an irreducible complex of different temporalities where one encounters the historicity of the world through a process of losing touch with it.

The central metaphor of nature as a watch has colored the debate about natural theology since Paley and Darwin. However, a chemical interpretation of natural history will differ because chemical systems do not work like watches. Here, a natural history of chemical constraints proposed by R. J. P. Williams is interpreted through Joseph Earley's two modes of "chemical becoming" with classical realism and the philosophy of emergence. This interpretation shifts attention from a system's irreducible complexity to its irreducible novelty, focusing on its novel existence and its transcendental truth, goodness, and beauty. A view of natural history in which irreducible novelty evolves through chemistry has several advantages: it accommodates continuous change (giving direction to a gradual mechanism of evolution) and irreversible change (providing an important yet limited role for chance rather than denying its existence or overemphasizing its power). A chemical perspective perceives the inherent "makeability" and manifest order of the universe.

The central metaphor of nature as a watch has colored the debate about natural theology since Paley and Darwin. However, a chemical interpretation of natural history will differ because chemical systems do not work like watches. Here, a natural history of chemical constraints proposed by R. J. P. Williams is interpreted through Joseph Earley's two modes of "chemical becoming" with classical realism and the philosophy of emergence. This interpretation shifts attention from a system's irreducible complexity to its irreducible novelty, focusing on its novel existence and its transcendental truth, goodness, and beauty. A view of natural history in which irreducible novelty evolves through chemistry has several advantages: it accommodates continuous change (giving direction to a gradual mechanism of evolution) and irreversible change (providing an important yet limited role for chance rather than denying its existence or overemphasizing its power). A chemical perspective perceives the inherent "makeability" and manifest order of the universe.

This paper proposes the concept of resonance as a third alternative to the transcendentalist and transgressive modes of philosophy. The notion of resonance is found in Rosa Hartmut's sociological concept, which the scholar develops as an alternative to the resource-based approach and critical theory. This study details the meth-odology of the sociology of ‘world-attitudes’ approach and traces its relationship to the theories of Gabriel Tarde and Bruno Latour. While Rosa Hartmut develops the concept of resonance in relation to sociology, emphasizing institutional foundations and “axes of resonance,” we take the concept of resonance in-to the territory of ontology. The author suggests the concept of resonance to be applied to a new ontological approach that emphasises the creative production of philosophical meanings rather than its criticism or struggle to establish the only possi-ble meaning perspective. The development of the concept of resonance allows us to continue and refine the trans-gressive critique of the transcen-dentalist mode, not cancelling the latter, but dis-covering productive connections with it. Three points emerge in which resonance continues to transgress: the irreducible complexity and assem-blage of philosophy; the emphasis on the creative production of meaning; the productive interrela-tionships of philoso-phy with other domains.

In this paper, my aim is to provide a brief characterisation of selected features of the Cavellian understanding of philosophy, especially in view of the role played by autobiographical aspects in Cavell’s philosophical and literary reflections. Autobiography would appear to be one of Cavell’s favourite sources of cognition, at the same time serving as an important medium for his self-promotion. The self-reflection which may be achieved thanks to autobiography is never purely passive; on the contrary, it entails an inherent element of introspection of one’s subjectivity. This creative dimension offers Cavell the opportunity to embark on his reading of Emersonian perfectionism, which he understood as a never-ending upward movement, an unstoppable advance towards self-perfection. At the same time, it reveals the irreducible complexity and pervasiveness of the autobiographical aspects in Cavell’s thought in their interconnections with other aspects of his thought, such as, for example, his unique approach to psychoanalysis (especially in therapeutic contexts), or to aesthetic experience. As a result, Cavell’s work in philosophy turns into a deeply personal experience which defies complete translation into discursive language.

Space–time labeling diversity for distributed Goppa-coded cooperative networks over Nakagami-[formula omitted] channels

This paper examines the role of probability in the thought and work of the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990), focusing on his definition of reality as the improbability which occurred. I argue that this expression encapsulates his lifelong critical investigation of the possibilities and limitations of the representation of the modern world. The polyvalent concept of probability serves Dürrenmatt in his essays, drama, and prose fiction to illuminate the irreducible complexity of reality, the inevitable constraints of human perception, and the futility of seeking to reconstruct empirical causality end-to-end. The concept of reality as an improbability which occurred defines both the empirical reality which Dürrenmatt seeks to analyze through his fiction, as well as the subjective reality he creates within his “fictional worlds,” thus forming a crucial conjunction between his worldview and his literary work.

How genetically regulated growth shapes organ form is a key problem in developmental biology. Here, we investigate this problem using the leaflet-bearing complex leaves of Cardamine hirsuta as a model. Leaflet development requires the action of two growth-repressing transcription factors: REDUCED COMPLEXITY (RCO), a homeodomain protein, and CUP-SHAPED COTYLEDON2 (CUC2), a NAC-domain protein. However, how their respective growth-repressive actions are integrated in space and time to generate complex leaf forms remains unknown. By using live imaging, we show that CUC2 and RCO are expressed in an interspersed fashion along the leaf margin, creating a distinctive striped pattern. We find that this pattern is functionally important because forcing RCO expression in the CUC2 domain disrupts auxin-based marginal patterning and can abolish leaflet formation. By combining genetic perturbations with time-lapse imaging and cellular growth quantifications, we provide evidence that RCO-mediated growth repression occurs after auxin-based leaflet patterning and in association with the repression of cell proliferation. Additionally, through the use of genetic mosaics, we show that RCO is sufficient to repress both cellular growth and proliferation in a cell-autonomous manner. This mechanism of growth repression is different to that of CUC2, which occurs in proliferating cells. Our findings clarify how the two growth repressors RCO and CUC2 coordinate to subdivide developing leaf primordia into distinct leaflets and generate the complex leaf form. They also indicate different relationships between growth repression and cell proliferation in the patterning and post-patterning stages of organogenesis.

One important insight from complexity science is that the future is open, and that this openness is an opportunity for us to participate in its shaping. The bioeconomy has been part of this process of “future-making”. But instead of a fertile ecosystem of imagined futures, a dry monoculture of ideas seems to dominate the landscape, promising salvation through technology. With this article, we intend to contribute to regenerating the ecological foundations of the bioeconomy. What would it entail if we were to merge with the biosphere instead of machines? To lay the cornerstones of a bioeconomic utopia, we explore the basic principles of self-organization that underlie biological, ecological, social, and psychological processes alike. All these are self-assembling and self-regulating elastic structures that exist at the edge of chaos and order. We then revisit the Promethean problem that lies at the foundation of bioeconomic thought and discuss how, during industrialization, the principles of spontaneous self-organization were replaced by the linear processes of the assembly line. We ultimately propose a bioeconomy based on human needs with the household as the basic unit: the biocosmos. The biocosmos is an agroecological habitat system of irreducible complexity, a new human niche embedded into the local ecosystem.

Today's living world is enriched with a myriad of natural biological designs, shaped by billions of years of evolution. Unraveling the construction rules of living organisms offers the potential to create new materials and systems for biomedicine. From the close examination of living organisms, several concepts emerge: hierarchy, pattern repetition, adaptation, and irreducible complexity. All these aspects must be tackled to develop transformative materials with lifelike behavior. This perspective article highlights recent progress in the development of transformative biohybrid systems for applications in the fields of tissue regeneration and biomedicine. Advances in computational simulations and data‐driven predictions are also discussed. These tools enable the virtual high‐throughput screening of implant design and performance before committing to fabrication, thus reducing the development time and cost of biomimetic and biohybrid constructs. The ongoing progress of imaging methods also constitutes an essential part of this matter in order to validate the computation models and enable longitudinal monitoring. Finally, the current challenges of lifelike biohybrid materials, including reproducibility, ethical considerations, and translation, are discussed. Advances in the development of lifelike materials will open new biomedical horizons, where perhaps what is currently envisioned as science fiction will become a science‐driven reality in the future.