Most scientific discussions of plasticity emphasize the preservation of a “core identity” across processes of transformation. In neuroscientific accounts of memory, for instance, plasticity is framed as the strengthening or weakening of synapses, while the brain's stability, and thus its enduring identity, is said to be maintained. Even in cases of memory loss, plasticity is described as that which preserves continuity despite rupture . We recognize the value of this view, and certainly, in many cases the continuity of a “core identity” is what makes plasticity possible. However, our intervention wishes to ask what other plastic states become available when the continuity of such a plastic “core identity” is disrupted, or becomes fragile, without being resolved, or recuperated into a new stable and continuous plastic form. It is on these fragile thresholds that we locate negative plasticity, not as a resilient, flexible or adaptable identity, that sustains across transformation, but as a form of negative liminality that possesses a generative indeterminate force of rupture which is irreducible to stable notions of identity.

Traditional funding models allow for little external collaboration and exploration. To overcome ‘siloing’ of disciplines and enable more risky research, the Ideas Lab method was developed to enable new multidisciplinary ways of working. In this study, we explore the Ideas Lab as a cooperative funding instrument enabling transdisciplinary collaboration. We interviewed eight researchers participating in the Austrian Ideas Lab in 2017 after a 4-year project implementation and analysed their applications prior to the 5-day workshop. Researchers dealt with high pressure and stress and applied coping mechanisms to manage social dynamics. They changed their ways of working, dipping into new research areas, gaining new skills, and applying new engagement strategies with stakeholders as early as possible in the process. Openness and flexibility were essential to adjust to inputs from stakeholders. We conclude that the characteristics of the Ideas Lab as a funding instrument are well suited to the establishment and implementation of transdisciplinary research projects.

Whether artificial intelligence might benefit human well-being in every sense is an open question. I consider it in the following essay, first putting to one side standard accounts of ‘official AI’, then deriving an ‘unofficial’ counterpart from the evidence of newspaper accounts and magazine features from ca. 1945–1965. Unsurprisingly, these demonstrate a bending of artificial intelligence to military and industrial purposes, hence the enormity of the impediment to therapeutic applications, but at the same time the evidence leaves no doubt as to the imaginative power of smart machines. Contemporary commentary is brought to bear to move from intimations of a dark future to possibilities for constructing a healthy practice. I conclude with two quite different 21st century examples of a way towards it.

The early decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed various attempts by cultural critics to move beyond the Two Cultures divide posited by C.P. Snow in 1959 , developing modes of critique that seek to bridge the gap between humans and the technology we use. This has resulted in relational interpretations of literature and technology that emphasise the interpenetrative nature of the reading experience, and the complex implications of conceiving of literature and technology as a system. Amazon's Kindle™ ebook reader provides an exceptional use case to ground this conversation, occupying a position somewhere between traditional reading device and techno-corporate publishing mechanism. Analyses of the Kindle™ often fail to take into account useful twentieth-century approaches to the philosophy of technology that offer purchase over the problem domain, however. Work by John Dewey (1859–1952) and Donald Ihde (1934–2024) suggest ways to conceive of the Kindle™ and similar devices as objects embedded in our experience of the world, mediated by technological systems and infrastructure but ultimately contributing to our experience of the world in much the same way as previous modes of publishing.

ABSTRACT The longstanding juncture between science and religion in psychedelic research is mediated most notably by the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ). The MEQ is a psychometric survey for assessing mystical experiences, and it relies on the work of philosopher Walter Stace for its typology and philosophy of mysticism. Yet there is an under-investigated influence from Vedantic Hinduism that contributed to Stace’s thinking. In an analysis of Stace’s hermeneutics of mysticism, this article demonstrates how Stace’s typology of mystical experience was created in dialogue with major figures in the field of modern, transnational Vedanta. From there, we investigate how these figures’ approaches to religious experience manifest in Stace’s typology of the mystical experience and are preserved in the MEQ. We conclude by discussing how the enduring use of the MEQ, and scientists’ insistence on its theoretical rigour, embeds Stace’s interpretation of modern Vedantic ideas in the contemporary practice of psychedelic science.

ABSTRACT In their highly influential paper, Yarkoni, Tal, and Jacob Westfall. 2017. “Choosing Prediction over Explanation in Psychology: Lessons from Machine Learning.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 12 (6):1100–1122. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617693393 the authors highlight difficulties in traditional explanatory research in the field of psychology and argue in favour of novel data-driven science. By applying machine-learning methods to large data sets, predictive power has been shown to increase significantly. Geological engineers are responsible for a wide range of applications, including the design of tunnels, dams, foundations, and mines. While the field of geological engineering stands on solid mechanistic grounds, we argue that its predictive aspect aligns more closely with psychology than other mechanistic sciences. We therefore propose a paradigm shift in geological engineering research towards a prediction-centric approach. Potentially, this could enhance cost-effectiveness in structural design and lead to substantial societal savings.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgementsBoth authors were supported by the MTA Lendület Values and Science Research Group.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1 Note, however, that some synthetical efforts, emphasizing the cognitive-natural and the social-historical were already emerging, as in David Bloor's (Citation1999) work.2 The illustration on the cover of the book is an output of this system: neuronal network ‘drawing’, using the mechanical arm.Additional informationNotes on contributorsEmil C. ToescuEmil C. Toescu is a neuroscientist with a special interest in the neurobiology of ageing and is involved with a number of academic and educational projects focusing on the interface between (medical) sciences and humanities. He is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Transdisciplinary Discoveries, Medical School, University of Pécs (Hungary), Honorary Fellow at the Department of Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences, University of Birmingham (UK), member of the MTA (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) Lendület Values and Science Research Group, member of the Steering Committee and lead of the Education Committee of the Doctor as a Humanist foundation. He runs and contributes to a number of Medical Humanities courses.Adam Tamas TubolyAdam Tamas Tuboly is a philosopher of science, leader of the MTA (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) Lendület Values and Science research group and research fellow at the Institute for Transdisciplinary Discoveries, Medical School, University of Pécs. He works on the historical questions of philosophy of science and aims to track down the demarcation between science and pseudo-science.

ABSTRACT Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In this paper, I argue that TAP includes various (explicit or implicit) metaphysical commitments: commitments to (1) scientific realism, (2) downward causation and teleology, and (3) modal realism. If TAP is to hang together as the kind of robust philosophical thesis it evidently aspires to be, it needs an account – an account that is currently absent – of its metaphysical commitments. It is, however, unclear how such an account can be developed since various dilemmas present themselves when one explores how subscribers to TAP might do so.