Biomining (original) (raw)
Related papers
Philosophy and Technology, 2016
The philosophy of biomimicry, I argue, consists of four main areas of inquiry. The first, which has already been explored by Freya Mathews (2011), concerns the “deep” question of what Nature ultimately is. The second, third, and fourth areas correspond to the three basic principles of biomimicry as laid out by Janine Benyus (1997). “Nature as model” is the poetic principle of biomimicry, for it tells us how it is that things are to be “brought forth” (poiēsis). “Nature as measure” is the ethical principle of biomimicry, for it tells us that Nature places ethical limits or standards on what it is possible for us to accomplish. And “Nature as mentor” is the epistemological principle of biomimicry, for it affirms that Nature is the ultimate source of truth, wisdom, and freedom from error. Within this overall framework, I argue that seeing Nature as physis – understood as “self-production” or “self-placing-into-the-open” – constitutes the requisite ground for the poetic, ethical, and epistemological principles of biomimicry, and that biomimicry thus conceived involves a new philosophical paradigm, which I call “enlightened naturalism”.
Promises and Presuppositions of Biomimicry
Biomimetics, 2020
Under the umbrella of biologically informed disciplines, biomimicry is a design methodology that proponents often assert will lead to a more sustainable future. In realizing that future, it becomes necessary to discern specifically what biomimicry's "promises" are in relation to sustainable futures, and what is required in order for them to be fulfilled. This paper presents research examining the webpages of the Biomimicry Global Network (BGN) to extract the claims and promises expressed by biomimicry practitioners. These promises are assessed using current literature to determine their presuppositions and requirements. Biomimicry's promises are expressed in terms of potential for innovation, sustainability, and transformation and appear to depend on perceived relationships between humanity and nature; nature and technology; the underlying value judgements of practitioners. The findings emphasize that in order for the communicated promise of biomimicry to be realized, a particular ethos and respectful engagement with nature must accompany the technological endeavors of the practice.
Sustainability, 2021
The concept of bioeconomy is a topic of debate, confusion, skepticism, and criticism. Paradoxically, this is not necessarily a negative thing as it is encouraging a fruitful exchange of information, ideas, knowledge, and values, with concomitant beneficial effects on the definition and evolution of the bioeconomy paradigm. At the core of the debate, three points of view coexist: (i) those who support a broad interpretation of the term bioeconomy, through the incorporation of all economic activities based on the production and conversion of renewable biological resources (and organic wastes) into products, including agriculture, livestock, fishing, forestry and similar economic activities that have accompanied humankind for millennia; (ii) those who embrace a much narrower interpretation, reserving the use of the term bioeconomy for new, innovative, and technologically-advanced economic initiatives that result in the generation of high-added-value products and services from the conve...
Views on Biotic Nature and the Idea of Sustainable Development
Papers on Global Change IGBP
The search for balance between humankind’s civilisational aspirations and the durable protection of nature is conditioned by contemporaneous views of biotic nature. Of particular importance in this regard are physiocentric and physiological views that may be set against one another. The first of these was presented by Hans Jonas, the second by Lothar Schäfer. This paper does not confine itself to setting one view against the other, but rather sets minimum conditions for cooperation between their promoters in the interests of balance between the aspirations of the present generation and those of future generations. Both views of nature are in their own way conducive to a break with the illusion present in some areas of the modern natural sciences - that nature is a boundless area of are inexhaustible resources.
Questioning the theory and practice of biomimicry
International Journal of Design and Nature …, 2009
Abstract: Gaining inspiration from nature has a new name: biomimicry. As a supposedly novel technical practice,biomimicry makes promises about solving the world’s technological problems and environmental problems simultaneously. After posing questions about the features, assumptions and ambitions of biomimicry, it is concluded that biomimicry might be a productive way to render nature’s secrets available for commercial and industrial purposes, but for it to move society towards eco-friendliness as it’s supporters often claim, they will have to actively reconstruct the concept with the help from ecocentric ideas.
In this article, we critically reflect on the concept of biomimicry. On the basis of an analysis of the concept of biomimicry in the literature and its philosophical origin, we distinguish between a strong and a weaker concept of biomimicry. The strength of the strong concept of biomimicry is that nature is seen as a measure by which to judge the ethical rightness of our technological innovations, but its weakness is found in questionable presuppositions. These presuppositions are addressed by the weaker concept of biomimicry, but at the price that it is no longer possible to distinguish between exploitative and ecological types of technological innovations. We compare both concepts of biomimicry by critically reflecting on four dimensions of the concept of biomimicry: mimesis, technology, nature, and ethics.
An Academic Analysis of the Notion of Biopower.pdf
2021
From the time of the ancient and medieval political scholars, society has been shaped by the findings of individuals on specific happenings of nature. Man has constantly tried to explain the logic behind nature; the birth of Social and Political theory. From Socrates through to Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and others, there has been a conscious effort to sustain debates that seek to unveil what is true about a phenomenon. Concepts such as Justice, Democracy, Freedom among others have been grappled with by these scholars and for centuries, man is as yet to arrive at a conclusive explanation of any of them. Like other concepts, the discourse on power has traveled through time to what we have in the present day. Hobbesian theories on power revealed that only the strongest could use their power to survive in the state of nature which was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. His arguments on the need for power were extended in the book, The Leviathan where he preached for there to be ...
Transdiciplinary approach applying in order to work out the Cognitive policy Analyzing the overpopulation threat by drawing to that analysis the biological population evolution laws and latest demographic data published in internet, reports from TED conferences of various years, the Gapminder project of prof Rosling, The reports-presentations for TED Conferences 2007 by Hans Rosling on the Changes in the modern World and the population growth problem CIA World Factbook for 2010 Vision on the Big History context from the point of view of the evolutionary biology. Applying evolutionary ecology in order to understand the nature of the demography trends. ABSTRACT “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” (Mary Curie) Since the intense Globalisation process had got embracing the global Earth, Earth may be regarded as a single biocenoesis of one leading species H. Sapiens. That vision would include the understanding of the human kind as the single population. Hence the mechanisms of biocoenosis evolution are to be taking into account while carrying out Human activities of any kind.
This is my introduction to How Biology Shapes Philosophy: New Foundations for Naturalism, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, with original contributions by Daniel Dennett, Alex Rosenberg, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Patricia Churchland, David Papineau, John Dupre, Philip Kitcher, Karen Neander, Richard Boyd, Samir Okasha, Edouard Machery, Ronald DeSousa, and Luc Faucher.