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Philosophical Biographies: Alejandro Gordillo-García, ‘New user accessing thought’s operating system’

21 January 2025

Behind every philosopher there is a person who, like everyone else, makes decisions for her or his life. But how does the decision for philosophy – an activity that never seems to have guaranteed great profit or recognition – come about? In what ways does philosophy intertwine with our life stories?

These questions were given space and voice at the International Congress Philosophy between (Self-)Critique and Transformation, held from 4 to 6 December 2024 at the University of Padua.

The basic idea was to collectively explore the complex tangle of personal trajectories, theoretical needs and the material conditions in which the philosopher’s work is done today. With this in mind, a section was dedicated to Philosophical Biographies. Participants answered these four questions:

  1. Why did you decide to pursue philosophy (as a study and/or profession)?
  2. Is there a theoretical problem that represents a particular challenge for you and to which you have devoted part of your research? How did you come to identify and develop it?
  3. What obstacles have you encountered in your philosophical journey? Have you ever had the feeling that some of them were related to your gender, your geographical origin, your age or other aspects of your subjectivity?
  4. What would you change about the way philosophy is practiced in today’s academic environment?

We share Alejandro Gordillo-García’s ‘philosophical biography.’

He starts by questioning the very concept of ‘biography’ and ends by claiming that the fruits of philosophical work should not be the property of commercial entities but products potentially accessible to all humanity.

A few more words about him. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padua, who specialised in philosophy of biological sciences. During his PhD at KU Leuven, he focused on the philosophical aspects of cultural evolutionary theory. His current research work aims to clarify various conceptual and methodological aspects in the scientific practice of reconstructing the evolution of different human traits.

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1. Why did you decide to pursue philosophy (as a study and/or profession)?

Before getting into my biography, I’d like to mention some disclaimers and set the stage with a few reflections.

Think about an organism, any organism from a cell to a human animal. As the life of any organism unfolds in time, each moment of its existence opens up potentially infinite possibilities at every turn. This cannot be different since, from the quantum to macro levels, there is an excruciating complexity across all levels of organisation. Moreover, adding to this the extraordinary intricate interactions between organism and the environment, life is shaped by a web of causes that functions as a tangled network of events impossible to any human mind to grasp.

When we recount a biography, however, we’re doing something very peculiar. We collapse all those possible ramifications existing at different times into a single story. And this story falsely makes it look like every step was ordered, predictable, sometimes beautiful, sometimes deliberate, provocative, interesting, unique.  

Therefore, a biography—any biography—inevitably contains falsehoods. Some aspects are exaggerated, while downplaying or omitting others that don’t fit the story we wish to tell. We usually construct them in ways that allow us to project an image of ourselves that aligns with our values, aspirations, and the cultural norms of our context. This is not necessarily a conscious process, but a consequence of our constraints as finite beings, coupled with our insistence to defend our ego against perceived threats. As a matter of fact, stories in the form of biographies often serve as a defence mechanism against existential threats, such as feelings of meaninglessness, irrelevance, or insignificance.

There are many concepts related to these flaws and inaccuracies in building a biography, including hindsight bias, confirmation bias, self-serving bias, false uniqueness effect, and many others.

Therefore, biographies are delusional to some extent, in the sense that they cannot capture the full truth and they are distortions of reality. They are inherently retrospective: It begins with the end product—ourselves, at this particular moment—and works backward, putting together a story that leads to this point. What we think we are, we are not. The reasons we tell ourselves for how we ended up here will never be entirely accurate.

I’m mentioning all this because, while simply knowing about these biases doesn’t eliminate them, I think it still puts you in a better position. For example, being aware of these flaws has helped me avoid becoming too attached to certain stories you often hear about when people explain why they chose to study philosophy, such as “I have always been intrigued by the big fundamental questions,” “I want to improve the world,” “I have always enjoyed arguments and debate,” “I wanted to study something without mathematics,”and so on.

None of this applied to me, and honestly, I doubt it applies to anyone. But anyway, in my case, here is what happened:

When I was younger, in high-school, there were no obvious signs of what path I would pursue. This wasn’t because I was uninterested or apathetic—quite the opposite. Maybe paradoxically, I was interested in too many things. I wanted to study whatever caught my interest at the moment. One day it was astrophysics, the next, anthropology; then biology, history, neuroscience, geology, or even art. I was completely clueless about my future, and to be honest I wasn’t stressed about it.

However, like many of you, I was forced to choose a path. But the truth is, I didn’t want to choose anything. As teenagers, we were expected to make decisions that would profoundly shape our futures even though our brains were literally not fully developed yet. They gave us several aptitude questionnaires, but every time I took one, I got a different answer.

But there was one thing I knew for sure, and I feel confident about it because I still feel it today. What I did know was this: I wanted to dedicate myself to something that inspired absolute amazement. I don’t care what it is, but I want the feeling you get when you realise you’ve been wrong all along about something, or when you find a question that you never asked before.

So, this was the scenario I was in, I had to choose—but I had no idea what to choose. What would you do in this situation? How could I possibly choose just one field among many interesting ones? Honestly, I’m still not sure today.

I didn’t know much about philosophy. Only that philosophers climb high in altitude to overlook everything and analyse from there. That’s all what I knew about philosophy. But then I discovered something interesting. I discovered that there were branches like the philosophy of chemistry, philosophy of quantum physics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of the social sciences. There’s also philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, and even philosophy of philosophy.

I didn’t know exactly what these areas were about, but I can’t describe how excited I was when I discovered them. Suddenly, I had a solution to my problem! If I studied philosophy, I could explore all these disciplines without being tied to just one. Philosophy seemed like a general-purpose system. It is like the Wikipiedia test in which if you keep clicking the first link of any article, you’ll almost always end up on the page for Philosophy.

And that is the reason I chose to study philosophy. Still today, my motivation for continuing in philosophy remains the same: ‘to honor curiosity’ (let’s put it in those terms, but remember what I mentioned earlier about the biases and the distortion of reality). Philosophy, for me, wasn’t about finding definitive answers but preserving certain intellectual freedom.

Unlike other disciplines, there was no particular reason for me to study philosophy, and paradoxically that’s the reason why I chose it.

2. Is there a theoretical problem that represents a particular challenge for you and to which you have devoted part of your research? How did you come to identify and develop it?

At the beginning, when I started studying philosophy, I didn’t have a specific theoretical problem that I wanted to dedicate myself to. My interests were exploratory. However, as I progressed, some specific questions began to emerge. Here are some of the most fundamental ones:

I. A glimpse from outside the system

One of the most intriguing ideas or challenges for me is the possibility of stepping outside the system we are embedded in as Homo sapiens. Physiologically, neuronally, culturally, and so on, we are deeply trapped in ‘human things.’

But what lies outside this human world is far more intriguing. I wonder if it is truly possible to exit the system and have a look from outside our perspective, our theories, and our frameworks.

I think this is a classic case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’ because one thing becomes obvious: whoever manages to exit the system, can’t never come back. In order to leave the human world, you would have to become non-human. If a single ant wanted to gain a glimpse from outside the colony system, it would need to become something far more complex—that is, no longer an ant. This idea is absolutely fascinating, as well as terrifying.

The areas of my research so far where at least I try to work toward this direction focuses on group cognition and evolution, which I define broadly as the integration of multiple cognitive systems, whether artificial, natural, or an ecosystem, to create something bigger than the sum of its parts. What I try to do in philosophy of biology is relevant for this theoretical problem, as it can give you an understanding of how complexity emerges from simpler components by understanding better the major transitions in evolution. I have tried to understand how evolutionary principles apply to higher level systems, such as cultural systems.

II. Why consciousness and self-awareness?

I often ponder about the question: “Why do we have consciousness at all?” “Did it evolve as an adaptive trait, or does it have consequences that might be maladaptive?”

Consciousness allows us to reflect, to imagine, to plan, and so on. But it also burdens us with an awareness of our own mortality, of our status as a dispensable process, and our near-zero added value to the universe. The paradox of consciousness is that while it encourages us to fill our life with meaning, it also exposes us to existential despair. Maybe one is the consequence of the other. “Why should a system evolve such a trait?” “What’s the natural history of consciousness?”

If consciousness did emerge in other systems, would those systems face the same existential challenges as we do? Would the awareness of their own finite nature become a defining feature of their existence? Is consciousness a death mark?

I don’t have answers at all when it comes to consciousness and the possibility of escaping the human system, that’s why they are central focus of my curiosity. On top of these, there are plenty of other theoretical problems I’m interested in, but I consider them secondary.

3. What obstacles have you encountered in your philosophical journey? Have you ever had the feeling that some of them were related to your gender, your geographical origin, your age or other aspects of your subjectivity?

This was the hardest question to answer. I don’t think I have ever had any significant obstacles in my career. This might sound surprising, but it’s true. I have been fortunate enough to have had a relatively smooth academic pathway so far. This is not to say that the path of an academic is easy.

But at least in my case, however, I don’t think I have faced obstacles worth mentioning. Or at least that is what I think. I must admit that I tend to believe that thinking you have obstacles is in itself an obstacle. So I don’t really know. Perhaps what I consider a smooth academic path could be seen differently from another perspective.

4. What would you change about the way philosophy is practiced in today’s academic environment?

Fortunately, this question is about the ‘what,’ and not about the ‘how,’ so this makes it easy to answer.

A. Protocols for interaction

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to immerse myself in communities from other disciplines and learn how they work. One of the most interesting things I’ve observed is how members of these communities interact with one another. The community that has impressed me the most is quantum physicists and computer scientists. Of course, not everyone behaves the same way, but many of them have a remarkable openness and spontaneity when it comes to discussing ideas. They don’t care about formal protocols.

For example, imagine you have a small chat with someone at a conference, and that person is intrigued by something you said. Within days—or sometimes even hours—you might receive a huge, chaotic email from them, enthusiastically pointing the ideas sparked by your discussion. These emails are often disordered, I don’t think they read them a second time before sending them. The main goal is the pure excitement of exchanging ideas, whether scientific or philosophical. You can reply with an equally extensive and chaotic email, and the dialogue continues.

This goes beyond emails. They’ll do whiteboard sessions with you, they’ll introduce you to other people, they’ll discuss ideas with you anywhere, in the metro, the pub, in the bathroom. It doesn’t matter.

There is no material interest involved, they are not necessarily seeking collaborations. It’s as if the power and fascination for ideas is far more powerful than any protocol, so they ignore anything that could be a limitation.

I have tried to take this approach within the philosophical community, but it has been difficult to find someone who engages with ideas in the same way. For example, I’ve sent long, detailed emails mentioning ideas I’m excited about, but the responses—if I received one at all—were often brief and formal, not allowing the possibility of follow-up back-and-forth discussion. I find it is way too formal in philosophy. In my experience, the best intellectual exchanges have never happened in reading group sessions or during a discussion in a conference. It’s always outside these formal settings where the most fascinating ideas emerge, and some scientists know it.

So this is something I would like to change in the way philosophy is done in academia.

B. Gaming the system

The standards for career advancement, things like number of publications, h-index, the prestige of journals, and political relationships, seem reasonable as indicators of academic productivity and influence. However, the problem of these metrics is that they do not correlate in a strict way with the quality of the work being produced. According to many models, and I think it is easy to confirm it by our own experience, this situation enables and encourages ‘gaming the system.’

In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, gaming the system refers to the act of exploiting rules or processes within a system for personal benefit in ways that undermine the purpose or integrity of the system itself. Some examples in academia, and particularly in philosophy, have to do with producing many low-quality or redundant papers (the so-called “salami slicing”), “I scratch your back if you scratch mine” politics, publishing in journals with lower standards for quicker or easier acceptance, over-citing your own work, creation of citation cartels, but also conference cartels.

I don’t think there’s anyone to blame for this; it seems more like a case of the tragedy of the commons. However, this is something I’d like to see change. While it’s necessary to evaluate people in academia, I believe the current standards for doing so are misplaced and are compromising the integrity and quality of our fields.

C. You don’t own my work, humanity does!

Finally, another issue I find deeply troubling is the fact that academic journals typically own the copyrights of the works they publish, and then they charge ridiculously high prices for people to access them. Why? This is completely unfair. I cannot accept that my work—born from my sacrifices, hard work, moments of self-doubt, and immense effort—ends up being owned by business entities. I am the one who endured the challenges, who invested energy into thinking. It is mine, and I believe it should be publicly available and free for everyone.

This is beyond questions of recognition, rights, or monetary benefits, I believe the work I do as a scholar belongs to humanity. If humanity decides to forget my work, so be it—but I would much rather it be forgotten than not reach humanity at all.

Philosophical Biographies: Alejandro Gordillo-García, ‘New user accessing thought’s operating system’