Jürgen Habermas RIP: 'Synthetic abilities - Synthetic thinking'

'Jürgen Habermas is recognized for his immense

synthetic ability, integrating diverse cognitive domains—philosophy, sociology, linguistics, and psychology—to develop a cohesive theory of communicative action and social critique. His synthetic thinking aims to bridge modern rationalism with normative concerns, creating an interdisciplinary framework that addresses the complexities of modern society.'

Google AI Overview: https://share.google/aimode/Tev1Ip96TMCMcEgdF 

'It is true that the sciences are increasingly interconnected with the development of productivity by way of technical progress; however, technical progress is not the only branch of science in the line of instrumental rationality defenders from Descartes and Bacon's scientific method. This is what distinguishes the Newtonian science from the second group of considerations: Darwinian science and contemporary systems theory (as Habermas, 1984 puts it). The latter do invite us to see the science as “an organism, population, or system [that] maintains itself through demarcation from and adaptation to a changeable, hypercomplex environment” (Habermas, 1984, p. 388). Also, the classical philosophical tradition, insofar that it suggests the possibility of a worldview, has become questionable:

Philosophy can no longer refer to the whole of the world, of nature, of history, of society, in the sense of a totalizing knowledge. Theoretical surrogates for worldviews have been devalued, not only by the factual advance of empirical science but even more by the reflective consciousness accompanying it. (Habermas, 1984, p. 1)'

Mejía Fernández, R. & Romero, J. (2022) Social Evolution in Jürgen Habermas: Towards a Weak Anthropological Naturalism between Kant and Darwin. Theoria, 88(3), 607–628. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12383

'According to Habermas, the self of the ethical life stage embodies a basis for a postmetaphysical grounding of the good life:

'Rather, all his attention is on the structure of the ability to be oneself, that is, on the form of an ethical self-reflection and self-choice that is determined by the infinite interest in the success of one’s own life-project. With a view toward future possibilities of action, the individual self-critically appropriates the past of her factually given, concretely re-presented life history. Only then does she make herself into a person who speaks for herself, an irreplaceable individual.'30 

Viertbauer, Jürgen HKlaus (2019) Habermas on the Way to a Postmetaphysical Reading of Kierkegaard.
European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 (4): 137-162. (p.145).

My source: Nick Pearce, Philosopher who fought the slide towards illiberalism, Jürgen Habermas Obituary. FTWeekend, 21-22 March 2026. p.9.

AI - World Models

'What Is a World Model?

World models are neural networks that understand the dynamics of the real world, including physics and spatial properties. They can use input data, including text, image, video, and movement, to generate videos that simulate realistic physical environments. Physical AI developers use world models to generate custom synthetic data or downstream AI models for training robots and autonomous vehicles.'

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/glossary/world-models/

In healthcare a 'world model' is slightly more expansive, hence the importance of experienced humans. We call these - nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers and many other professions, support workers and disciplines. They learn and train for many years and must continue to learn and unlearn throughout their careers. Their work and engagement is shaped and directed by human values, which are in turn informed by social change, evidence-based research, professional guidance, policy and law.

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic -------------------------------------------  mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

	WORLD MODEL

HC@AIxIA: AI&Health Seminar Series (2024) - 16 September

Generative AI in sequencing: enhancing models by synthetic omics data

 
16 September 2024 - 04:30PM CET

Speaker: Giuseppe Jurman, Head of DSH (Data Science for Health) Unit, Fondazione Bruno Kessler – FBK (Trento, Italy)

Title: Generative AI in sequencing: enhancing models by synthetic omics data.

• Abstract: Synthetic data have recently gained momentum in several scientific areas as an effective solution to dealt with several aspects of data poverty and missingness. In translational medicine, biomedical images and EHR data have been the first to benefit from synthetic augmentation techniques through generative AI algorithms such as GANs or, more recently, Diffusion-like models. Extension of these methods to omics data poses further challenges due to the nature of the signal, such as the need of taking into account sample variability and multilevel omics coherence. In this talk, we will present an overview of the state-of-the-art of the synthetic data in the omics universe, including the generative methodologies, the future perspectives, and the related caveats, concluding with some applicative use cases. (joint work with Marco Chierici and Silvia Menchetti)
• Short Bio: Giuseppe Jurman is a mathematician, with a PhD in Algebra, currently Head of the Data Science for Health (DSH) Unit at FBK. His main interest is the development and the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning and complex network models for diagnosis, prognosis and prediction in medicine, life science and computational biology, starting from EHRs, omics data and biomedical images, including digital pathology, with a particular emphasis on reproducibility and explainability. He is also interested in scientific programming with Python and other computing languages, and he teaches Data Visualization at the M.Sc. in Data Science at the University of Trento. 
• Flyer: link
• Link for participating: webex link + details
• VIDEO: available afterwards
  

c/o: Francesco Calimeri, Mauro Dragoni, Fabio Stella
(coordinators of the HC@AIxIA working group)