Torino, 22-24 June 2009
Concepts such as those of coherence and emergence of patterns ordered in space and/or in time have been recently used, together with the associated mathematical formalism, in research sectors which have traditionally been considered as distinct and even “far away" from condensed matter physics and high energy physics, and from physics in general, where those concepts were originally formulated and developed. For example, field theory models have been proposed in neuroscience in the study of brain functioning in relation to its behavior and interaction with the environment. The brain provides indeed the agency for engagement of the body with the environment. Acquisition for information about the current body relation with its surrounds and rapid recognition of often unexpected changes, to which the body must be accommodated, require constant control and research with several senses, resulting in a wide spectrum of neural activity in the action-perception cycle, including linguistic activity as well. The study of dynamical physical processes underlying such a complex activity of the brain seems to require the use of tools such those provided by advanced classical and quantum field theories and statistical mechanics.
The workshop in Turin is aimed to focus on the possible emergence from apparently distinct bodies of knowledge in physics, biology, linguistic and neuroscience of an unitary view of phenomena which due to their complexity fail to be classified in just one of such disciplines or research sectors.