The Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) works according to the following guidelines:

Quantum philosophy:

Free will and conservation of personal identity are first in the logical order and prerequisites of science. Quantum experiments support the views that:

• Physical effects come from outside space-time (quantum nonlocality), correlated events may happen without continuous connection within space-time. The visible world is governed by invisible, non-material principles.
• Space-time is discrete. This implies that there is no material connection between my neurons today and my neurons yesterday: The conservation of my personal identity cannot be guaranteed by any material substratum. The discreteness of space-time implies also that the number of experiments (choices) human beings can do is finite. Each possible experiment has an assigned outcome. By freely choosing the experiment I do not split the world and myself into many-worlds, but I select the world where I live among many possible worlds (quantum contextuality).

These views contribute to improve the “classical proofs of the existence of God” and to clarify issues like “soul-brain relationship” and the “compatibility of human free will and divine omniscience”.

Studies in Quantum philosophy

Anthropology:

Knowledge and the will to guarantee personal rights imply each other, explaining “what is” requires claims about “what ought to be”. This epistemological “unity of knowledge and action”, and quantum philosophical principles apply in particular to:

• Bioethics, for ascertaining the status of person: Spontaneous movements and the principle of conservation of personal identity are the basis to ascertain the presence of a human person (definition of death, status of the human embryo, criteria for distinguishing between “disabled embryos” and “non-embryos”). The human body is the basic title for assigning rights: The personal rights hold for each human being independently of genome, culture, health, religion.
• Evolution, for explaining the origin of personal humanity: The fact that humanity is sharply separated from other forms of life is tightly united to the sense of moral and legal responsibility.

Studies in Anthropology

 Economics:

Economic development is based on the principles of wealth creation and sustainability.

The world is not a closed system but it is steered by an infinite intelligence (“invisible hand”) from outside space-time. Human intelligence participates to this intelligence. Thus, although humans are essentially limited beings they can in principle through their creativity increase wealth beyond any limit. Economics should not mainly aim to distributing a cake that cannot grow, but rather empowering people to create an always larger cake.

It is possible to overcome the classical individual-society dualism by bridging the economic and political assumptions of liberalism with the catholic social teaching. Every human being is a person and has the rights of the human person; the fundamental rights cannot be established by belonging to a subgroup of humankind, be it by race, genome, developmental stage, culture, religion, or political class; neither can one reduce the rights of humankind to the rights of the present-day generation. The “own interest” and “the universal good of humanity” appear intrinsically united through the person sharing a body of the human species. Respecting this unity is the basis for sustainable development.

Studies in Economics