Teleology and Function

Conventional artificial agents optimize externally assigned objectives, leaving unclear whether architectures can support control processes grounded in their own continued viability. This article presents Affective Control under Uncertainty (ACU) as a testable framework that operationalizes this distinction. Level 1 consists of an Affective Viability Controller (AVC) that computes an intrinsically valenced viability signal and globally modulates policy selection via precision scaling. Level 2 consists of transient self-model recruitment when policy entropy, viability-outcome variance, and temporal urgency jointly exceed threshold, formalized as (...) affective Self-Model Recruitment Intensity (aSMRI). A six-module architecture, control loop, and contrast experiments are specified. The framework offers candidate architectural conditions for viability-grounded control in artificial systems while remaining neutral on phenomenality. (shrink)

The Architecture of Resonant Coherence (ARC) proposes that self-organizing living systems are constituted by the dynamic coupling of three irreducible informational domains: the Energetic (bioelectric and physiological regulation), the Semantic (symbolic, narrative, and archetypal meaning-making), and the Participatory (relational, social, and collective synchronization). Together, these domains form the framework's operational shorthand, ESP. -/- Their convergence is formalized through the Integrum, an emergent order parameter that quantifies the degree of cross-domain alignment. Analogous to magnetization in phase transitions and global neural synchrony (...) in consciousness research, the Integrum is grounded in Riemannian information geometry and domain-coupling differential equations. It is operationalized as the Integrum Coherence Index, I(t) = (x_E · x_S · x_P)^(1/3), a directly estimable measure derivable from standard physiological, narrative, and relational data. -/- The ARC is anchored in three Tier 1 empirical mechanisms: bioelectric morphogenesis (Levin, 2020, 2022), predictive processing and free energy minimization (Friston, 2010), and interpersonal physiological synchrony (McCraty et al., 2018). Cross-domain alignment is operationalized through validated measurement classes for each domain: heart rate variability coherence (Energetic), Autobiographical Reasoning Scale scoring and narrative integration analysis (Semantic), and inter-subject physiological synchrony (Participatory). A distinguishing feature of the ARC is its generation of cross-domain perturbation predictions that are empirically separable from single-domain accounts. Energetic interventions such as HRV biofeedback are predicted to produce measurable increases in narrative integration and relational synchrony; semantic disruption via meaning-violation paradigms is predicted to cascade into autonomic dysregulation and social withdrawal. -/- These predictions are formalized within a pre-registered, 8-year, 12-study empirical validation program with explicit falsification criteria for each hypothesis. The ARC further provides a principled epistemic stratification of evidence levels, a comparative analysis positioning it relative to IIT, GWT, AST, and predictive processing frameworks, and a transdiagnostic architecture that reconceives psychopathology as coherence-signature disruption and psychological healing as the progressive re-alignment of ESP domains across cellular, organismal, group, and cultural scales. (shrink)

An agential and organismic view of development has brought back certain concepts in biology, such as teleology and normativity. What are the goals and norms that a developmental system pursues? Where do phenotypes in ontogenesis come from? The common answer is that genes contain the recipe to build organisms. However, the agential and organismic view of development seeks to offer a different answer beyond any reductionist explanations. For this reason, teleological development has become a central explanans in developmental and evolutionary (...) biology. However, the motivation for this article is that teleological development as an explanandum has not been treated with the same intensity and rigor despite its ubiquity as an explanans. In particular, a common and now widely adopted strategy for explaining teleological development is to appeal to a closely related, yet fundamentally distinct, conception of teleology: the theory of autonomous systems, a theory designed to deal with physiological-level processes, not developmental ones. This article explores the (generally unanalyzed) differences between teleological development and teleological physiology by arguing that autonomous systems theory falls short of explaining the specificity of teleological development. The main conclusion is that the agential and organismic views in biology ought to be broadened to include different goals beyond self-maintenance; that to be alive is not only about the maintenance of an organization. The distinctiveness of teleological development entails specific philosophical puzzles—what I call Bernard and Baer’s desiderata—that are neither present in nor solved by autonomous systems theory. (shrink)

Современная синтетическая теория эволюции (СТЭ) достигла значительных успехов в объяснении микроэволюционных процессов, однако накопленные данные молекулярной биологии, геномики, нейронаук и космологии позволяют уточнить границы применимости её объяснительных принципов. В работе на основе Оптимизированной Матрицы Фундаментальных Барьеров (ОМФБ), предложенной в монографии Ю. А. Березы (2026), анализируются структурные ограничения СТЭ, связанные с семиозисом, ирредуцируемой сложностью, телеологической причинностью, сознанием и космологической тонкой настройкой. Рассматриваются перспективные направления пересмотра теории: расширение онтологических оснований (информационный подход, семиотическая онтология, включение телеологии), пересмотр механизмов изменчивости, интеграция с физикой и (...) космологией, когнитивно-лингвистический поворот. Выявляются концептуальные и институциональные препятствия, затрудняющие такой пересмотр: онтологический материализм, эпистемологический редукционизм, методологический натурализм, исторически устаревшие концепции, социально-институциональные барьеры. Обосновывается необходимость перехода к расширенной исследовательской программе, сохраняющей эмпирическую строгость, но включающей информацию, семиозис и целеполагание в число объяснительных принципов. Авторская позиция в отношении гипотезы Разумного Замысла изложена в разделе 5.2. -/- . (shrink)

This paper examines the motivational architecture underlying prosocial action, distinguishing between two broad categories of moral actors: those driven primarily by affective emotional responses to moral intuitions (Category B), and those driven by the coherence of internalized mental models (Category A). Against the intuition that emotionally uninvested moral actors exert greater effort or possess superior moral awareness, I argue that mental model coherence functions as a motivationally equivalent alternative to emotional linkage. Furthermore, while Category A actors possess structurally more complex (...) motivational systems, this complexity collapses functionally into a singular motivational block during action, rendering it phenomenologically equivalent to emotion-based motivation. I also challenge the claim that meta-awareness of one's motivational sources confers moral praiseworthiness, arguing instead that sustained meta-analysis is itself antithetical to the motivational state it purports to evaluate. The paper concludes that neither category is meaningfully more effortful, aware, or praiseworthy than the other. The strongest remaining case for Category A superiority, that they create mental models, is also dismissed, as moral output in such cases is typically a byproduct of coherence-seeking or threat-avoidance rather than moral intent, making them more admirable as systematizers than as moral agents. (shrink)

Organisms represent a persistent challenge for science and philosophy. Reductionist approaches increasingly appear insufficient, while organicist accounts describe the essential features of living beings without explaining their possibility. Immanuel Kant showed that organisms must be conceived as teleologically structured and self-forming wholes in order to be recognized at all. Yet his critical philosophy also reveals the limits of such recognition: while the understanding cannot perceive organicity as an objective feature of nature, reflective judgment can attribute purposiveness only in a merely (...) regulative way. In this paper, I examine in detail the epistemological conditions for recognizing a developing organism and argue that the cognition of organic structure, development, purposiveness, and agency requires the coordinated operation of sensory apprehension, imaginative reproduction, conceptual recognition, and spontaneous apperception. Each of these faculties entails a distinct relation between subject and object. I show that in the cognition of development, purposiveness, and agency, the Kantian separation between understanding and reason becomes strained, for the subject–object division presupposed in the application of the categories progressively diminishes. I propose that this tension indicates a limit of Kant’s framework and motivates a systematic extension of it: the “causality of the concept,” which for Kant remains merely regulative, becomes a constitutive condition for the possibility of experiencing an organism as a self-organizing and agential whole. Such an expanded epistemological analysis suggests corresponding ontological implications and enables a deeper understanding of the reality of living beings. (shrink)

Levin and Resnik demonstrate, with considerable empirical force, that biological systems across scales behave as goal-directed agents. Regenerating tissues restore anatomy. Cell collectives pursue morphogenetic end-states. Bioelectric perturbations rewrite target outcomes. These findings are not rhetorical; they are experimentally tractable and interventionally meaningful. Identology begins one step earlier. Before we ask whether a system is goal-directed, intelligent, or agential, we must ask what it means for a system to persist as the same system at all. Not everything that endures qualifies. (...) A rock persists passively. A cell persists actively. The difference is not semantic; it is architectural. Systems capable of autoteria maintain themselves within viable regions. Systems with orthesis bias trajectories away from constraint violation before collapse occurs. Recursive systems modify the machinery of their own maintenance. On this view, goal-directedness is not a primitive property added on top of physics. It is the externally legible expression of deep persistence architecture. Levin and Resnik's work maps the behavioral and experimental surface of these architectures. Identology provides the ontological substrate that explains why such descriptions apply in the first place. (shrink)

Persistent systems exhibit a familiar pattern: declared purposes erode, ends are replaced by proxies, and action becomes increasingly governed by short-horizon viability dynamics. Prior work models this erosion as a consequence of lossy mediation: ends must be carried by representations, representations are repeatedly summarized and converted into legible artifacts, and ground-relevant distinctions attenuate by default under transmission and pressure [2, 6]. A dual constraint follows. Alignment over time is achievable only through continuous maintenance: recoupling processes that inject nonredundant information about (...) the relevant ground state into the representational pipeline at interfaces where loss matters. Because maintenance is a control act, not a declaration, it presupposes organization; because organization is imposed and shaped by viability, stable global ends are downstream of survival. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore whether a living being can have a medical disorder purely in virtue of its current structure, or whether its historical origins are also relevant. We do so by presenting two dialogues based on the Swampman thought experiment. These dialogues bring out two key points. First, although evolutionary history plays a central role in theoretical accounts of disorder, its relevance is less obvious in everyday medical practice. Second, there may be an asymmetry between somatic and mental (...) disorders: somatic disorders are typically identified by biological dysfunction, while many paradigmatic mental disorders appear to involve violations of rationality. Nevertheless, we suggest that dysfunctions—and thereby historical considerations—still play a role in distinguishing normal from pathological irrationality. Rather than introducing a new theory, this paper tests existing accounts of function and disorder by applying them to an extreme but instructive case. (shrink)

Phenomena such as hatred, fanaticism, obsession, nihilism, and systemic collapse are commonly treated as moral failures, psychological pathologies, or brute sociological facts. This paper proposes a unifying structural account of these phenomena based on two minimal primitives required for meaningful systems: valuation (the assignment of importance to states, empirically visible as work expended against entropy) and contingency (the availability of nontrivial alternative possibilities). We introduce a two-dimensional phase space of meaning spanned by valuation and contingency and show that distinct modes (...) of flourishing, drift, stagnation, and pathology occupy well-defined regions of this space. The central result is a structural definition of hate as maximal valuation with collapsed contingency: a high-energy state in which care is intense but the possibility space is rigidly constrained, so only eliminative futures remain admissible. On this account, the opposite of love is not hate but apathy (near-zero valuation), while hate represents a pathological freezing of valuation rather than its absence. We further show that such rigidity is energetically costly and dynamically brittle in a contingent world, explaining the exhaustion, instability, and self-destructive tendencies associated with pathological systems across biological, psychological, and social scales. The account is diagnostic and scale-invariant, offering structural insight rather than moral prescription, therapeutic guidance, or metaphysical commitment. (shrink)

Biological systems persist, reproduce, and diversify while paying sustained energetic costs that favor equilibration. This paper argues that any coherent explanation of persistence under cost must presuppose two structural primitives: valuation, an internal discriminator that ranks non-equilibrium states above equilibrium and is empirically manifest as paid work against entropy; and contingency, a genuine possibility space in which alternatives to persistence are available. We identify sacrifice as the operational signature of valuation across biological scales and show how diversity functions as a (...) biosphere-level stabilization strategy. The result clarifies, rather than replaces, evolutionary explanation. (shrink)

This essay argues that the human form is not final: : natural selection continues within a second-order natural environment, technogenic in nature, which the spe-cies itself fabricates. Understanding “form” as an integrated configuration (body, cognitive and relational dispositions, technical-symbolic couplings), it shows how the displacement of risk from early mortality to effective reproductive fitness re-parameterises evolution. In the technogenic niche, informational mediation of encounter (metric proximity, catalogue–algorithmic hierarchisation–filter) favours assortativity and quantile pairing; functional externalisation redistributes cognitive costs; and mental health (...) operates as a selective channel, from extreme cut to chronic friction that delays parenthood. A verification programme is proposed with comparable indicators (childlessness, age at first child, assortativity coefficients, prevalences of sexual inactivity), defending that data operate as philosophical oper-ators that make capillary selection measurable. The conclusion is that, by reconfig-uring the environment, we reconfigure the pressures that shape us: the evolutionary future of the human is the multigenerational resultant of the ecologies we construct. (shrink)

Without any doubt, the second law of thermodynamics in its strict Clausius formulation ΔS  0 applies only to isolated systems. In the eyes of many researchers, this leads to the conclusion – albeit overhasty – that evolution and irreversibility are globally compatible. This article points out that (i) irreversibility is not limited to entropy variations in the sense of even information-theoretically extended thermodynamics, and that (ii) from a naturalistic perspective, the interaction between non-isolated systems precisely poses problems calling into (...) question the compatibility of evolution and irreversibility. The argumentation of this article follows two axes. On the one hand, to at least approximate their completeness, irreversibility balances must (i) take into account not only entropy and – since L. Brillouin – information variations, but also the intrinsic i.e. at least temporally non-varying internal complexity of all factors required for the interaction under consideration, and (ii) include the emergence of all necessary factors abusively taken as “given”. In light of such an authentically generalized irreversibility, all “traditional” irreversibility balances appear reductive, i.e. distorted, and evolution could hardly be an exception. On the other hand, concerning evolution, it must not be forgotten that every biotic factor playing an essential role in a cumulative selection process has, at least according to the mainstream view, itself emerged from a cumulative selection process, and so on, and so on. Even behind the most modest, purely microevolutionary selection step, i.e. a step that does not yet generate a gain in complexity, hides an unimaginably complex network of cumulative selection processes. This per se unimaginably complex network raises questions of coordination and other issues hampering the explanation of evolution by a purely naturalistic approach. These two converging axes render untenable the hypothesis of an evolution compatible with irreversibility, and especially the hypothesis of an evolution where irreversibility could be circumvented by cumulative selection alone. (shrink)

Global Map takes you to the frontier where Artificial Intelligence, planetary management, and the future of humanity converge. In this groundbreaking book, Rubén García Pedraza explores the Unified Modelling System—a powerful framework that allows us to build models upon maps, and from those maps, to make precise and effective decisions. Whether in agriculture, industry, or planetary-scale projects, this system reveals how decisions can be optimized to transform reality itself.

We propose that a 2-ancestor model may better preserve evolutionary “principles of coding” and avoid evolutionary stagnation.

This paper offers a cross-domain lens for understanding systemic breakdown through the structural principle of coherence. Rather than propose a new philosophy or ideology, it identifies a recurring pattern across physics, biology, intelligence, governance, and ethics: collapse occurs when internal alignment fails—not just functionally, but structurally. Rooted in the CODES framework but expressed without jargon or technical scaffolding, this work serves as a field guide for recognizing drift and restoring alignment. It introduces coherence not as metaphor or metaphorical state, but (...) as a measurable, recursive phenomenon that determines whether systems hold or dissolve. Each section maps this principle onto a domain—showing how stability, intelligence, law, health, and meaning can emerge from lawful emission, not control or belief. Written for paradigm-level thinkers, scientists, and systems designers, this paper is a quiet offering: not to sell a model, but to restore a pattern already present. (shrink)

How can we reconstruct what long extinct animals, such as dinosaurs, looked like, how fast they moved, and what ecological role they played in their paleoenvironment? These features are not preserved in the fossil record, so paleontologists must instead turn to scientifically informed models and analogies to try to answer these questions. In her celebrated book Models and Analogies in Science, Mary Hesse illustrates the concept of material analogy using the examples of homologies and analogies in biology. These two types (...) of analogy have given rise to two different research programs in the project of reconstructing extinct life: the Phylogenetic Approach and the Functional Morphology Approach. In this chapter I show how each of these approaches has its own strengths and weaknesses, and argue instead for an Integrated Approach that makes use of both of Hesse’s types of analogy. I conclude by highlighting the importance of paying attention to model uncertainty, adequacy-for-purpose, and the whole organism in a paleoreconstruction. (shrink)

Epistemology characteristically operates at an intellectual level, being primarily restricted to the cognitive states of human individuals and the factors that influence these states. This restriction may be undesirable for a more generalized epistemology that discusses non-individual or non-human systems that may be said to be intelligent, such as communities, animals, and complex systems whose parts may not be independently intelligent. Here, I show how such a generalized epistemology may be possible under a teleological, non-intellectual, and not conventionally mechanical view (...) of knowledge. I establish a teleological schema of knowledge-how, where a system is understood to know how to X if it is capable of being goal-directed towards X. This schema is analogous to how philosophers of biology are increasingly describing organismal agency. After developing this view, I show how it handles many controversial cases of know-how in the literature. I then show how knowledge-that may be constructed out of this teleological know-how, showing that all knowledge may be understood teleologically, without the need to reference to individual human cognitive states. Thereby, I show a generalized approach to epistemology through teleology that can extend naturally to topics in social epistemology and non-human intelligence. (shrink)

This essay reconceives happiness, health, and environmental stewardship as interlocking resonance states emergent from phase-locked coherence within and between human systems. Departing from legacy models that define joy as fleeting emotion or economic indulgence, we employ the CODES (Chirality of Dynamic Emergent Systems) framework to position happiness as a real-time signal of recursive alignment between internal oscillations and external field conditions. Under this lens, health is not the absence of disease, but the active maintenance of multi-scale coherence—from breath and metabolism (...) to emotion and social rhythm. Similarly, sustainability is not framed as moral restraint, but as the system’s natural tendency toward resonance optimization when undistorted by artificial input cycles. We simulate this dynamic using Boulder, Colorado as a local testbed—mapping the waste-per-capita (w_n), coherence behaviors (c_n), and lifestyle resonance gaps (delta_PAS). Results suggest that phase-misaligned living—characterized by overconsumption, undersleep, and informational noise—is not pleasurable, but energetically compensatory. By introducing a structured optimization protocol tuned to PAS_n (Phase Alignment Score), this paper outlines a new template for maximizing individual joy, community vitality, and planetary feedback loop restoration—all without asceticism or denial. Resonance is not a luxury of the privileged. It is the signature of systems that remember how to breathe. (shrink)

Das letzte halbe Jahrhundert hat einen unvergleichlichen Siegeszug der Molekularbiologie erlebt, zu dem die Genomik, die molekulare Zell- und Entwicklungsbiologie, die Epigenetik sowie Erkenntnisse der Stammzellbiologie als tragende Säulen beigetragen und die Biowissenschaften insgesamt in die sogenannte postgenomische Ära geführt haben. Anstelle eines verengten Blicks in den Kern der Zelle und seiner DNA hat sich das Visier von Biologen auf eine sich dynamisch verändernde Zellumgebung hin geöffnet. Wechselwirkungen zwischen molekularen, zellulären, organismischen bis hin zu ökologischen Hierarchieebenen, stets aufwärts und abwärts (...) interagierend (bottom-up und top-down), bestimmen das Bild post-genomischer Naturbetrachtung. Dieses erweiterte Gesichtsfeld führte einerseits weg von einem strikten Gen-gesteuerten Determinismus hin zu Systemdenken und zur Systembiologie. Zum anderen rückten auf diesem Weg wieder Lücken in der klassischen neodarwinistischen Lehre in den Fokus, die nach einer erweiterten Synthese der Standardlehre der Evolution rufen. So hat das neue Forschungsfeld Evo-Devo (Akronym für Evolutionary Developmental Biology) erstmals molekulare Mechanismen für die sprunghafte Entstehung von Merkmalen aufgezeigt, die die Grundlage für die Entstehung neuer Baupläne (Makroevolution) bildeten. (shrink)

Reaching back more than a century, suspension cultures have provided major insights into processes of histogenesis; e.g., cell communication, distinction of self/nonself, cell sorting and cell adhesion. Besides studies on lower animals, the vertebrate retina served as excellent reaggregate model to analyze 3D reconstruction of a complex neural laminar tissue. Methodologically, keeping cells under suspension is essential to achieve tissue organisation in vitro; thereby, the environmental conditions direct the emergent histotypic particulars. Recent progress in regenerative medicine is based to a (...) large extent on human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), which are cultured under suspension. Following their genetically directed differentiation into various histologic 3D structures, organoids provide excellent multipurpose in vitro assay models, as well as tissues for repair transplantations. Historically, a nearly fully laminated retinal spheroid from avian embryos was achieved already in 1984, foreshadowing the potential of culturing stem cells under suspension for tissue reconstruction purposes. (shrink)

The post-genomic era raises questions about neo-Darwinian genetic determinism. Instead, open aspects of macroevolution become intelligible by Evo-Devo research. At all developmental levels, self-organization acts robustly towards “wholeness”, as exemplified by organoid technologies. In retinal reaggregates histotypical features are reached along different formative routes. Thus, tissue formation is not merely gene-directed, but channeled by unpredictable external conditions. These insights restrict conceptions of onto- and phylogenesis. Neither is characterized by unlimited randomness nor by finite genocentrism. A re-examination of Driesch´s drive to (...) wholeness, i.e., robustness and intentionality, appears timely, while his teleologic ­ postulates remain undecidable by reductionist reasoning. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considers what it takes to achieve happiness or eudaimonia. And when Aristotle talks about eudaimonia, he has a broader concept in mind than just a particular emotional state. He wants to know, not what makes us psychologically happy, but what makes us flourish. In Book I, he argues that flourishing is not found in pleasure, fame, or wealth, but rather in living in accordance with virtue, setting the stage for a deeper discussion of virtue in (...) the rest of the Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide naturalized explanations for the goal-directedness of ecosystem development and its underlying causes within the framework of thermodynamics. While ecologists often use thermodynamic orientors to describe the directional trends of ecosystem development, they typically reject teleological interpretations, constrained by a narrow understanding of “goals” as intentional or mystical. We argue that ecosystems developing toward thermodynamic orientors through self-organization align with the naturalized definition of goal-directedness in system-property theory, demonstrating that such development can be considered goal-directed. Critically (...) analyzing ecologists’ application of Mayr’s distinction between teleomatic and teleonomic processes, we argue that ecosystem development should be considered goal-directed rather than merely end-directed and that the Mayrian path inadequately explains this goal-directedness. To address this, we integrate ecological research with behavioristic and mechanistic approaches (including teleodynamics and relational agency) to identify patterns of plasticity and persistence in ecosystem development and to explain how this goal-directedness emerges from thermodynamic interactions. Additionally, we assess field theory as a complementary externalist teleological framework. Through a comparative analysis of these approaches, we advocate for a pluralistic explanatory framework for the goal-directedness of thermodynamic ecosystem development. By demonstrating that ecosystem development within the framework of thermodynamics should be considered goal-directed and explaining its causes, this paper provides an epistemological foundation for legitimizing teleology in ecological research and extends the discourse on ecological teleology beyond functional explanations to address questions of goal-directedness. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a non-mechanistic interpretation of Kant's philosophy of nature. My interpretation contradicts the robust tradition of reading Kant as a mechanist about nature – or as someone who endorses the view that we can know the internally purposive causality characteristic of organisms has no place in nature. By attending closely to Kant's remarks about the possibility of internal purposiveness in nature and to key premises from Kant's arguments in the Antinomy of Teleological Judgment, we shall see (...) that it is not only plausible, but preferable, to believe that internally purposive things (i.e., organisms) exist in nature. Making room for such a belief leaves Kant with a philosophy of nature that simultaneously aligns with and surpasses the philosophies of nature offered up by his Early Modern predecessors. (shrink)

The study of teleology is challenging in many ways, but there is a particular challenge that makes matters worse, distorting the conceptual space that has set the terms of debate. And that is the tendency to think about teleology in terms of certain long-established dichotomies. In this paper, we examine four such dichotomies prevalent in the literature on teleology, the notions that: 1) Teleological explanations are opposed to mechanistic explanations; 2) teleology must arise from processes operating either internal to an (...) organism or external to it; 3) systems are either alive and teleological, or nonliving and not teleological; 4) humans are teleological, on account of our ability to intend, seek, prefer, etc., while other systems without these capacities are not. Here, we use our own view of goal directedness, field theory, to show for each dichotomy that there is an alternative, a view of teleology that either violates these dichotomies or demands revision of them. What this reveals is not only the dangers of dichotomous thinking, but a widespread lack of clarity about what teleology is. (shrink)

It doesn’t have (just) one, and this matters for how we ought to pursue a theory of meaning and communication.

The functions of technical artifacts are closely associated with design. Increasingly, however, we depend on technologies that are not designed: algorithms produced using machine learning (ML). Machine learning uses automated optimization processes to produce algorithms that are often opaque even to developers. I argue that these opaque ML models cannot be ascribed functions on the leading design-based account, the ICE theory of Houkes and Vermaas (Technical functions: On the use and design of artefacts, Springer, 2010). Specifically, I argue that the (...) form of rational justification that the ICE theory provides for the uses of artifacts in typical cases cannot be provided for opaque algorithms, since developers lack the necessary “support beliefs” about how the algorithm works. This does not mean that opaque ML models have no proper functions at all; rather, it lends support to non-intentional theories of technical functions, modeled after function theories in the sciences. However, these theories are meant to perform different work than the ICE theory. As a result, the kind of justification they provide for artifact use is weaker than that provided by the ICE theory and fails to justify many ongoing uses of algorithms. The paper therefore has two upshots. First, opaque ML models lack intentional technical functions. Second, while they may have functions on alternative theories, in many cases these functional ascriptions still leave the use of algorithms unjustified. Rather than extensions of our agency, opaque algorithms are a kind of found object with unknown properties that may or may not be suited to the purposes to which we put them. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of field theory and the notion of agency that the theory entails. Field theory offers an account of how goal-directed systems work by noting how goal-directed entities are guided by upper-level fields that are structured hierarchically. Following field theory, we show that while all agential entities are goal-directed, the presence of goal directedness does not necessarily entail agency. Rather, agency comes about when a goal-directed entity has the right kind of internal, hierarchical organization, and as (...) a result of that organization, the entity has some degree of control over its internal processes and gross behavior. In this view, control is independent of determinism. An entity that is completely determined, whether by external or internal processes, can nevertheless be agential. This view of agency has several unintuitive consequences. In particular, it shows that an entity can be maximally agential when it lacks all external guidance, even when it moves randomly or behaves maladaptively. Agency means doing what you want, not what you should. (shrink)

Many recent AI systems take inspiration from biological episodic memory. Here, we ask how these ‘episodic-inspired’ AI systems might inform our understanding of biological episodic memory. We discuss work showing that these systems implement some key features of episodic memory whilst differing in important respects, and appear to enjoy behavioural advantages in the domains of strategic decision-making, fast learning, navigation, exploration and acting over temporal distance. We propose that these systems could be used to evaluate competing theories of episodic memory’s (...) operations and function. However, further work is needed to validate them as models of episodic memory and isolate the contributions of their memory systems to their behaviour. More immediately, we propose that these systems have a role to play in directing episodic memory research by highlighting novel or neglected hypotheses as pursuit-worthy. In this vein, we propose that the evidence reviewed here highlights two pursuit-worthy hypotheses about episodic memory’s function: that it plays a role in planning that is independent of future-oriented simulation, and that it is adaptive in virtue of its contributions to fast learning in novel, sparse-reward environments. (shrink)

This paper argues that proper functions are proximal functions. In other words, it rejects the notion that there are distal biological functions – strictly speaking, distal functions are not functions at all, but simply beneficial effects normally associated with a trait performing its function. Once we rule out distal functions, two further positions become available: dysfunctions are simply failures of proper function, and pathological conditions are dysfunctions. Although elegant and seemingly intuitive, this simple view has had surprisingly little uptake in (...) the literature. Indeed, our position departs from that of almost every theorist who has engaged with the issue at any depth. We start by presenting three arguments for the position that proper functions are proximal: one from the specificity of functions, one from their relation to intervention, and one from their relation to pathology. We then consider two case studies evidencing the trouble that accepting distal functions causes for philosophical reflection on the nature of pathological conditions. Finally, we anticipate and respond to three objections: that there can be failure of function without dysfunction; that our account is unacceptably revisionary in respect of normal function-talk; and that our thesis over-generalises from a narrow set of cases. (shrink)

Aristotelian naturalism (AN) holds that the norms governing the human will are special instances of a broader type of normativity that is also found in other living things: natural goodness and natural defect. Both critics and defenders of AN have tended to focus on the thorny issues that are specific to human beings. But some philosophers claim that AN faces other difficulties, arguing that its broader conception of natural normativity is incompatible with current biological science. This paper has three aims. (...) First, we consider a distinctive and nuanced critique of AN’s general understanding of natural normativity put forward by Tim Lewens. Second, after giving a defense of AN, we explore and evaluate Lewens’ proposed alternative view—Kantian projectivism about life forms. We present a problem for Kantian projectivism and suggest reasons for thinking that AN is, after all, the superior position. Finally, we clarify and explain how AN’s claims about life forms and our knowledge of them, relate to empirical observation and to contemporary biological science. (shrink)

Critical notice of Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion's _Sharing Knowledge: A Functionalist Account of Assertion_.

Mechanisms, in the prominent biological sense of the term, are historical entities. That is, whether or not something is a mechanism for something depends on its history. Put differently, while your spontaneously-generated molecule-for-molecule double has a heart, and its heart pumps blood around its body, its heart does not have a mechanism for pumping, since it does not have the right history. My argument for this claim is that mechanisms have proper functions; proper functions are historical entities; so, mechanisms are (...) historical entities, too. This thesis runs against the mainstream new mechanist way of thinking about mechanisms, where mechanisms are generally thought of in an ahistorical way. After arguing for this thesis, I draw out some consequences for philosophy of science and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper focuses on physiological integration in multicellular systems, a notion often associated with biological individuality, but which has not received enough attention and needs a thorough theoretical treatment. Broadly speaking, physiological integration consists in how different components come together into a cohesive unit in which they are dependent on one another for their existence and activity. This paper argues that physiological integration can be understood by considering how the components of a biological multicellular system are controlled and coordinated in (...) such a way that their activities can contribute to the maintenance of the system. The main implication of this perspective is that different ways of controlling their parts may give rise to multicellular organizations with different degrees of integration. After defining control, this paper analyses how control is realized in two examples of multicellular systems located at different ends of the spectrum of multicellularity: biofilms and animals. It focuses on differences in control ranges, and it argues that a high degree of integration implies control exerted at both medium and long ranges, and that insofar as biofilms lack long-range control (relative to their size) they can be considered as less integrated than other multicellular systems. It then discusses the implication of this account for the debate on physiological individuality and the idea that degrees of physiological integration imply degrees of individuality. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel theory of artifact functions, drawing from persistence-based accounts of social functions, according to which the function of an artifact consists in those of its effects that contribute to the persistence of its kind. First, the paper argues that artifact functions have an underacknowledged “interventionist task”: functional ascriptions have implications for the ways that users have reason to use technologies, and how they have reason to intervene when technologies have undesired effects. Then, it argues that the (...) ways that users have reason to use technologies and intervene are informed by the present persistence conditions of artifact kinds. It is therefore useful to incorporate these persistence conditions into the artifacts’ functions. By focusing on the social and political embedding of artifacts, the theory also allows for fruitful connections between the theory of artifacts, the political philosophy of technology, and the literature on functions in the philosophy of social science. (shrink)

Synthetic biology (SynBio) covers two main areas: application engineering, exemplified by metabolic engi- neering, and the design of life from artificial building blocks. As the general public is often reluctant to embrace synthetic approaches, preferring nature to artifice, its immediate future will depend very much on the public’s reaction to the unmet needs created by the pervasive demands of sustainability. On the other hand, this reluctance should not have a negative impact on research that will now take into account the (...) existence of the multiple transitions that cells face over time. The ages of life—birth, development, maturation, senescence and death—reflect specific key transitions and have, until now, rarely been taken into account in SynBio designs. This results in a mismatch between novelty and the very long evolutionary time that led to the existing chassis [remember that this is the common term used to describe the cellular framework as seen by synthetic biologists (de Lorenzo & Danchin, 2008)]. It also implies that, in general, transitions between growth stages will be taken into account with the appro- priate embodiment of highly specific processes. This is particularly important when adapting new models to their host, whether natural or artificial. Adaptation fol- lows two stages, short-term accommodation of new entities and long-term assimilation into the cell as a whole. This requires discrimination between classes of entities. We suggest that proteins playing the essential role of Maxwell’ demons, here named Maxwell’s dis- criminators (MxDs) to refer to their original function, will permit the assimilation and accommodation of artificial constructs. As a consequence, we can foresee that class discrimination, beyond mere recognition, will be implemented in SynBio 2.0, leading to an authentic par- adigm shift (Kuhn, 1996), based on conceptions that embody information as a genuine currency of reality. (shrink)

Agency is a central concept in the organisational approach to organisms, which accounts for their internal purposiveness. Recent recognition of the active role played by organisms in evolution has led researchers to use this concept in an evolutionary approach. Agency is then considered in terms of ‘unintentional’ choice: agents choose from a given repertoire the behaviour most appropriate to their goal, with this choice influencing evolutionary pathways. This view, while allowing for the evolutionary role of the activity of organisms, presents (...) two pitfalls. First, it restricts organisms’ agency by confining their choice within the bounds of a behavioural repertoire, and assuming their goals are dictated by natural selection. Second, this view, while claiming to eliminate the idea of intentionality, retains its structure: organisms are portrayed as rational entities, persistently pursuing specific goals. This leads us back to a teleological thinking, whose use in evolutionary theory has already been heavily criticised. This paper proposes a conception of biological agency which does not assume goal-directedness but considers agency as inventiveness. An organism will be said to be an agent if it is the triggering cause of behaviours falling outside the known repertoire and whose form can only be explained by the unique relationship between the organism and the environment. If these behaviours have implications in evolution, the agent will be considered an evolutionary agent. The merit of this approach is further validated by evidencing the significant role behavioural innovations play in evolution. Finally, the last section delves into the process of invention by examining animal play. (shrink)

Terrence Deacon has constructed a tome in which he unleashes his considerable learning in quest of several answers to the question, "What are we?" He is uniquely qualified to take an approach which details the origin and development of, first, language, then the brain, and, lastly, their "co-evolution".

This paper defines and defends a notion of teleological function which is fit to figure in explanations concerning how organic systems, and the items which compose them, are able to perform certain activities, such as surviving and reproducing or pumping blood. According to this notion, a teleological function of an item (such as the heart) is a typical way in which items of that type contribute to some containing system's ability to do some activity. An account of what it is (...) for an item to contribute to a containing system's ability to perform an activity is provided. I argue that the view acquires its normative status in virtue of the fact that it obeys a function-accident distinction and obeys a function-dysfunction distinction; that the view is ahistorical; and, that its ahistoricity provides it with an advantage over one of its main competitors. (shrink)

Cancer biologists ascribe normal functions to parts of cancer. Normal functions are activities that parts of systems are in some minimal sense supposed to perform. Cancer biologists’ finding normality within the abnormality of cancer pose difficulties for two main approaches to normal function. One approach claims that normal functions are activities that parts are selected for. However, some parts of cancers that have normal functions aren’t selected to perform them. The other approach claims that normal functions are part-activities typical for (...) the system and that contribute to survival/reproduction. However, cancers are too heterogeneous to establish what’s typical across a type. (shrink)

Darwin diceva che le specie si trasformavano per poter sopravvivere: arriva un terremoto, un’inondazione e solo chi sa correre rapidamente o chi sa nuotare vive. Ok, ma cosa ci dice questa teoria sui cambiamenti che non portano a migliori possibilità di sopravvivere o di riprodursi? Ben poco. Perché nel corso dei secoli i denti molari dell’uomo si sono ridotti di dimensioni, così come le dita dei piedi? Certo non per sopravvivere e riprodursi meglio. Gli autori riportano nel corso di questa (...) rassegna vari esempi che la teoria di Darwin non riesce a spiegare e delle possibili spiegazioni alternative, asseverate da esperimenti scientifici validati e consacrati dalla comunità scientifica. Darwin aveva torto? Certamente no! Ma come tutte le opere della scienza richiede revisioni e miglioramenti. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to put forward an original theory of artifact function, which takes on board the results of the debate on the notion of biological function and also accommodates the distinctive aspects of artifacts. More precisely, the paper develops and defends the Dual-Aspect Theory, which is a monist account according to which an artifact’s function depends on intentional and reproductive aspects. It is argued that this approach meets a set of theoretical and meta-theoretical desiderata and is (...) superior to alternative views. (shrink)

There’s a general assumption that teleology and function do not exist in inanimate nature. Throughout biology, it is generally taken as granted that teleology (or teleonomy) and functions are not only unique to life, but perhaps even a defining quality of life. For many, it’s obvious that rocks, water, and the like, are not teleological, nor could they possibly have stand-alone functions. This idea - that teleology and function are unique to life - is the target of this paper. I (...) begin with an overview of McShea’s field theoretic account of teleology. I start with the field theoretic account because it presents a promising analysis of teleological systems. It is promising because, in not making any assumptions about life’s special status in teleological systems, it avoids counterexamples that have problematized other accounts. I then consider some of the prominent efforts that have been made to attempt to avoid ascribing functions or teleology to some form of inanimate nature. In my assessment, none of the efforts are successful. I conclude by offering mineral evolution as a case study to show how inanimate nature can be both teleological and functional. The evolution of mineral species reveals that teleology and function extend to inanimate nature, and that teleology and function come in degrees. (shrink)

An introduction [version eight] to a worldview called Rond, which is based on ideas from science, philosophy, and spirituality and designed to help one understand the nature of existence and cope with the human condition. With regard to philosophy: Rond is based on the concept of rondure as applied to aesthetics, ontology, metaphysics, cosmology, scientific phenomenology, philosophy of evolution, philosophy of mind, philosophy of conduct (including axiology, ethics, political philosophy, etc.), and epistemology.

Bergson offers an epistemological critique of Darwin’s theory that focuses on his gradualism: for Darwin variation is “minute”, and Bergson glosses “insensible.” His main argument is that if variations are insensible, they cannot confer an advantage to the organism and therefore be selected. Yet, for Darwin, the selected variation is not insensible: to be selected, it must be beneficial to its bearer in the struggle for existence. This article aims at understanding the origin of this misunderstanding by tracing the history (...) of this critique. To do this, we will study Bergson’s sources, showing that his interpretation of Darwin is in line with the critique of many biologists at the turn of the 20th century, albeit in a confused way. This will lead us back to the origin of this critique: the work of Mivart. In this study, we wish to reveal the anchor of the Bergsonian interpretation in the debates of his time, and the shifts from the traditional exposition of the argument that led Bergson to formulate this false paradox. This article will also analyze more precisely the counterexample of the “analogy of structure” to show that, despite Bergson’s misunderstanding, he did point to actual limits of the Darwinian theory. (shrink)

Our goal is to illustrate that Darwinian and autopoietic views of the organism are not as squarely opposed to each other as is often assumed. Indeed, we will argue that there is much common ground between them and that they can usefully supplement each other.

En este artículo sostenemos que, en aquellos casos en los cuales la capacidad _ explanandum _ de un análisis sistémico o mecanicista constituye una función biológica, globalmente, la función explica la estructura y no a la inversa, a pesar de que en algunos casos particulares, el orden en que se determinan los conceptos participantes en la explicación no coincide con el orden de la explicación. Para defender esta tesis, adoptaremos una concepción mínima de explicación basada en la idea de subsunción (...) ampliativa del estructuralismo e ilustraremos las diferencias entre el orden de la explicación y el orden de determinación de los conceptos mediante un estudio de caso tomado de la afasiología moderna. (shrink)