Teleonomy

Teleonomy is the quality of exhibiting purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about and causing natural processes like natural selection. The term derives from two Greek words, τέλος, from τελε-, ("end", "goal", "purpose") and νόμος nomos ("law"). Teleonomy is thought to derive from evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, and/or the operation of a program. Teleonomy is related to programmatic or computational aspects of purpose.

Teleonomy is the quality of exhibiting purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about and causing natural processes like natural selection. The term derives from two Greek words, τέλος, from τελε-, ("end", "goal", "purpose") and νόμος nomos ("law"). Teleonomy is thought to derive from evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, and/or the operation of a program. Teleonomy is related to programmatic or computational aspects of purpose. ==Examples in biology== Numerous examples of teleonomy exist across biology. For example, there is widespread cognitive behavior even at the cellular level among organisms such as microbes, animals, and plants. Protozoa (both morphotypes: amoebae and ciliates) use "cellular sentience" and "intelligence" to obtain sufficient nutrients, resolve stressful situations, and find suitable mating partners. These microorganisms display many cognizant behaviors such as hunting (Lacrymaria olor) and predator-escaping tactics (Stentor), along with kin recognition among pathogenic amoebae. In multicellular organisms, which have eukaryote cells, the immune and neural cells retain a protozoa-like nature with respect to their cognitive immune and neural functions. The innate immune system in animals and humans is based on numerous cell types, all of which closely resemble phagocytotic amoeba-like protozoa and they actively patrol and fight off foreign cells. Neural cells in animals resemble ciliated protozoa. In the plant kingdom, forests constantly experience stress from environmental changes and there are sophisticated networks of plant roots that interact with fungal networks. These networks have cell-to-cell communication and exhibit neuronal-like electric and chemical signals in order to communicate with each other. Sexual cells in plants and animals also appear and behave protozoa-like. ==Relationship to evolution== The concept of teleonomy was largely developed by Mayr and Pittendrigh to separate biological evolution from teleology. Pittendrigh's purpose was to enable biologists who had become overly cautious about goal-oriented language to have a way of discussing the goals and orientations of an organism's behaviors without inadvertently invoking teleology. Mayr was even more explicit, saying that while teleonomy certainly operates on the level of organisms, the process of evolution itself is necessarily non-teleonomic. This attitude towards the role of teleonomy in the evolutionary process is the consensus view of the modern synthesis. Evolution largely hoards hindsight, as variations unwittingly make "predictions" about structures and functions which could successfully cope with the future, and which participate in a process of natural selection that culls the unfit, leaving the fit to the next generation. Information accumulates about functions and structures that are successful, exploiting feedback from the environment via the selection of fitter coalitions of structures and functions. Robert Rosen has described these features as an anticipatory system which builds an internal model based on past and possible future states. In 1962, Grace A. de Laguna's "The Role of Teleonomy in Evolution" attempted to show how different stages of evolution were characterized by different types of teleonomy. de Laguna points out that humans have oriented teleonomy so that the teleonomic goal is not restricted to the reproduction of humans, but also to cultural ideals. In recent years, a few biologists believe that the separation of teleonomy from the process of evolution has gone too far. Peter Corning notes that behavior, which is a teleonomic trait, is responsible for the construction of biological niches, which is an agent of selection. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to say that there was no role for teleonomy in the process of evolution, since teleonomy dictates the fitness landscape according to which organisms are selected. Corning calls this phenomenon "teleonomic selection". Additionally, recent research has demonstrated that mutations are not random with reference to their value to the organism. Monroe and colleagues presented solid evidence that the most important genes undergo fewer mutations. If the phenomenon responsible for making the most important genes undergo fewer mutations remained an enigma, many would easily assume that there is some form of control systems (teleonomy) in the generation of mutations. Assuming this would be incorrect, as the phenomenon responsible for making genes more "protected" from mutations occurs completely automatically, without any teleonomic aspect. ==Philosophy== The Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza defined conatus as the tendency for individual things to persist in existence, meaning the pursuit of stability within the internal relations between their individual parts, in a similar way to homeostasis. Spinoza also rejected the idea of finalism and asserted nature does not pursue specific goals and acts in a deterministic although non-directed way. In teleology, Kant's positions as expressed in Critique of Judgment, were neglected for many years because in the minds of many scientists they were associated with vitalist views of evolution. Their recent rehabilitation is evident in teleonomy, which bears a number of features, such as the description of organisms, that are reminiscent of the Aristotelian conception of final causes as essentially recursive in nature. Kant's position is that, even though we cannot know whether there are final causes in nature, we are constrained by the peculiar nature of the human understanding to view organisms teleologically. Thus the Kantian view sees teleology as a necessary principle for the study of organisms, but only as a regulative principle, and with no ontological implications. Talcott Parsons, in the later part of his working with a theory of social evolution and a related theory of world-history, adopted the concept of teleonomy as the fundamental organizing principle for directional processes and his theory of societal development in general. In this way, Parsons tried to find a theoretical compromise between voluntarism as a principle of action and the idea of a certain directionality in history. ==Current status== Teleonomy is closely related to concepts of emergence, complexity theory, and self-organizing systems. It has extended beneath biology to be applied in the context of chemistry. Some philosophers of biology resist the term and still employ "teleology" when analyzing biological function and the language used to describe it, while others endorse it. The introduction to the 2023 book Evolution "On Purpose": Teleonomy in Living Systems, edited by Peter Corning, Stuart Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, Richard I. Vane-Wright and Addy Pross, concludes with the claim that "Teleonomy in living systems is not, after all, only "apparent". It is a fundamental fact of life." ==See also== Autopoiesis Baldwin effect Conatus Kant's teleology Naturalism (philosophy) Orthogenesis T-symmetry ==References== ==Further reading== Allen, C., M. Bekoff, G. Lauder, eds., Nature's Purposes: Analyses Of Function and Design in Biology. MIT Press, 1998. ( ) Mayr, Ernst, The Growth of Biological Thought. Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Cambridge (MA): Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982 : pp. 47–51 (differentiating four kinds of teleology). Mayr, Ernst, What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline, Cambridge University Press, 2004. ( ). Ruse, Michael Darwin and Design, Harvard University Press; 2004. ( ) ==External links== Merriam Webster definition Nonlinearity and Teleology Biological Information

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