> To make sense out of these paragraphs, we do indeed need to know the
> distinctions the author has created between the concepts described by
> Lamarck, (de Chardin?), Bergson and Darwin.
>
> Could you give your interpretation?
I will start by using his classification of darwinian, bergsonian,
teilhardian and lamarckian processes of evolution, not in the least
to make it clear to myself. Let me repeat that I refer to John
wilkins' thesis at http://www.wehi.edu.au/~wilkins/MA/index.html :
and that I interpreted what he says.
For those not interested, this reply is long, so delete it! For those
who are, it is not too easy to follow I am afraid.....
He [John wilkins] uses a few dimensions for evolutionary theories or
epistemic entities as he calls them as well. First if they are 'neccesarily
directed',
meaning [my interpretation: ] that the process is absolutely
predetermined going to a fixed point [entelechy according to him]. He
states that darwinian is not directed, and the other three are. Of
those three teilhardian is externally driven [by the plan of god, M I
], and internally in the case of lamarckian and
bergsonian theories. He goes on to state that what distinguished an
l-process [lamarckian] from an b-process [bergsonian] is that b is
not intentionally, and l is. Bergsonian's elan vital is not something
that the entity in question wants, but under the 'neo-lamarckian
view' the 'need' is taken to be intentional. Neo-lamarckism denotes to the
observation by the author that lamarck might not have meant this, but
those who say that cultural transmission is lamarckian often refer to
intentional.
In an l-process the direction of change is determined by the striving
or intentionality of the entity, and is taken to be voluntaristic,
and involves agency.
A b-process proceeds through the working of the internal nature of
the entities lineage. The process is deterministic, and acts upon
passive entities, but does not exclude voluntarism. A t-process is
deterministic, and involuntaristic [for the entity, not for the God,
MI].
A d-process is undirected in the sense that there is no goal, aim or
purpose that is causally efficacious in creating a given state or
adaption.
These considerations are laid out in a figure at
http://www.wehi.edu.au/~wilkins/MA/fig2.gif
with three axis. One is the selection axis which goes from directed
to undirected, with t and b as directed, d and l as undirected
[directed selection niot to be confused with directionality of the
outcomes of the process, that was discussed above]. The
second axis is variation, going from blind to hopeful, with t,b and l
as hopeful, and d as blind. The third axis is directed [ as discussed
above] going from
externally, via not, to internally, with t as externally, d as not and
l and b as internally.
He goes on to say that a theory might be called darwinian if there is
some level of 'hopeful' variation [this term is very unhallily
chosen, I think], where feedbackloops created by
ealier selection create constraints on the range of variations. The
total uncoupling of variation and selection, as argued by
weissmannian's central dogma that variation is totally blind, is thus
not neccesary: if the environment cannot caussally direct heredity,
then the variation of heritable features is totally randon [I would
say blind] with respect to natural selection.
Then he goes on to state, and I will quote, since it is almost
entirely relevant to teleologic, teleomatic, and teleonomic:
2.5.1 Quite generally in biology, teleology appears to have been decisively
rejected, despite the
resurgence of so-called "systems" theory in popular environmentalism. Mayr makes
the point that
goal-directed thinking in biology is rarely teleological in the sense of
Teilhardian Omega Points or
inevitable progress, but rather is functionalist. O'Grady and Brooks (1986),
following Mayr's initial
(1982) discussion, distinguish between three types of "end-attaining" activity:
teleomatic
("end-resulting", referred to in Figure 3. Darwinist and idealist views of
teleology as "lawlike"),
teleonomic ("end-directed") and teleological ("goal-seeking"). Generally,
philosophers, under
Aristotle's influence, assume the teleological approach.[23] They nest the three
kinds into each other
(Figure 3. Darwinist and idealist views of teleology right side). The idealist
(Kantian) conception
of purpose according to Mayr's characterisation is exactly the inverse of the
Darwinian, and as a
result, evolutionary change since Lamarck has often been seen as necessarily
directed to an end,
since there is an over-riding purpose to all facets of nature. Thus, purpose is
the more general set,
including the other two in reverse order. Still, the only process that is
undeniably teleological, in the
sense of being actively goal seeking, is the cognitive process of higher
animals. Other processes may
be apparently or arguably goal seeking, but as with many neo-Kantian doctrines,
this one often puts
the cart before the horse. Darwin overturned that cart, and denied that because
we need to see
purpose in processes, that purpose was required to explain those processes.
Under a darwinian
model, according to Mayr, purposive behaviour is a special case of general
functional processes
(Figure 3. Darwinist and idealist views of teleology left side). This satisfies
my own biases and
intuitions.
I will replicate the figure 3:
left side:
Darwinian:
teleomatic includes
teleonimic inludes
teleologic
right side idealist conception:
teleological includes
teleonomic includes
teleomatic
He equals teleomatic with 'lawlike processes', teleonomic with
'functional processes', and teleologic with cognitive processes'.
In my view the original concept from Aristotle was just directed in
'a' direction, but that aside. It is clear that in todays biology
teleologic means cognitive by rationality.
And here he gives some more information as what he takes to be
teleomatic:
2.5.2 The significance of this for a general theory of evolution is that it
resolves many of the
confusions that arise when biologists discuss functional systems - where it is
more than merely
convenient to refer to the processes of a system as goal seeking. By being able
to refer to the
state-maintaining processes as teleomatic, and where necessary as teleonomic,
without implications
of agency or purpose, allows us to make clear distinctions between different
kinds functional systems
without anthropomorphic confusion such as trailed the publication of Dawkins'
1977.
To understand the difference Wilkins makes between darwinian
processes and lamarckian processes i must add some distinctions he
makes in chapter 5. Being the distinctions between the involvement of
rational agents, intentionality, and the like [he makes no strong
line in this chapter for what are the differences, and that is a
shame. He states:
' If we were able to explain structure and change in epistemic traditions
without
recourse to intentional states, to adopt a parsimonious darwinian rather than a
lamarckian,
bergsonian or teilhardian epistemology, we could effect a major change in
explanations of the growth
of knowledge.'
His points why scientific epistemic evolution is darwinian, and not
lamarckian are:
A
Rational revision of beliefs is intentional as the paradigm case of
what can be called intentional.
But if more agents jointly revisied their beliefs, where their
criteria vary for whatever reason, and they must negociate the
outcome, non of them has reached his intentional goal, so the outcome
was not intended by both. So the process of the members is intentional, the
outcome
is not. This means that if you see the group that negociates as an
entity, it is not intentional, also because there may be conventions
in the negociation process that effect the outcome, but are not
realized, or intentional in any way. If a negociated outcome is a
result of more negociation processes [iterated], the outcome becomes more and
more unintentional meant in the way above. His conclusion is that the
selection process need not be typical intentional, even if the
intentions account for the involvement of the players.
B
He states that the difference between natural selection and
artificial selection is arbitrary and contentious in its outcomes. It
is beyond doubt that the processes differ [one involves purposeful
rational agents], but not that the outcomes
do. So Wilkins states that artificial slection is a special case of
natural selection, in that an intentional act of selection, aims for
further succes, but may miss it, and differs only in degree from
totally blind variation in 'natural' selection. So if rational
selection is a different kind than natural, it has not to do with its
intentional nature.
So Wilkins states that intentional selection is a
quite darwinian process. i think he means to say that the
preselection of variations are not totally coupled to aims, because
a) we cannot oversee everything that has a possible influence on the road from
actions to goals, and b) that we cannot foresee the future changes that
might make a useful anticipated strategy unuseful at the time it is
followed.
C
In a scientific community there are more than only rational criteria
for theory selection [including considerations of getting money,
struggle between research groups, etc], the process through which
variations arise, by rational/intentional process or not, is
effectively blind with respect to the selection process.This doesn't
mean that selection is always unintentional, but often it is. It will
not be of everyone agrees on all conventions for selecting theories,
as in mathematic oriented sciences.
D
Cultural transmission from one person to the other is not
intentional, versus the claims by L people, that it is. The sender
may select intentionally what he transmits to the receiver,
anticipating in what the receiver might do with it. But the receiver
can interpreted the message differently because its aims are
different [making it an aptation] , or the words are coupled to a different
semantics. And the
reciever may choose what knowledge ut uses from more senders.So the
tranmitting entity may be intentionally sending, but the sending
process as a whole cannot be seen as intentional.
E
Lamarckian scholars see that variations are 'pre-selected' in
culture, giving it some clairvoyant property. But the A and b points
I raised above counter this thought to a large extend towrds the
outcome of such a process.
Wilkins summarizes as follows:
5.5.2 This difficulty with precognition amounts to a level-confusion, and its
teleological nature gives a
clue to what is being confused. We can agree that individual cognitive activity
is goal-seeking
(teleological), but that its success lies in social and non-social selective
influences. The commensual
structures and processes of science and other epistemic traditions are, by
contrast, goal-attaining
(teleonomic) in much the same way that the individual behaviour of members of a
species may be
goal-seeking, but the characteristic makeup of the species changes (that is,
arrives at end-states)
according to undirected (teleomatic) processes of natural selection. Thus, on
classical Darwinian
analyses, the teleological behaviour of individuals is the result of the
teleonomic processes of
evolution, which in turn is the result of the teleomatic processes of the
physico-chemical substrate.
Just as pre-Darwinian evolutionists and post-romantic philosophers found it only
natural to infer from
the goal-seeking behaviour of animals to the underlying goal-directedness of
nature, so the bulk of
epistemologists infer from the rational goal-seeking behaviour of individuals an
d highly structured
demes and schools the necessity for universal goal-seeking processes in science
and other epistemic
traditions.
My conclusion is that Wilkins indeed raises a very non-intuitive
point about epistemic evolution, and social evolution: that out view
of humans as rationally able entities blinds us for the fact that
higher-level social processes cannot be called rational or
intentional per see, but can also be described by a darwinian view.. The way he
raises it is however not very clear in my view. That is a pitty, for
I have the feeling he has a very well thought out point.
I hope that those that managed to read until here will have
understood what the teleo-concepts mean in this context.
If it didn't help you to understand it, it certainly helped me:-)
Hans-Cees
Theories come and go, the frog stays [F. Jacob]
-------------------------------------------------------
|Hans-Cees Speel School of Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and management
|Technical University Delft, Jaffalaan 5 2600 GA Delft PO Box 5015 The
Netherlands
|telephone +3115785776 telefax +3115783422 E-mail hanss@sepa.tudelft.nl
HTTP://www.sepa.tudelft.nl/~afd_ba/hanss.html featuring evolution and memetics!
Theories come and go, the frog stays [F. Jacob]
-------------------------------------------------------
|Hans-Cees Speel School of Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and management
|Technical University Delft, Jaffalaan 5 2600 GA Delft PO Box 5015 The
Netherlands
|telephone +3115785776 telefax +3115783422 E-mail hanss@sepa.tudelft.nl
HTTP://www.sepa.tudelft.nl/~afd_ba/hanss.html featuring evolution and memetics!
