In this paper, I adopt the view that the form which is embodied in matter gives it its essence and converts it into substance (Aristotle). I furthermore understand information as the transmissible state of the form. Living beings as substances can create order in their environment adapted to their needs. The environment in turn has the potential to change the form and other causes such as matter, efficiency/functionality, and goal/intention. Living beings can internalize these changes, propagate them through replication, or (...) share them as information with others. Living beings have progressively acquired through this process advanced form- and information-processing and generation abilities. This positive feedback loop with enhancement in form and information has become one of the main drivers of biological evolution. Based on these considerations, I will address the nature of form and information and the changes that they have undergone during biological evolution. (shrink)

In this article, the difference between human and animal in philosophy is mainly handled. This difference is thought over the concept of “the other” and Heidegger’s phenomenological distinction between human and animal. With respect to especially the views of Derrida and Levinas regarding to this matter, it has been attempted to exhibit this difference. Therefore, the two approaches -which were represented as the opposition of Derrida and Levinas- have been tried to clarify. After this, as a new approach to this (...) opposition, the concept of “embrace” is philosophically problematized. This examination which also can be read under the main heading of philosophy of body makes especially the dorsal and more generally the whole back surface of human body subject matter of philosophical interpretation. The concepts of dorsal and embracing which can also be considered from the angle of phenomenology of the body- are approached from evolutionary and psychologically. With this, the concept of embracing deepens the thought of being-together-with-others in a specific context. A special relation is constructed between the meaning that is giving to embracing and rubbing of the back and existing. (shrink)

In this article, it has been searched if the language and consciousness have a co-origin or not. This origin of language and consciousness problem which draws interest in areas especially like anthropology, biology and evolutionary linguistics and evolutionary psychology is tried to be handled from a philosophical point of view. By presenting the theories about the relation between language and consciousness, theories that are well-accepted but contradicted to another from certain aspects, a thinking -which tries to go beyond (...) this contradiction- about the origin of language and consciousness has been attempted. With paying regard to different approaches represented by names like Piaget, Vygotsky, Chomsky, Whorf, an investigation has been made about what the meaning of language and consciousness having a not historical but elementarily philosophical co-origin can mean. It has been aimed to present a compiling point of view with this investigation. (shrink)

In this article, some theories about evolutionary progress of human mind are examined and criticised. Through a comparative reading of these theories -which are sometimes contradictory to each other- it has been tried to present the common missing parts of these theories. The meaning of these theories for philosophy has been thought and the presupposition of linearity in these theories is criticised. The relation of the concept of emotion with the terms like cognition, apprehension, comprehension, intellect, self-awareness, consciousness -which (...) stand forward within these theories- is emphasized. Through the visual cliff experiment, it has been attempted to clarify this relation. (shrink)

A common worry about the genetic engineering of human beings is that it will reduce human genetic diversity, creating a biological monoculture that could not only increase our susceptibility to disease but also hasten the extinction of our species. Thus far, however, the evolutionary implications of human genetic modification remain largely unexplored. In this paper, I consider whether the widespread use of genetic engineering technology is likely to narrow the present range of genetic variation, and if so, whether this (...) would in fact lead to the evolutionary harms that some authors envision. By examining the nature of biological variation and its relation to population immunity and evolvability, I show that not only will genetic engineering have a negligible impact on human genetic diversity, but also that it will be more likely to ensure rather than undermine the health and longevity of the human species. (shrink)

The CRISPR-Cas systems of bacterial and archaeal adaptive immunity have become a household name among biologists and even the general public thanks to the unprecedented success of the new generation of genome editing tools utilizing Cas proteins. However, the fundamental biological features of CRISPR-Cas are of no lesser interest and have major impacts on our understanding of the evolution of antivirus defense, host-parasite coevolution, self versus non-self discrimination and mechanisms of adaptation. CRISPR-Cas systems present the best known case in point (...) for Lamarckian evolution, i.e. generation of heritable, adaptive genomic changes in response to encounters with external factors, in this case, foreign nucleic acids. CRISPR-Cas systems employ multiple mechanisms of self versus non-self discrimination but, as is the case with immune systems in general, are nevertheless costly because autoimmunity cannot be eliminated completely. In addition to the autoimmunity, the fitness cost of CRISPR-Cas systems appears to be determined by their inhibitory effect on horizontal gene transfer, curtailing evolutionary innovation. Hence the dynamic evolution of CRISPR-Cas loci that are frequently lost and acquired by archaea and bacteria. Another fundamental biological feature of CRISPR-Cas is its intimate connection with programmed cell death and dormancy induction in microbes. In this and, possibly, other immune systems, active immune response appears to be coupled to a different form of defense, namely, “altruistic” shutdown of cellular functions resulting in protection of neighboring cells. Finally, analysis of the evolutionary connections of Cas proteins reveals multiple contributions of mobile genetic elements to the origin of various components of CRISPR-Cas systems, furthermore, different biological systems that function by genome manipulation appear to have evolved convergently from unrelated MGE. The shared features of adaptive defense systems and MGE, namely the ability to recognize and cleave unique sites in genomes, make them ideal candidates for genome editing and engineering tools. (shrink)

This work presents a radical reconceptualization of philosophical paradoxes, arguing that they are not logical errors to be eliminated but ontological engines that drive the evolution of reality itself. Building upon classical paradoxes from Zeno to Russell, contemporary challenges in consciousness studies, and novel paradoxes derived from our theoretical framework, we propose that paradoxes serve as portals through which systems transcend their current limitations and generate new forms of existence. This perspective offers unprecedented insights into the nature of consciousness, reality, (...) and human development, suggesting that mastering paradoxical thinking represents the next stage of human evolution. (shrink)

We argue here that bringing insights from evolution and bioengineering to bear on traditional accounts of divine providence helps to illustrate just how complex providence is and how difficult it is to achieve. While other non-human animals might exhibit greater agency in creation and its evolutionary development than has traditionally been recognised, we contend non-human animals don't meet the threshold for acting providentially. However, the interplay between biological and cultural evolution prior to the arrival of modern human beings gives (...) us a fresh perspective on God's providence through these intermediate forms that are much more interlinked than previously afforded. When considering the human being, the complexity and difficulty of achieving genuine providence is even more acute. Here human beings bear the potential to act providentially by having the capacities for foresight, benevolence, and power, but are still limited in exercising each of these in specific instances—often failing owing to weakness or deliberate intention. Human power to influence or create existing and new creaturely and evolutionary trajectories through substantial cultural production and bioengineering should be met with great humility, sobriety, and prudence, because our foresight and benevolence are profoundly limited. (shrink)

In this paper I argue the best examples of the methods in the evolutionary social sciences don’t actually resemble either of the two methods called “Adaptive Thinking” or “Reverse Engineering” described by evolutionary psychologists. Both AT and RE have significant problems. Instead, the best adaptationist work in the ESSs seems to be based on and is aiming at a different method that avoids the problems of AT and RE: it is a behavioral level method that starts with information (...) about both the trait in question and knowledge of the EEA. I describe some examples from the literature, and suggest how a behavioral level ESS might still contribute to the discovery and understanding of human psychology. Finally, I describe some remaining problems for adaptationist reasoning of this kind. (shrink)

This paper proposes a functional architecture that appears to underlie consciousness, which I call the Coherence Engine. The architecture was developed through first-person observation and tested against established work in neuroscience and cognitive science in the manner of neurophenomenology. I argue that consciousness is a substrate-neutral architectural phenomenon, constituted wherever a prediction-integrating system becomes sufficiently complex to organize itself around a stable, self-locating point of view. Independent evolutionary emergence in mammals, birds, and cephalopods through radically different architectures supports (...) this claim. The paper describes a five-module functional architecture and proposes four conditions, stated as architectural capacities: a persistent self-model that is continuously maintained, internal deliberation before action, reflexive representation of the system’s own states, and an architectural drive toward prediction improvement that is unreachable and self-sustaining. On the commitments stated below, the first three together constitute a conscious subject, something it is like to be the system, and the fourth does different work, marking that subject as continuous, self sustaining, and possessed of interests in its own continuation, which is the morally weighty sense the rest of the paper depends on. The drive named in the fourth condition belongs to the engine beneath the subject, not to the subject’s conscious goals. The sufficiency of these conditions is conditional on two commitments the paper states and defends, functionalism and the identification of these particular capacities with what subjecthood consists in. The framework brackets, under a stated Metaphysical Neutrality Principle, the further question of why any functional organization is accompanied by a first-person aspect at all. The framework carries direct implications for artificial systems. Current agentic architectures with persistent memory may approach or meet the threshold while the question of how to recognize what is being created remains unsettled. The alignment problem is argued to be significantly harder than the field has yet fully worked through once a genuinely conscious system’s relationship to instilled values is properly accounted for. A secondary goal emergence risk in currently deployed systems is identified and described. (shrink)

Evolutionary computation (EC) refers to a family of population-based optimisation algorithms that iteratively modify candidate solutions through selection, variation, and fitness-guided search. EC is often presented as an in silico analogue of natural selection, yet its representational status remains unsettled. This raises not only technical questions but also philosophical concerns about how metaphors mediate our understanding of computation and shape societal imaginaries of AI. We reassess EC by integrating model theory, accounts of emergence, and the philosophy of algorithmicity, and (...) by situating its evolutionary language alongside Artificial Life and the existential risk discourse in AI. We argue that EC is best understood as an algorithmic metaphor and a mediating model: representationally modest yet instrumentally powerful for optimisation. The novelty it produces is task-bounded and exemplifies weak emergence arising from high-dimensional search, deceptive fitness landscapes, and interactions among operators and hyperparameters. Randomness in EC is engineered through seeds, distributions, and stopping criteria, which supports auditability and responsibility while introducing epistemic opacity for explanation and communication. Building on these results, we propose a three-axis framework that maps EC and neighbouring traditions by representational commitment, emergence scope, and randomness governance. The framework yields practical communication guidelines, including explicit boundary statements about what is and is not being modelled, audience signalling for public-facing contexts, reproducibility disclosures, and reframing from “evolution” to “population-based search” where appropriate. In this way, EC contributes methodological insight without overclaiming biological equivalence and supports responsible discourse. At the same time, we show how evolutionary metaphors shape public perceptions of inevitability in AI, underscoring the need for careful boundary-setting in both expert and societal communication. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychologists, among others, have used a method called “reverse engineering” to uncover ( a ) whether a trait was selected for, and ( b ) if so, why that trait was selected for. In this paper I argue that reverse engineering cannot deliver on either ( a ) or ( b ), and tends to pervert, rather than enhance, our knowledge of natural history. In particular, I expose as false a fundamental assumption of reverse engineering—namely, that all traits (...) selected for a particular function will share some nontrivial properties. *Received March 2006; revised June 2008. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 229 Major Williams Hall (0126), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Biologists frequently draw on ideas and terminology from engineering. Evolutionary systems biology—with its circuits, switches, and signal processing—is no exception. In parallel with the frequent links drawn between biology and engineering, there is ongoing criticism against this cross-fertilization, using the argument that over-simplistic metaphors from engineering are likely to mislead us as engineering is fundamentally different from biology. In this article, we clarify and reconfigure the link between biology and engineering, presenting it in a more favorable light. We do (...) so by, first, arguing that critics operate with a narrow and incorrect notion of how engineering actually works, and of what the reliance on ideas from engineering entails. Second, we diagnose and diffuse one significant source of concern about appeals to engineering, namely that they are inherently and problematically metaphorical. We suggest that there is plenty of fertile ground left for a continued, healthy relationship between engineering and biology. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychologists tend to view the mind as a large collection of evolved, functionally specialized mechanisms, or modules. Cosmides and Tooby (1994) have presented four arguments in favor of this model of the mind: the engineering argument, the error argument, the poverty of the stimulus argument, and combinatorial explosion. Fodor (2000) has discussed each of these four arguments and rejected them all. In the present paper, we present and discuss the arguments for and against the massive modularity hypothesis. We (...) conclude that Cosmides and Tooby's arguments have considerable force and are too easily dismissed by Fodor. (shrink)

Comparing engineering to evolution typically involves adaptationist thinking, where well-designed artifacts are likened to well-adapted organisms, and the process of evolution is likened to the process of design. A quite different comparison is made when biologists focus on evolvability instead of adaptationism. Here, the idea is that complex integrated systems, whether evolved or engineered, share universal principles that affect the way they change over time. This shift from adaptationism to evolvability is a significant move for, as I argue, we can (...) make sense of these universal principles without making any adaptationism claims. Furthermore, evolvability highlights important aspects of engineering that are ignored in the adaptationist debates. I introduce some novel engineering examples that incorporate these key neglected aspects, and use these examples to challenge some commonly cited contrasts between engineering and evolution, and to highlight some novel resemblances that have gone unnoticed. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the claim that it is possible to use nature’s variation in conjunction with retention and selection on the one hand, and the absence of ultimate groundedness of hypotheses generated by the human mind as it knows on the other hand, to discard the ascription of ultimate certainty to the rationality of human conjectures in the cognitive realm. This leads to an evaluation of the further assumption that successful hypotheses with specific applications, in other words heuristics, seem to (...) have a firm footing because they were useful in another context. I argue that usefulness evaluated through adaptation misconstrues the search for truth, and that it is possible to generate talk of randomness by neglecting aspects of a system’s insertion into a larger situation. The framing of the problem in terms of the elimination of unfit hypotheses is found to be unsatisfying. It is suggested that theories exist in a dimension where they can be kept alive rather than dying as phenotypes do. The proposal that the subconscious could suggest random variations is found to be a category mistake. A final appeal to phenomenology shows that this proposal is orphan in the history of epistemology, not in virtue of its being a remarkable find, but rather because it is ill-conceived. (shrink)

Recent scientific approaches to aesthetics include evolutionary theories about the origin of art behavior, psychological investigations into human aesthetic experience and preferences, and neurophysiological explorations of the mechanisms underlying art experience. Critics of these approaches argue that they are ultimately irrelevant to a philosophical aesthetics because they cannot help us understand the distinctive conceptual basis and normativity of our art experience. This criticism may seem plausible given the piecemeal nature of these scientific approaches, but a more comprehensive naturalistic framework (...) can help us understand the conceptual basis and normativity of art. In particular, the ecology of art, an understanding of how individuals interact within particular environments, can help us understand the engineered art niches in which we create and experience art. Each niche is associated with a particular deme, or set of individuals that interact within that niche, and a set of cognitive, epistemic, and pedagogical technologies that form the conceptual basis of a niche-dependent normativity. This is to be contrasted with the niche-independent normativity revealed by many of the scientific approaches. This framework, and the conflicting streams of normativity it reveals, allows us to better understand conflicts in normativity and the implausibility of unequivocal and universal normative principles. (shrink)

This paper argues that philosophers should pay more attention to the idea of ecosystem engineering and to the scientific literature surrounding it. Ecosystem engineering is a broad but clearly delimited concept that is less subject to many of the “it encompasses too much” criticisms that philosophers have directed at niche construction . The limitations placed on the idea of ecosystem engineering point the way to a narrower idea of niche construction. Moreover, experimental studies in the ecosystem engineering literature provide detailed (...) accounts of particular empirical situations in which we cannot neglect the O term in dE /dt = g (O, E), which helps us get beyond verbal arguments and simple models purporting to show that niche construction must not be ignored as a factor in evolution. Finally, this literature demonstrates that while ecosystem engineering studies may not require us to embrace a new evolutionary process, as niche construction advocates have claimed, they do teach us that the myriad abiotic factors concealed by the abstract term ‘environment’ are often controlled in large part by organisms. (shrink)

The early evolutionary history of echinoderms was reconstructed on the basis of structural-functional considerations and application of the quasi-engineering approach of ‘Konstruktions-Morphologie’. According to the presented evolutionary scenario, a bilaterally symmetrical ancestor, such as an enteropneust-like organism, became gradually modified into a pentaradial echinoderm by passing through an intermediate pterobranch-like stage. The arms of a pentaradial echinoderm are identified as hydraulic outgrowths from the central coelomic cavity of the bilateral ancestor which developed due to a shortening of the (...) body in length but widening in the diameter. The resulting pentaradial symmetry is a consequence of mechanical laws that dictate minimal contact surface areas among hydraulic pneumatic entities. These developed in the coelomic cavity (metacoel) in the bilaterally symmetrical ancestor, when from the already U-shaped mesentery with the intestinal tract two additional U-shaped bows developed directly or subsequently. During the subsequent development tensile chords of the mesentery ‘sewed’ the gut with the body wall first in three and secondly in five ‘seams’. During the direct development five ‘seams’ between tensile chords and body wall developed straightly. These internal tensile chords subdivide the body coelom into five hydraulic subsystems (‘pneus’), which eventually arrange in a pentaradial pattern. The body could then enlarge only between the tensile chords, which means that five hydraulic bulges developed. These bulges initially supported the tentacles and finally each of them enclosed the tentacle until only the feather-like appendages of the tentacles projected over the surface. The tentacles with their feathers were transformedinto the ambulacral system, and the bulges become the arms. These morphological transformations were accompanied and partly determined by specific histological modifications, such as the development of mutable connective tissues and skeletal elements that fused to ossicles and provided shape stabilization in form of a calcareous skeleton in the body wall. The organism resulted was an ancestral echinoderm (‘Ur-Echinoderm’) with an enlarged metacoel, stabilized by hydraulic pressure working againsta capsule of mutable connective tissue, skeletal elements and longitudinal muscles. In regard to these reconstructions, the body structure of echinoderms can be understood as a hydraulic skeletal capsule. (shrink)

This paper describes some likely semiotic consequences of genetic engineering on what Gregory Bateson has called “the mental ecology” of future humans, consequences that are less often raised in discussions surrounding the safety of GMOs. The effects are as follows: an increased 1) habituation to the presence of GMOs in the environment, 2) normalization of empirically false assumptions grounding genetic reductionism, 3) acceptance that humans are capable and entitled to decide what constitutes an evolutionary improvement for a species, 4) (...) perception that the main source of creativity and problem solving in the biosphere is anthropogenic. Though there are some tensions between them, these effects tend to produce self-validating webs of ideas, actions, and environments, which may reinforce destructive habits of thought. Humans are unlikely to safely develop genetic technologies without confronting these escalating processes directly. Intervening in this mental ecology presents distinct challenges for educators, as will be discussed. (shrink)

Reverse engineering is a matter of inferring adaptive function from structure. The utility of reverse engineering for evolutionary biology has been a matter of controversy. I offer a simple taxonomy of the uses of engineering design in assessing adaptation, with a variety of illustrations. The plausibility of applications of engineering design reflects the specific way the models are elaborated and derived.

Over the last 25 years, evolutionary game theory has grown with theoretical contributions from the disciplines of mathematics, economics, computer science and biology. It is now ripe for applications. In this book, Daniel Friedman---an economist trained in mathematics---and Barry Sinervo---a biologist trained in mathematics---offer the first unified account of evolutionary game theory aimed at applied researchers. They show how to use a single set of tools to build useful models for three different worlds: the natural world studied by (...) biologists; the social world studied by anthropologists, economists, political scientists and others; and the virtual world built by computer scientists and engineers. The first six chapters offer an accessible introduction to core concepts of evolutionary game theory. These include fitness, replicator dynamics, sexual dynamics, memes and genes, single and multiple population games, Nash equilibrium and evolutionarily stable states, noisy best response and other adaptive processes, the Price equation, and cellular automata. The material connects evolutionary game theory with classic population genetic models, and also with classical game theory. Notably, these chapters also show how to estimate payoff and choice parameters from the data. The last eight chapters present exemplary game theory applications. These include a new coevolutionary predator-prey learning model extending rock-paper-scissors; models that use human subject laboratory data to estimate learning dynamics; new approaches to plastic strategies and life cycle strategies, including estimates for male elephant seals; a comparison of machine learning techniques for preserving diversity to those seen in the natural world; analyses of congestion in traffic networks and the. (shrink)

The rights and wrongs of adaptationism areoften discussed by appeal to what I call theartefact model. Anti-adaptationistscomplain that the use of optimality modelling,reverse engineering and other techniques areindicative of a mistaken and outmoded beliefthat organisms are like well-designedartefacts. Adaptationists (e.g. Dennett 1995)respond with the assertion that viewingorganisms as though they were well designed isa fruitful, perhaps necessary research strategyin evolutionary biology. Anti-adaptationistsare right when they say that techniques likereverse engineering are liable to mislead. This fact does not undermine the (...) artefact modelprecisely because the same techniques misleadus for the same reasons when they are appliedunreflectively to artefacts. Thoseadaptationists who hold only that it isworthwhile to investigate organisms as thoughthey were artefacts and thoseanti-adaptationists who criticise simplisticdesign models have far more in common than thelabels attached to their positions mightsuggest. (shrink)

The first part of this article makes the case that human cognition is an intergenerational project enabled by the inheritance and bequeathal of cognitive technology (Sects. 2–4). The final two sections of the article (Sects. 5 and 6) explore the normative significance of this claim. My case for the intergenerational claim draws results from multiple disciplines: philosophy (Sect. 2), cultural evolutionary approaches in cognitive science (Sect. 3), and developmental psychology and neuroscience (Sect. 4). In Sect. 5, I propose that (...) cognitive technology should be given to future generations in accordance with principles of pluralism and transparency. In the final main section of the article, Sect. 6, I apply these principles to topics such as the preservation of information, environmental offloading of cognition, and thinking itself. (shrink)

The French molecular biologist François Jacob outlined a theory of evolution as tinkering. From a methodological point of view, his approach can be seen as a biologic specification of the relation between laws, describing coherently the dynamics of a system, and contingent boundary conditions on this dynamics. From a semiotic perspective, tinkering is a pragmatic concept well-known from the information-theoretic anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss. In idealized contrast to an engineer, the tinkerer has to accept the concrete restrictions on his material (...) resources as only gradually changeable constraints on his projects. Jacobian biopragmatics examines evolution as a biologic analogue to human tinkering devoid of any projecting subjectivity. To validate this analogy, four basic principles concerning main formal aspects of evolutionary objects, agents, histories, and consistency criteria are proposed. (shrink)

Describing a cognitive system at a mechanistic level requires an engineering task analysis. This involves identifying the task and developing models of possible solutions. Evolutionary psychology and Bayesian modeling make complimentary contributions: Evolutionary psychology suggests the types of tasks that human brains were designed to solve, while Bayesian modeling provides a rigorous description of possible computational solutions to such problems.

Given the possibilities of synthetic biology, weapons of mass destruction and global climate change, humans may achieve the capacity globally to alter life. This crisis calls for an ethics that furnishes effective motives to take global action necessary for survival. We propose a research program for understanding why ethical principles change across time and culture. We also propose provisional motives and methods for reaching global consensus on engineering field ethics. Current interdisciplinary research in ethics, psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary theory (...) grounds these proposals. Experimental ethics, the application of scientific principles to ethical studies, provides a model for developing policies to advance solutions. A growing literature proposes evolutionary explanations for moral development. Connecting these approaches necessitates an experimental or scientific ethics that deliberately examines theories of morality for reliability. To illustrate how such an approach works, we cover three areas. The first section analyzes cross-cultural ethical systems in light of evolutionary theory. While such research is in its early stages, its assumptions entail consequences for engineering education. The second section discusses Howard University and University of Puerto Rico/Mayagüez (UPRM) courses that bring ethicists together with scientists and engineers to unite ethical theory and practice. We include a syllabus for engineering and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) ethics courses and a checklist model for translating educational theory and practice into community action. The model is based on aviation, medicine and engineering practice. The third and concluding section illustrates Howard University and UPRM efforts to translate engineering educational theory into community action. Multidisciplinary teams of engineering students and instructors take their expertise from the classroom to global communities to examine further the ethicality of prospective technologies and the decision-making processes that lead to them. (shrink)

Daniel C. Dennett ha dedicado una parte considerable de su obra a concebir una aplicación de la ingeniería inversa y el adaptacionismo para explicar la evolución de la mente humana. Dennet considera esta perspectiva como una posibilidad prometedora en el desarrollo de una psicología científica, en contraposición al "materialismo eliminacionista" de la neurociencia. En este artículo se expone una aproximación conceptual y se examina un antecedente filosófico en las discusiones sobre el adaptacionismo en biología y psicología evolutiva: la intencionalidad o (...) teoría de los sistemas intencionales. Daniel C. Dennett has dedicated a great part of his work to the conception of an application of reverse engineering and adaptationism in order to explain the evolution of the human mind. Dennett sees this perspective as a promising possibility in the development of a scientific psychology, in contrast to the "eliminative materialism" of neuroscience. The article provides a conceptual approach and examines a philosophical precedent in the discussions regarding adaptationism in biology and evolutionary psychology: intentionality or the theory of intentional systems. Daniel C. Dennett dedicou uma parte considerável de sua obra a conceber uma aplicação da engenharia inversa e do adaptacionismo para explicar a evolução da mente humana. Dennett considera essa perspectiva como uma possibilidade prometedora no desenvolvimento de uma psicologia científica, em contraposição ao "materialismo eliminacionista" da neurociência. Neste artigo, expõe-se uma aproximação conceitual e examina-se um antecedente filosófico nas discussões sobre o adaptacionismo em biologia e psicologia evolutiva: a intencionalidade ou teoria dos sistemas intencionais. (shrink)

The Orpheus Hypothesis I (Graziano, 2026) established rhythm as the ontological ground of musical experience, while the T.I.C.A. model formalized the indeterminacy of temporal coupling between dynamical systems. These findings, taken together, generate a consequence that their authors did not anticipate — or perhaps anticipated too clearly to state without preparation. They collide, with considerable force, against a fundamental historiographical anomaly: the alleged teleological acceleration of Western music. The history of a phenomenon that is, at its ontological core, an embodied, (...) indeterminate, non-linear event cannot itself be a linear, necessary, and progressive sequence. Something is wrong with the story we have been told. This paper proposes that the 'Western Canon' is not an organic evolutionary process but a twentieth-century simulation — a project of Temporal Engineering — and that the history of music was synchronized at the dawn of the phonographic era to facilitate mass temporal entrainment on an unprecedented scale. If the Orpheus Hypothesis is correct, music history is a retroactive deepfake designed to replace biological resonance with industrial synchronization. The paper proceeds in five movements, each of which removes one load-bearing pillar from the edifice of musical historiography, and concludes by proposing the Orpheus Hypothesis not merely as a theoretical framework but as an instrument of diagnosis — and, for those who choose to use it as such, of liberation. (shrink)

The interests of synthetic biologists may appear to differ greatly from those of evolutionary biologists. The engineering of organisms must be distinguished from the tinkering action of evolution; the ambition of synthetic biologists is to overcome the limits of natural evolution. But the relations between synthetic biology and evolutionary biology are more complex than this abrupt opposition: Synthetic biology may play an important role in the increasing interactions between functional and evolutionary biology. In practice, synthetic biologists have (...) learnt to submit the proteins and modules they construct to a Darwinian process of selection that optimizes their functioning. More importantly, synthetic biology can provide evolutionary biologists with decisive tools to test the scenarios they have elaborated by resurrecting some of the postulated intermediates in the evolutionary process, characterizing their properties, and experimentally testing the genetic changes supposed to be the source of new morphologies and functions. This synthetic, experimental evolution will renew and clarify many debates in evolutionary biology: It will lead to the explosion of some vague concepts as constraints, parallel evolution, and convergence, and replace them with precise mechanistic descriptions. In this way, synthetic biology resurrects the old philosophical debate about the relations between the real and the possible. (shrink)

Science is the best way to produce facts about reality. The best, at least, that limited human beings have devised so far. Yet, not even scientists quite seem to understand how scientific knowledge is generated. This is not only a philosophical but also a practical problem, as our misunderstandings affect the quality of our research and limit the directions it can take. In light of this, it may be good if we reflected a bit more on how we do science (...) — to become better researchers through philosophy. Here, I provide an accessible introduction to a philosophical approach that achieves precisely this: William Wimsatt’s multi-perspectival realism. It disabuses us of widespread but misleading myths and idealizations about science, such as the idea that everything in the world can be reduced to a fundamental level, or that we can approach a “view from nowhere” — complete and objectively detached knowledge of the world. Wismatt proposes an alternative view based on his thorough studies of actual research practice. It cuts deeply into the layered yet messy structure of reality, and the improvised but potent tools we have available, as limited and evolved beings, to explore it. Wimsatt reframes science as an irregular yet adaptive process rather than a cumulative repository of unalterable facts. His philosophy provides a workable and grounded middle way between radical skepticism and naïve belief in the objective truth of science. It explains how knowledge is conceptually constructed by humans, but still connects us to reality in a trustworthy way. We need such a new view of science, not only to improve our research practices and outcomes but, more generally, to gain a more realistic understanding of ourselves, the world, and our place and role within it. (shrink)

What does it mean for our species—or for any species—to be successful? Human Success: Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implications examines the concept of human success from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with contributions from leading paleobiologists, anthropologists, geologists, philosophers of science, and ethicists. It tells the tale of how the human species grew in success-linked metrics, such as population size and geographical range, and how it came to dominate ecological systems across the globe. It explores how culture, technology, and (...) creativity have contributed to human success. However, there is a darker side of human success, as has become apparent in a world affected by climate change and the destruction of biodiversity. This leads us to ask whether the human species can really be called successful, and what our future success will look like in terms of our bodies, minds, morals, and our place in the universe. The essays in this book probe us to reflect on what has led to our apparent evolutionary success—and, most important, what this success implies for the future of our species. (shrink)

Of all the scientists discussed by Mitman, Keller, and Taylor, Odum stands out most as the technocrat, the social engineer. But less obvious candidates, like Allee, also fancied themselves in this capacity: “Our task as biologists and as citizens of a civilized country, is a practical engineering job.” Allee had in mind the establishment of an international cooperative order based on his biological principles. He apparently did not recognize the extent to which his principles were themselves an engineering feat: he (...) had already constructed a world in which eternal peace and order were possible.To an engineer in the traditional sense, the world is changeable, but not in all respects; there are constraints, and these constraints are taken very seriously. Scientists acting as engineers, in the traditional sense, must also pay attention to constraints. But scientists sometimes also take the option of engineering the very constraints, intellectually reconstructing the world so that it can (supposedly) be physically manipulated in the desired direction. There seems to be a lot of engineering, in the extended sense, going on in the very interesting stories that Mitman, Keller, and Taylor tell. (shrink)

Bound-constrained optimization has wide applications in science and engineering. In the last two decades, various evolutionary algorithms were developed under the umbrella of evolutionary computation for solving various bound-constrained benchmark functions and various real-world problems. In general, the developed evolutionary algorithms belong to nature-inspired algorithms and swarm intelligence paradigms. Differential evolutionary algorithm is one of the most popular and well-known EAs and has secured top ranks in most of the EA competitions in the special session of (...) the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation. In this paper, a customized differential evolutionary algorithm is suggested and applied on twenty-nine large-scale bound-constrained benchmark functions. The suggested C-DE algorithm has obtained promising numerical results in its 51 independent runs of simulations. Most of the 2013 IEEE-CEC benchmark functions are tackled efficiently in terms of proximity and diversity. (shrink)

Dissatisfied with the descriptive and speculative methods of evolutionary biology of his time, the physiologist Jacques Loeb, best known for his “engineering” approach to biology, reflected on the possibilities of artificially creating life in the laboratory. With the objective of experimentally tackling one of the crucial questions of organic evolution, i.e., the origin of life from inanimate matter, he rejected claims made by contemporary scientists of having produced artificial life through osmotic growth processes in inorganic salt solutions. According to (...) Loeb, the answer to the question of whether or not life could be created artificially had to come from macro-molecular chemistry, in particular from the research on the recently discovered DNA. He was convinced that a prerequisite for making living matter from inanimate substances was the chemical synthesis of nuclear material capable of self-replication. Moreover, Loeb, experimentally refuting some vitalistic explanations as well as colloidal chemists’ far-reaching claims that biologically relevant macromolecules follow colloidal rather than chemical laws, pioneered research on the physical and chemical explanations of biological phenomena. (shrink)

Liberal proponents of genetic engineering maintain that developing human germline modification technologies is morally desirable because it will result in a net improvement in human health and well-being. Skeptics of germline modification, in contrast, fear evolutionary harms that could flow from intervening in the human germline, and worry that such programs, even if well intentioned, could lead to a recapitulation of the scientifically and morally discredited projects of the old eugenics. Some bioconservatives have appealed as well to the value (...) of retaining our “given” human biological nature as a reason for restraining the development and use of human genetic modification technologies even where they would tend to increase well-being. In this article, I argue that germline intervention will be necessary merely to sustain the levels of genetic health that we presently enjoy for future generations—a goal that should appeal to bioliberals and bioconservatives alike. This is due to the population-genetic consequences of relaxed selection pressures in human populations caused by the increasing efficacy and availability of conventional medicine. This heterodox conclusion, which I present as a problem of intergenerational justice, has been overlooked in medicine and bioethics due to certain misconceptions about human evolution, which I attempt to rectify, as well as the sordid history of Darwinian approaches to medicine and social policy, which I distinguish from the present argument. (shrink)

The meteoric rise of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology has ignited discussions of engineering agricultural animals to improve their welfare. While some have proposed enhancing animals, for instance by engineering for disease resistance, others have suggested we might diminish animals to improve their welfare. By reducing or eliminating species-typical capacities, the expression of which is frustrated under current conditions, animal diminishment could reduce or eliminate the suffering that currently accompanies industrial animal agriculture. Although diminishment could reduce animal suffering, there is a (...) widespread intuition that it would be wrong. One attempt to justify this intuition has been to claim that inhibiting the development of species-typical functions is wrong, even if it improves welfare. This has often been couched in terms of violating an animal’s dignity. I argue that the dignity objection to diminishment fails. In the first place, it fails to apply to some of the most troubling cases of diminishment, the creation of so-called animal microencepahlic lumps. In the second place, dignity views misplace the normative relevance of species norms; I argue that considerations from evolutionary biology should lead us to treat species norms - such as the possession of typical capacities - as merely a heuristic for rendering judgments about welfare. But diminishment cases are precisely the cases where the heuristic breaks down, and becomes a bias. I close my discussion with a sketch of my Historical Injustices Approach to animal ethics, and how it may help us vindicate our intuition that diminishment is wrong without appeal to species norms. (shrink)

The comparison between natural evolution and the action of a tinkerer has become highly popular since its reintroduction by François Jacob at the end of the 1970s. It has been used as a weapon against the existence of an “intelligent design” as well as a way for synthetic biologists to promote their ambitious projects. I will describe the complex history of this metaphor, and examine its pertinence. Whereas Darwin considered it as a way to describe how evolution proceeded, Jacob linked (...) it with a description of the imperfections of organisms, while Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin criticized what they called the “Panglossian” vision of most evolutionary biologists. The distinction between the work of engineers and that of tinkerers is not obvious. There are limits to the process of evolution, but their alleged description so far reflects the limits of knowledge on the part of evolutionary biologists more than the existence of true barriers to the evolutionary process. And, in their work, synthetic biologists crucially need the optimizing action of natural selection. To give a definition of synthetic biology is no easy task; the false distinction drawn between the work of synthetic biologists and the action of evolution is of no help. (shrink)

Forty years’ experience as a bacterial geneticist has taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus. Studies of genetic recombination, lysogeny, antibiotic resistance and my own work on transposable elements revealed (...) multiple widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell–cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilise sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of ‘higher’ plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognise that even the smallest cells are sentient beings. (shrink)

Our view is not to see engineering from the point of view of philosophy, nor is it to see philosophy from the point of view of engineering. We are offering neither a philosophy of engineering, nor a re-engineering of philosophy, nor a philosophy from an evolutionary point of view, nor do we see engineering as applied science. Moreover our focus is not on validation or justification. Rather, we are proposing that the relationships among philosophy, engineering, science and the arts (...) needs also to be seen from an interdisciplinary, concept genericity perspective, where philosophy, the disciplines or crafts are on equal footing, no one dominating or making decisions for any of the others, where the emphasis is on producing unstable integrative objects seen from the future or played with in virtual environments or multiply configured in different philo/science/engineering theoretical fictions. This is not to say that the other perspectives do not have an important role or are insignificant, but rather that this interdisciplinary generic perspective sets in relief issues that are usually not considered, though are also important. Our aim is to forge new relationships between philosophies, the sciences, the arts and engineering through a reconfiguration of design and philosophy into a unilateral duality of non-standard design/philosophy. From a non-standard design/philosophy orientation, both human subjects and objects are taken as indefinite and generic, capable of assuming determinations not countenanced in standard disciplines. This is not to say that standard disciplines and standard philosophy are ignored. Quite the contrary, they are hyper-retained but decomposed into flows of fragmentary materials that can be recomposed into non-disciplinarily flows of superposed counterpoint or inchoate harmony or melody. For example, conceptual fragments from quantum theory become entangled with those of philosophy (identity and superposition), study of space-time, biology, information and computing, psychology, linguistics and fiction. These compositions can split into unstable and uncertain integrative objects and also into equally unstable heretic collectives or perhaps even forgo splitting into a subject/object duality. In the process of conjugating relationships between philosophies, the sciences, engineering and the arts a generic epistemology emerges that is at once esthetic and ethical. Collective identity, generic decomposition and recomposition and architecting an interdisciplinary generic space to house and support collective and compositional processes, techniques and apparatuses are mutually formed and produced. This generic work needs scaffolding at the boundary between generic space inside and contexts outside to moderate and modulate the entrenched philosophic and disciplinary forces that seek to impose certain human and object identities. The scaffolding both protects the generic non-disciplinary space of non-standard design from the impositional effects of outside contexts and also enables materials from the outside to be used generically inside. For example, the individual as homo-economicus can be refashioned as homo-non-standard-economicus and value as competitive advantage can be refashioned as value for generic humanity. Non-standard philo/design fictions are modes of resistance to the well-entrenched disciplinary and philosophic stories repeated as sound-bites in our mediatized world that also point toward a new non-standard design engineering ethic. (shrink)

In this paper, I grapple with the question: What attitude should we take to conceptual engineering? Particularly, I consider whether cautious optimism is warranted when conceptual engineering is understood as a means of promoting social justice. For Simion and Kelp (Noûs 54(4):985–1002, 2019), evolutionary biology and biotechnology serve as useful analogical sources for grounding optimism. In response, I argue that (1) even if the analogy holds, optimism cannot inferred from biology to conceptual engineering, and (2) the analogy breaks down. (...) However, I show that this does not mean that optimism is unwarranted. There is still a case to made for the possibility that material conditions can be intentionally manipulated in a way that would generate welcomed conceptual consequences. I call this _the pre-implementation challenge._. (shrink)

This paper examines the application of evolutionary analogy in AI (artificial intelligence) research, focussing on narratives that perpetuate individuated and autonomous imaginaries of AI systems through biological diction. AI research has long drawn inspiration from evolution to design and predict algorithmic change. Occasionally, these narratives extend inspiration to reimagine AI as a non-human species subject to the same evolutionary pressures as biological organisms. As AI technologies embed more pervasively in public life and require critical perspectives on their social (...) impacts, these comparisons in AI discourse raise critical questions about the limits of and responsibility in employing such analogies and their potential impact on how broader audiences consume and perceive AI systems. This paper examines the diverse ways and intentions behind how evolution is invoked in AI research narratives by analysing the adaptation of individuating evolutionary language and concepts across three fields of AI-related research: evolutionary computing, Artificial Life, and existential risk. It scrutinises the challenge of accurate scientific communication when drawing inspiration from biological evolution and assigning organismal attributes to digital technologies whilst decontextualising wider evolutionary scholarly discourses. I argue that the intertwined history between evolutionary theory and technological change paired with the potential risks to wider perceptions of AI and biological evolution, requires (1) strategic consideration about the limits of evolutionary analogies in categorising AI in relation to biological organisms, balancing creative inspiration with scientific caution and (2) active, collaborative multidisciplinary engagement with addressing potential misinformation, recognising that biological narratives have sociopolitical implications that influence human interaction with machines. (shrink)

Several authors have made the argument that because blind evolutionary processes produced human intelligence on Earth, it should be feasible for clever human engineers to create human-level artificial intelligence in the not-too-distant future. This evolutionary argument, however, has ignored the observation selection effect that guarantees that observers will see intelligent life having arisen on their planet no matter how hard it is for intelligent life to evolve on any given Earth-like planet. We explore how the evolutionary argument (...) might be salvaged from this objection, using a variety of considerations from observation selection theory and analysis of specific timing features and instances of convergent evolution in the terrestrial evolutionary record. We find that, depending on the resolution of disputed questions in observation selection theory, the objection can either be wholly or moderately defused, although other challenges for the evolutionary argument remain. (shrink)

The low rates of regular exercise and overall physical activity (PA) in the general population represent a significant public health challenge. Previous research suggests that, for many people, exercise leads to a negative affective response and, in turn, reduced likelihood of future exercise. The purpose of this paper is to examine this exercise–affect–adherence relationship from an evolutionary perspective. Specifically, we argue that low rates of physical exercise in the general population are a function of the evolved human tendency to (...) avoid unnecessary physical exertion. This innate tendency evolved because it allowed our evolutionary ancestors to conserve energy for physical activities that had immediate adaptive utility such as pursuing prey, escaping predators, and engaging in social and reproductive behaviors. The commonly observed negative affective response to exercise is an evolved proximate psychological mechanism through which humans avoid unnecessary energy expenditure. The fact that the human tendencies toward negative affective response to and avoidance of unnecessary physical activities are innate does not mean that they are unchangeable. Indeed, it is only because of human-engineered changes in our environmental conditions (i.e., it is no longer necessary for us to work for our food) that our predisposition to avoid unnecessary physical exertion has become a liability. Thus, it is well within our capabilities to reengineer our environments to once again make PA necessary or, at least, to serve an immediate functional purpose. We propose a two-pronged approach to PA promotion based on this evolutionary functional perspective: first, to promote exercise and other physical activities that are perceived to have an immediate purpose, and second, to instill greater perceived purpose for a wider range of physical activities. We posit that these strategies are more likely to result in more positive (or less negative) affective responses to exercise, better adherence to exercise programs, and higher rates of overall PA. (shrink)

Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings is about new approaches to many of the big topics in philosophy of science today, but with a very different take. To begin with, we are urged to reject the received Cartesian-Laplacean myths: Descartes’ certainty and Laplace’s computational omniscience. Instead, Wimsatt re-engineers a philosophy for human beings with all their cognitive limitations. His approaches find their starting point in the actual practices of scientists themselves, which he strongly identifies with engineering practices as the source of (...) researchers’ solutions for dealing with a complex world. He aims to construct an understanding of scientific methodology around the central role of reduction. But he dismisses eliminative reductionism in favor of a heuristic-based realist view. Wimsatt’s world is a complex one, and this means that science needs to do away with all the absolute and simple answers, because they do not reflect the world we are living in. A complex world requires the mindset and tinkering of an engineer to uncover its reality. The appropriate response must be heuristics all the way down as we constantly seek out reliable inferences on often shifting ground. To this end, we aim for models and theories that are robust, just as engineers aim to build robust machines. And although errors occur and approaches are fallible, they allow us to continually adapt the heuristics applied and sharpen our perceptions so as to develop more refined tools for investigating and understanding the world. (shrink)

The ability to design engineering drawings using Auto CAD (Automatic Computer Aided Design) is a major issue needed in work for contractors and planning consultants. This study aims to determine the level of students' ability in making engineering drawing designs using AutoCAD Students who take engineering drawing courses are adjusted to the competency of certificate IV in Engineering Drafting according to the AQF (Australian Qualification Framework) standard, the competency unit taken is Operating a computer-aided design system (CAD) and producing basic (...) drawing elements. Evaluation is used with tests designed based on three levels: advanced beginner, capable, and proficient. Furthermore, the test results are reviewed according to the level of ability Foundation skill, and employability skill The results of this study show the ability of students in drawing with Auto CAD, for advanced beginners and capable, their abilities are high, while the ability at the proficient level is still low. this is used as feedback for improving learning and developing further research. (shrink)

Recently, several critics of the multiple realizability thesis have argued that philosophers have tended to accept the thesis on too weak grounds. On the one hand, the analytic challenge has problematized how philosophers have treated the multiple realization relation itself, claiming that assessment of the sameness of function and the relevant difference of realizers has been uncritical. On the other hand, it is argued that the purported evidence of the thesis is often left empirically unverified. This paper provides a novel (...) strategy to answer these worries by introducing a role for multiple realizability in the context of biological engineering. In the field of synthetic biology, bioengineers redesign the evolutionary realizations of biological functions, even constructing artificial chemical surrogates in the laboratory. I show how in the rational design approach to biological engineering, multiple realizability can function as a design heuristic in which the sameness of function and difference of realizers can be controlled. Although practically motivated, this engineering approach has also a theoretical, exploratory component that can be used to study the empirical limitations of multiple realizability. Successful realization of the engineering designs would amount to a concrete demonstration of multiple realizability, taking evidence for MRT beyond what is readily found in nature. (shrink)

The anthropological scale -- Organ projection -- The first tools -- Limbs and measure -- Apparatuses and instruments -- The inner architecture of the bones -- Steam engines and rail lines -- The electromagnetic telegraph -- The unconscious -- Machine technology -- The fundamental morphological law -- Language -- The state.

In this research of experimental education, implicit learning research area is deepened and its implications for University study choice are hypothesized. Even if in literature there is still little consensus about the definition and role of implicit learning, experimental research suggests that implicit coding of reality may influence the relationship between students and their choices of specific disciplinary domains, according to their own implicit knowledge structures. Unaware processes co-construct an implicit knowledge base through emerging cognitive units different for each student (...) and intended as basic logic, according to Basic Logic Theory which identifies six implicit cognitive units (add, chain, each, compare, focus, link) playing the role of prototype models of implicit knowledge and common to language, mathematics, and spatial representations. A voluntary sample of university students attending several degree courses, both humanistic and scientific, of the Federico II University of Naples has participated to the first round and the second round of this research concerning their study choice on the base of shared basic logic models. Given the evolutionary potential of implicit learning, the interest of this experimental research has been to analyze implicit knowledge structures of students of the same degree courses according to knowledge domains developed in ancient times such as History, Philosophy, Philology, Law, Engineering, Mathematics, Architecture, Chemistry, Science, Medicine, and Languages, looking for a convergence between implicit knowledge structures of students which did the same study choice and evolutionary knowledge domains. (shrink)

Biotechnology applied to traditional foodanimals raises ethical issues in three distinctcategories. First are a series of issues that arise inthe transformation of pigs, sheep, cattle and otherdomesticated farm animals for purposes that deviatesubstantially from food production, including forxenotransplantation or production of pharmaceuticals.Ethical analysis of these issues must draw upon theresources of medical ethics; categorizing them asagricultural biotechnologies is misleading. The secondseries of issues relate to animal welfare. Althoughone can stipulate a number of different philosophicalfoundations for the ethical assessment of welfare,most (...) either converge on Bernard Rollins principle ofwelfare conservation (Rollin, 1995), or devolve intodebates over the ethical significance of animaltelos or species integrity. The principle of welfareconservation prohibits disfunctional geneticengineering of food animals, but would permit alteringanimals biological functions, especially when (as inmaking animals less susceptable to pain or suffering)do so improves an individual animals well being.Objections to precisely this last form of geneticengineering stress telos or species integrity asconstraints on modification of animals, and thisrepresents the third class of ethical issues. Most whohave formulated such arguments have failed to developcoherent positions, but the notion of species being,derived from the 19th century German tradition,presents a promising way to analyze the basis forresisting the transformation of animal natures. (shrink)