Papers Accepted

1. Brandon, RN, Teleology in self-organizing systems, in Self-Organization and Emergence in Life Sciences (December, 2006), pp. 267-281, Kluwer Academic Publishers [doi].
   (last updated on 2024/04/24)

   Abstract:
   Teleological language, talk of function and purpose, has long been associated with the appearance of order in the biological world. Indeed, the pre-Darwinian tradition of natural theology (e.g., Paley 1836) gave a clear underpinning for such teleology. The order of nature was a product of Gods design and reflected his purposes. In this post-Darwinian era neural selection has taken the place of Gods purposes in supporting teleological ascriptions -the ultimate purpose or function of some biological trait, say a wing, is just that effect acted on by natural selection to produce, by evolution, the order of the trait in question. But the recent recognition that order can emerge just from the dynamics of complex systems -no natural selection is needed -leads us to the question of this paper; namely, in what ways, and to what extent, does teleological language properly apply to the selfgenerated order of complex dynamical systems in biology?© 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.