Online research in philosophy

1. it must be possible to generate individuals with that design
2. once generated, a design must be viable
3. there must be an evolutionary path to that design

In the position outlined by Arno Wouters, it seems apparent that he employs the term somewhat in the sense that a constraint blocks degrees of freedom. However, as an outsider I would have assumed that when it comes to biological evolution we speak instead of probabilistic processes. That is, instead of the probability of a morphological change having a probability of 0 or 1, it would be a probability between 0 and 1, where that of 0 and 1 are only hypothetical limiting cases. The former is an unequivocal determinism; the latter, a probabilistic determination.

 if a system consists of subsystems that have a functional relation with the whole, then the resulting system becomes necessarily static, incapable of change except in response to outside contingencies and so is passive rather than active.

adaptation seems a kind of death where your relation with your environment settles to what is most probable, and this is dust to dust.

And so my question, if you will allow, is whether biologists generally seek explanation or does description serve as a kind of  explanation? 

1. I borrowed, perhaps a bit adventurously, the notion of degrees of freedom from the definition of state space in physics: the number of variables needed to define the state of a system. This seems an epistemological definition because it reduces  the world to one's observations and inferences drawn from them (and one remains agnostic about anything else). I believe the other notion of constraint is ontological and constraint is a structure that determines the relative probability of possible states. They seem to differ profoundly in their implications, and hence my concern for which definition you had in mind. The probabilistic constraint does not presuppose what the possibilities are, which are a priori and are basically not entirely known, but the constraint increases the probabily of some possibilities over others.. Of course, one can infer from outcomes what a subset of the original possibilities were, but this is not the aim. The aim is not to predict, but to assess the effort (work) needed to actualize a possibiity defined by a probability distribution arising from actual structural constraints on possibilities  (this gets complicated, but perhaps this is a hint). It seems this makes a lot more sense in evolution, where emergent properties appear that cannot be reduced to the observables of a base level, but instead actualize possibilities.

2. Sorry to distress you with my verbal swamp. Functional properties, functionalism, and structural functionalism are much discussed and criticized. This criticism (taking place largely in the social sciences), amounts, in my view, to three points: a) Functionalism presumes there is a probable relation of entities in that the functional role of one depends on specific properties or behavior that satisfies a need of the other. This tends to lock in those properties and so reduces a system to a functional coherence (maximum entropy) that precludes change, when in fact all systems do change. b) Functionalism is teleological or circular in that an emergent whole arises from the functional properties of its constituents and yet this functionality is their result. c)  Functionalism describes a relation of properties, such as proximity or constant conjunction, but is not an explanation. There's no agency that somehow works contrary to entopy increase. 

To demonstrate the distress caused by problems of functionality, I happened to be reading this morning, John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (I'm not recommending the book). He says that function depends on subjective values, and so one cannot say the heart functions to pump blood without adding to a causal relation a subjective value judgement that it's good to be alive. Most people, including you and I, have no problem saying that  lungs perform a functional for land animals, but I believe such a statement is incompatible with closed systems. Basically, living organisms are far-from-equilibrium systems that depend on certain conditions to maintain their emergent structure. For example, without metabolism (other than viruses, I suppose) the structure necessarily deconstructs (death) without it. I therefore have no problem speaking of animals or humans as having "needs", the satisfaction of which is necessary for life. Logically, A functional organ,  property or behavior satisfies needs so that life to continues, which is a Telos which I assume is hard-wired in most living organisms because a property giving rise to persistence seems more likely to prevail over other combinations of organic molecules that lack it.   

 3. Your "Four notions" article is not accessible in the journals database I use, and so I'm put into the unfortunate position of commenting on your remark without having read it yet. However, I don't believe the problems here are particuarly difficult. True, the term "unobservable" lacks a consensus definition. My approach to this is to define it by negation. An observable is a property of a system state that can be determined by a physical operation. So I like to define "unobservable" as that which which there is no such operation and thus no frame, is not localized by the relation of observer and observed. Now, a functional property is extrinsic, a relation of a part to the whole, and is therefore not framed, but inferred from an observed relationship.  A morphological property is a property within a frame, what you call a whole. However, I don't know why an activity  becomes unobservable. The heart beats, and this activity is observable; an organism is alive, and we know this from observing its behavior. Now, process seems a bit more different than activity, for like St. Augustine's remark about knowing what time is but being unable to describe it to others, process is intuitive and so far there is little progress analysing it terms that make the concept operational (something I've been working on). Although I might be pillored for saying so, the person who comes closest to it seems to be Heidegger, in Sein und Zeit. Nevertheless, I believe we basically agree here.

4. I addressed before the question you here raise. In terms of thermodynamics, all "closed" systems move toward a more probable state. For example, when a crystal forms in a supersaturated solution, the molecular bonds represent a more probable state for the molecules than remaining unbound in solution, and the bond is the probable relation of molecular properties. The result is novel (a crystal, because of the bonds, holds more information than the sum of individual molecules), but it is predictable from a knowledge of molecular properties. The word emergence originally (basically defined in a 1926 article by Pepper) meant both novelty and unpredictability, but in recent years it has come to mean just unpredictability. A closed system is predictable because its behavior is determined by local properties. My intent was not to suggest that systems having functional parts are static, but that speaking of functionality only makes sense for emergent and therefore open systems, such as living organisms, and if the system is hard-wired with a Telos to perpetuate itself (a tropical cyclone is an emergent system that is open and has a "metabolism" (exothermic evaporation of rising surface water), but is not hard-wired with a Telos to perpetuate itself. It collapses when the conditions that supported its structure change. Specifically, the Coriolis Effect brings it over cooler waters. This is what I meant by a "contingency": a factor that influences the system but is not defined so as to fall within its frame; it is an "outside" and thus "accidental" determination. If we were to enlarge the frame to bring in the Coriolis Effect, then the tropical cyclone acquires a probable life span rather than simply go on indefinately, but the Coriolis is no longer a contingency, but part of the system under study.

A closed system may have Gibbs free energy and so change, but only so long as that energy has not dissipated. Ultimately, the notion of such a causal power begs the question: how did the closed system acquire its potency, and we enter an almost infinite regress. Such a closed system is doomed to move toward its most probable and stable state of maximum entropy, although in some cases it might require cosmic time to get there. An open system is not so called because it is open to outside influences, which depends on our subjective frame, our definition of what is inside and outside. Rather, an open system seems to be one that is emergent in the sense that it moves toward a less probable and therefore a less predictable outcome; it is far non-equilibrium, and must sustain its improbable structure by a continual dissipation of energy, as in the cyclone example above or in living organisms or an eddy in a rushing stream. These systems have properties and behavior that do not reduce to the properties of its parts.  My point about passive/active is that in the former, change in the system reduces to local observable properties and the influence of contingencies; in the latter, the system escapes causal determination, which is why it is called emergent, and because emergent properties are not reducible, can alter its own state in a way that is not simply adaptive. A squirrel gathering nuts in preparation for the coming winter is not responding the pressure of an immediate need, but to what it knows will be a coming need. But I'm no biologist, and so can only speculate.

6. I'll comply with your request, but first I should say that "design" explanation leaves me mystified, in part because the begining of this thread does not seem to be archived and so I lack context. My dictionary says the verb "design"  is the product of human intentionality, and the noun design is the result of such intentionality. If design is a property that is independent of consciousness, then I'm mystified, but that may well not have been your intent. If "design" is a notion tied to human intentionality, then a simple view would be that the mental concept was the cause of resulting design, such as in architecture. However, I have a perverse view that bypasses causal explanation, so that I don't have to conclude that the mind has some kind of mysterious causal power that can produce enormous physical results depite the Second Law of Thermodynamics, getting something for nothing in terms of energy. Rather, I see the relation of the designer and the object designed as what I call a "superposition of processes" (no connection with QM intended). This notion is very complicated, and I'm sure you don't want to hear about it, but the bottom line is that the designer's thought shapes the design without having actually caused it.

a. Important critique, although rather old: Robert Cummins. "Functional Analysis." The Journal of Philosophy 2 (1972), 741-765 
b. A newer critique, although one I find worrisome: J. Holmwood. "Functionalism and its Critics." Modern Social Theory: an Introduction, ed. A. Harrington (Oxford: OUP, 2005), 87-109.
c. A point I use: causal mechanism can be used for functional explanation, but if included is more than just intrinsic properties: Daniel Steel. "Mechanisms and Functional Hypotheses in Social Science."
    Philosophy of Science 72 (2005), 941-952
d. Useful for broad overview of Durkheimian tradition and rise of neofunctionalism: Alexandra Maryanski and Jonathan H. Turner. "The Offspring of Functionalism: French and British Structuralism."
    Sociological Theory  9 (1991), 106-105.
e. Another old standard critique: K. Davis. "The Myth of Functional Analysis as a Special Method in Sociology and Anthropology." American Sociological Review 24 (1959), 757-772.
f. A useful analysis of functionalism's fall, which sheds light on my concern over closed systems: S. N. Eisenstadt. "Functional Analysis in Anthropology and Sociology: An Interpretative Essay."
  Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990), 243-260.
g. For my point that functional analysis is descriptive rather than explanatory: Harold Fallding. "Functional Analysis in Sociology." American Sociological Review 28 (1963), 5-13.
h. For functionalism and mind from philosphical perspective: Alan Weir. : "More Trouble for Functionalism." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society N.S. 101 (2001), 267-293.
i.  A more sympathetic, although dated, philosophical approach:  Carl G. Hempel. "The Logic of Functional Analysis." Symposium on Sociological Theory, ed. Lleyellyn Gross (Harper&Row, 1959), 271-307.
j. Usefully raises issue of meaning of functionalism in different domans: Mahner and Mario Bunge. "Function and Functionalism: A Synthetic Perspective." Philosophy of Science 68 (2001), 75-94.

Well, this is a disordered list and done quickly, but it may have some use. There's many old titles because after the 1970s, functionalism was (arguably) a dead horse. I'm curious how biology relates to these kinds of issues.
 
5. Ah, a comforting thought. In historiography, the dominant paradigm is the view that any explanation ("grand narrative") that does not reduce to epistemology (such as language) is impossible. In sociology,
   although there are some old-time exceptions like Eisenstadt above, there is a similar move to marginalize explanation implicitly. I haven't seen that in the natural sciences, although I suspect antirealism
   in the philosophy of science is undercuts explanation. As for biological evolution, I've no doubt there is explanation, perhaps what is referred to loosely as Darwinism, that is arguably not unlike that of
   other historical science (people seem widely to assume that the Darwinist paradigm is widely embraced, but I'm not convinced of it. But it does seem to gives a different meaning to the word "explanation".
   Speaking loosely and in traditional terms, doesn't "explanation" mean that there's a "necessary" relation between one thing an another and, versus mere description of that relation, there's something
   compelling or determinant about it? I suppose this compulsion in positivist terms refers to inflexible universal laws, the compelling nature of deductive logic, perhaps Kant's rationality, and Newtonian
   causality. This seems ill-suited for explanation in the historical sciences (I go so far to argue that causal explanaction is a limiting or special case in all scientific domains), and yet explanation looks to
   a relation, to what makes the cosmos coherent and makes science possible. And yet not all coherence need be one of unequivocal necessity. My intuition is that more and more people are defining a
   base level or the initial state of a process in a way that goes beyond a characterization in terms of just local, empirical, observable properties to include real possibilities (some have spoken instead of
   real probabilities, but this raises a different issue) so that outcomes become unpredictable although probabilistically constrained by actual structures.

Well, sorry to run on like this, but you asked challenging questions that I couldn't just disregard. A lot of the points I've raised are discussed by C. Dyke, The Evolutinary Dynamics of Complex Systems:
A Study in Biosocial Complexity (NY: 1988). What you think of this book?
 
Haines Brown

However, as far as Wimsatt's article is concerned, I paid it little heed, for it struck me as logical gymnastsics, appealing to a counterfactual argument to reconcile emergence and reductionism. I'm more sympathetic to physical rather than logical or linguistic argumentation.

Haines, I do not understand everything you say, but I agree with most of what I understand and I do sense a convergence of ideas here, although I am not sure how exactly,

You write:

I had assumed, and you didn't object, that living organisms are hard-wired to perpetuate themselves and so have a build-in Telos. This seems to imply living organisms have a physical measure of success. If they do not eat, they die, and so eating is a better course of action.

I agree (more or less - I do not think that from 'if they do not eat, they die' it follows that eating is always the better course of action).

 

If you happen to agree, it does have the interesting implication that all the talk about the need for consciousness to offer a measure of sucess is not accurate.

*All* the talk about the need for consciousness to offer a measure of success? I am afraid I get caught now, but I don't know about any such talk.

Concerning your example of an organism that tarried to evade a predator and missed the opportunity to seize upon a food source you write:

So we have a need, which, although having a hard wired basis, is not a physical property but a pre-condition of life, standing in relation with a possibility in the environment, not actual empirical properties but a possible effect of properties.

I have the impression that you are confusing different notions of needs and different kinds of explanation.  As I explained in my "The Functional Perspective of Organismal Biology" (2005), I think (as do many biologists)  that in order to understand living systems one needs a combination of explanations of four kinds to explain organisms and their behavior: mechanistic explanations, design explanations (usually called functional explanations), developmental explanations and evolutionary explanations.

As you indicate, in your example the mechanistic explanation might be that he organism evaluated its actions according to its present needs and concluded that it was best to give priority to avoiding predators over seizing a possible source of food. This means that the organism must have a hard wired representation of what is worth getting, as well as a mechanism to compute the score of different actions on these values and, perhaps a mechanism to change the computation based on the results of the chosen action. This explanation talks about needs as that what the organism values. Let's call needs in this sense subjective. These needs are hard-wired into the organism.

There is another sense of 'need', namely: that what the organism actually needs to stay alive. Let's call this the objective needs. Objective needs are hard (if the organism does not satisfies them it dies) but unlike subjective needs not hard-wired. As you aptly say, objective needs are pre-conditions for life. But these are not the kind of needs that figure in the mechanistic explanation.

I agree that the mechanistic explanation above does not suffice to understand the behavior, In my view, the very nature of a mechanism as a system *organized* for the production of a certain behavior means that a mechanistic explanation never suffices to understand a mechanism. In order to understand the behavior of an organism the mechanistic explanation must be supplemented with a design explanation, a developmental explanation and an evolutionary explanation.

I don't see that the mechanistic explanation above presents the behavior of the organism as the passive result of the environment acting upon the organism. In my view, a choice mechanism is a paradigmatic example of an active response to what happens in the environment,

The design explanation will start with the 'observation' that it is an objective need that the subjective needs are such that they help the organism to satisfy its objective needs and will continue by showing that the subjective needs satisfy this constraint but it cannot explain how that state (the state of the subjective needs being such that they help the organism to meet its objective needs) came about. For that reason it is not a causal explanation.

Developmental and evolutionary explanations explain how the mechanism came to be the way it is and hence how come that the subjective needs are tailored to the objective needs,

I am afraid that I get caught a second time, for I have no idea what you mean when you talk about "the old fashioned functionalism based on causality". 

I'm left with the feeling that [...] a different notion of explanation is involved that does not look to necessity, but to possibility

In my view, design explanations are concerned with what mechanisms can be alive, so in that sense they are concerned with possibility rather than necessity. However, because it is necessary that the actual form is one of limited number of possible forms, I am of opinion that design explanation show that the phenomenon to be explained is somehow necessary. (Newton's laws do not show that the moon necessarily circles around the earth, only that this motion is one of the possible forms in which a two-body system can exist!)

Now, mechanistic explanation is reductionist in that behavior is unequivocally determined by sensory inputs, and it seems you object that this is too simple a description of animal behavior, which is 
to some extent always a bit unpredictable or complex.

Often in the natural sciences, one can successfully employ a reductionist methodology to analyze each link in a causal chain, but then this is no longer a functional explanation, but a
mechanistic explanation.

And your word "design" surely implies more than just functionality, and seems to imply an ideal model.

If I cross the stream by hoping from rock to rock, each rock functions as a stepping stone, but the ideal model is limited to my conscious mind when it infers from seeing the rocks that I might cross the stream by using them.

Haines, I do not want to suggest that you confuse needs and explanation. My impression was that you confuse objective needs and subjective needs and also that you confuse design explanations and mechanistic explanations that appeal to needs and/or functions.