Teleology and Efficiency; Reduction and Elimination

The eliminative materialist holds that intentional content cannot be reduced to non-intentional content.  We cannot reduce beliefs and desires to neurons firing, for neurons firing are not about anything.  As such, they view beliefs and desires to be entities which are native to the rather undisciplined scientific theory of folk psychology.  Folk psychology is the theory which we use to predict and interact with our social environment by way of viewing people (including ourselves) and their behavior in terms of intentional states such as beliefs and desires. The eliminative materialist thinks that the most responsible position for the scientist to do is eliminate folk psychology along with all belief- and desire-talk, if only out of a commitment to methodological naturalism.  Such entities do not reduce to neural states and as such cannot be part of the naturalistic worldview which sees the entire world as being reducible to matter in motion. 

While the beliefs and desires of folk psychology may not be reducible as the scientist would ideally prefer them to be, the theory works pretty well nonetheless.  It works so well, in fact, that we are willing to drive 80 mph on the right side of the freeway with oncoming traffic going just as fast in the other direction out of a “mere” belief that the other drivers will continue to drive on their right side of the road.  While folk psychology may not lend itself to reduction nor precision, it may be the best which we can ever hope to do in our desire to efficiently predict human behavior.

The idea that folk psychology is too good to give up is very much in harmony with that of the reductive materialist.  While it does seem absurd to think that we can ever reduce intentional content to non-intentional matter in motion, the fact is that we do seem to have, in some way, beliefs and desires.  While we may not be able to reduce beliefs and desires to non-intentional objects, perhaps it is possible to reduce the processes by which we come to see ourselves as having beliefs and desires to matter in motion.  Thus, the materialist can, in a sense, have their scientific cake and eat it too, in that they can embrace a reductionism of sorts while at the same time inheriting the impressive predictive success already enjoyed by folk psychology.

As a side note, I think that there are an unfortunate number of people who think that beliefs and desires actually can be reduced, if we only knew how, to neural processes.  This seems to be the case with most people who view memes as replicating entities or patterns within the brain.  The most notable exception to this, however, would be Daniel Dennett’s account of memes in which he refuses to view memes as being anything other or less than than semantic content.  Meme-talk, however, falls a bit beyond the scope of this post.

Closely related to the problem of reducing intentional content to matter in motion is the problem of teleology.  How can beliefs and desires, which are somehow about the future, cause something to happen?  The eliminative materialist sees the elimination of teleology from science as being absolutely essential, as history has shown for the past four centuries.  According to them, there is nothing like beliefs and desires in the mind which are “about”, therefore there can be no causal role, teleological or otherwise, for such to play.

The reductive materialist, on the other hand, does not attempt to eliminate teleology, but rather tries to show how “apparent” teleology reduces to efficient causes upon closer inspection.  An example of just such a reduction of teleology to efficiency can be found in Darwinian evolution.  Why do giraffes have long necks?  So that they can eat the leaves off of tall trees.  This explanation is thoroughly teleological in that the future eating of leaves some how causes the giraffes neck to be long.  This appearance of teleology is what motivates the intelligent design inference like nothing else does.  What Darwin accomplished was to show that giraffes do not have long necks in order to eat tall trees, but rather giraffes with long necks exist because their ancestors were able to eat tall trees.

At this point the eliminative materialist will point out that Darwin did not reduce teleology, but rather eliminated it altogether; teleology in the biological world simply does not exist in any kind of objective sense.  The reductive materialist disagrees; to say that giraffes with long necks exist because their ancestors survived is simply too simplistic.  Rather, it would be more accurate to say that giraffes with genetic codes programmed for long necks and tall tree eating exist because they inherited such a genetic code from their ancestors which had similar genetic codes.   Whereas the eliminative materialist simply sees really, really big bio-molecules (DNA, etc.) in motion, the reductive materialist sees a code which can be seen as being “for” some purpose.  Efficiency and teleology are simply two ways of looking at the same phenomenon.  Similar reasoning can thus be applied in the case of teleological causes and human behavior, wherein teleology and efficiency meet in the neural patterns of the brain.

Let us here take inventory on what we have discussed.  The reductive materialist is not compelled to see causes as being either efficient or teleological in nature.  Rather, the same matter in motion can be interpreted as being both efficient as well as teleological in nature.  Teleology emerged from efficiency by way of biological evolution.  Is it not possible that the same thing can be said for intentionality emerging from these two by way of the evolution of the human brain?

The eliminativist, however, is not willing to go without a fight: it was only apparent, or seeming teleology which emerged from efficiency.  There is still no “real” teleology; effects are not really preceding their causes.  To this the reductionist asks what difference can really be said to exist between apparent teleology and “real” teleology?  What is the difference between a heart which merely appears to pump blood and that heart which really does pump blood?  This difference seems to be exactly analogous to the question of whether a bunch of people living close to each other actually amount to a community or simply appear to be one?  Emergence simply is the creation of entities which really exist by their simply appearing to exist.

Understanding the emergence of teleology from efficiency does not, however, seem half as difficult as understanding the emergence of intentionality from function (teleology) and matter in motion (efficiency).  Nevertheless, the idea that it can be is a very appealing one.