[FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

All, or any, 

 

I have been wondering all week why none of you have sent me insults about
the text below.  It appears that ONE of the reasons may be that I never sent
it to you.  Well, now is your chance.  

 

>From the natural design perspective, design is a property of things, not of
minds that make things.  The perspective asserts that a thing is experienced
as designed when it is one of an array of things existing in an array of
environments, such that there is a systematic relation between things and
environments.  Against the background  of such systematic relations, it
becomes possible to say that this particular thing is well-designed for this
particular environment.  Over the years, we have used many different
examples to illustrate this principle.  We can say, for instance, that a
particular building is well designed as a studio because there exists an
array of buildings, and array of functions they perform, and this building
fits the pattern of buildings where artists reside and work.  Or we can say
that this tool is designed for shaving wood because there is a tool kit of
tools, and array of circumstances in which they are put to use, and that
there is in general a relation between the form of the tool of the kit and
the use to which it is put.  Or, we might say that the hefty bill of this
Evening Grosbeak is designed for cracking seeds, because you see at your
feeder birds with an array of beak sizes and shapes, an array of beak sizes,
and there is a relation between the manner in which seeds are eaten and beak
shapes 

 

In several publications, we have taken on the project of recasting
problematic concepts in psychology and biology as instances of natural
design.   The goal has been, from the start, to sort out the describers of
natural design from its explainers so as to better understand the structure
of psychological and biological explanations.   

 

Today we will take on epiphenomenality and its companion, exaptation.  We
will argue for a definition of an epiphenomenon as a consequence of a
structure's (or behavior's) design which has played no part the development
of that structure (or behavior).  Further that such an epiphenomenal
consequence may be said to  exapted when it the structure shows evidence of
design for the originally epiphenomenal consequence.  The concept of
exaptation arose from  a publication by Lewontin and Gould (
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould> Stephen Jay Gould;
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin> Richard Lewontin (1979),
"The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the
Adaptationist Programme", Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B, 205 (1161): 581-598,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibcode_(identifier)> Bibcode:
<https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1979RSPSB.205..581G> 1979RSPSB.205..581G,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doi_(identifier)> doi:
<https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspb.1979.0086> 10.1098/rspb.1979.0086,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMID_(identifier)> PMID
<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42062> 42062,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2CID_(identifier)> S2CID
<https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:2129408> 2129408)   The most
unforgettable example of a biological exaptation is the hypertrophied
clitoris or pseudo penis of the female spotted hyena.  Hyena groups are
organized into matriarchal clans, headed by a dominant female Competition at
the kill is ferocious and the most dominant female secures the most
resources both for herself and for her offspring. In maintaining her
dominance, she uses her hypertrophied cliteris as a display organs, leading
to the obvious conclusion that the organs were adapted for display.   This
conclusion turned out to be false,  The hypertrophy of the organ is in fact
the epiphenomal consequence of a design for high levels of aggression in
clan-leading females.  Such selection led in turn to selection for
hyperproduction of testosterone-like substances in the blood of young
females leading to the development of the hypertrophied clitoris.  That the
organ became effective in display was an exaptation an played no part in its
original development.   

 

Yes, that animal actually exists.   They are large, they are ferocious,
their jaws are incredibly powerful, and they would soon kill you as look at
you. 

 

Nick 

 

Nick Thompson

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

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