Collective Intelligence of Morphogenesis as a Teleonomic Process

Abstract

Multiscale competency is a central phenomenon in biology: molecular networks, cells, tissues, and organisms all solve problems via behavior in various spaces (metabolic, physiological, anatomical, and the familiar 3D space of movement). These capabilities require being able reach specific goal states despite perturbations and changes in their own parts and in the environment: effective teleonomy. Strong examples of the remarkable scaling of such goal states during teleonomic processes are seen across development, regeneration, and cancer suppression. I illustrate examples of regulative morphogenesis of multicellular bodies as the teleonomic behavior of a collective intelligence composed of cells. This view helps to unify many phenomena across multiscale biology, and suggests a framework for understanding how teleonomic capacity increased and diversified during evolution. Thus, teleonomy is a lynchpin concept that helps address key open questions around evolvability, biological plasticity, and basal cognition, and a powerful invariant that drives novel empirical research programs.