The Emergence and Evolution of Goal-Directed Behavior in Collective Entities

How does goal-directed behavior emerge and evolve in living organisms? Attempts to analyze this question often focus on populations of organisms evolving by natural selection, with selection dynamics that tend to optimize organisms. In effect, evolution etches the teleological, goal-directedness structure directly into the organisms, and organisms behave like agents with a set of functional traits that are unified in purpose. However, real-world organisms are not unified agents. They contain dramatic internal diversity and even some conflict, due accumulated mutations (e.g., leading to cancer) and hosted symbionts (e.g., gut microbiota in mammals). Rather than a side-effect or accident, this internal diversity is an evolved feature of organisms and essential to proper functioning. Therefore, we need a new approach for representing the emergence of agency among collective entities. Our project brings together expertise in philosophy, biology, and mathematical modeling to develop new approaches to understanding the evolution of goal-directed behavior. Building on our foundational results from the Agency, Directionality, and Function grants regarding collective actors and holobionts, we will show how departures from unitary individuality lead to distinct forms of goal-directed behavior, reflecting compromise and conflict between evolutionary prerogatives at different scales. Our cross-disciplinary collaboration will lead to research publications on new conceptual frameworks for goal-directed behavior, based on empirically-informed mathematical models. We will also produce scholarly review articles, general-audience publications, and a book proposal to bring this work to a wide audience. In addition, we will hold annual workshops to build a community of researchers working on these questions.