concept

Teleology

Explaining a thing by the *purpose* or *end* it serves rather than by the mechanical cause that produced it. To say "the heart beats *in order to* pump blood" is a teleological statement. In modern biology the apparent purposiveness of organisms is licensed only because there is a mechanism that produces it - natural selection retaining the hearts that pump well across countless generations. The problem with the "strong" Gaia hypothesis is that it seems to grant a whole planet a purpose - regulating itself *in order to* sustain life - with no mechanism to produce that purpose, since a planet neither reproduces nor competes. The Daisyworld model dissolves exactly this objection: it shows global regulation can emerge with no purpose at all.