Abstract
Recently, several critics of the multiple realizability thesis (MRT) have argued that philosophers have tended to accept the thesis on too weak grounds. On the one hand, the analytic challenge has problematized how philosophers have treated the multiple realization relation itself, claiming that assessment of the sameness of function and the relevant difference of realizers has been uncritical. On the other hand, it is argued that the purported evidence of the thesis is often left empirically unverified. This paper provides a novel strategy to answer these worries by introducing a role for multiple realizability in the context of biological engineering. In the field of synthetic biology, bioengineers redesign the evolutionary realizations of biological functions, even constructing artificial chemical surrogates in the laboratory. I show how in the rational design approach to biological engineering, multiple realizability can function as a design heuristic in which the sameness of function and difference of realizers can be controlled. Although practically motivated, this engineering approach has also a theoretical, exploratory component that can be used to study the empirical limitations of multiple realizability. Successful realization of the engineering designs would amount to a concrete demonstration of multiple realizability, taking evidence for MRT beyond what is readily found in nature.
Highlights
In its biological version, the multiple realizability thesis (MRT) states that biological systems, like genes, metabolic networks, or organs like eyes, can be realized in various physically different ways (e.g., Putnam 1967/1975; Griffiths and Stotz 2013, 58)
The empirical challenge, on the other hand, can be formulated as follows: are various scientific target-systems in nature multiply realized, or is MRT just a philosopher’s fiction? While the analytic challenge concerns itself with how concepts like Bfunction^ and Brealization^ are usually left vague by the proponents of MRT, the empirical challenge claims that evidence for the thesis is typically based on merely hypothetical cases of what is conceptually possible instead of firm empirical results (Bechtel and Mundale 1999, 176–177; Shapiro 2000, 636)
By using tools from contemporary bioengineering to construct artificial systems which do not have to meet the harsh requirements that natural selection imposes on their fitness, synthetic biology can leapfrog some of the mutational gaps that would be deleterious for natural systems
Summary
The multiple realizability thesis (MRT) states that biological systems, like genes, metabolic networks, or organs like eyes, can be realized in various physically different ways (e.g., Putnam 1967/1975; Griffiths and Stotz 2013, 58). While the analytic challenge concerns itself with how concepts like Bfunction^ and Brealization^ are usually left vague by the proponents of MRT, the empirical challenge claims that evidence for the thesis is typically based on merely hypothetical cases of what is conceptually possible instead of firm empirical results (Bechtel and Mundale 1999, 176–177; Shapiro 2000, 636). By examining the rational design method used by synthetic biologists, I show how bioengineers can partially control the sameness of function and difference of realizers for the artificial systems they construct These artificial systems, in turn, can shed new light on the complicated case of hypothetical evidence of MRT by rendering some of them as concrete material objects.
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