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Teleological Causation
This paper was originally presented to the Second International Con-
ference ofthe Societyfor Psychical Research at Cambridge tn March 1978. 1 am
indebted to my friend, RichardBroughton, whose helpful comments and sug-
gestions on an earlier draft ledme to rewrite the paper in itspresentform. Even
so, I never sought to publish it, hoping always to develop itfurther. Hence it
now appearsfor the first time in print although it was occasionally cited in the
literature.
One ofthe peculiarities ofpsiphenomena, it wouldseem, is that not only
do they defy an explanation in conventional terms, but they appear to involve
a kind of causation
different from that which we associate with familiar
physicalprocesses. We have already discussed the problem ofbackward causa-
tion and we have alluded to the concept of acausal correspondence or syn-
chronicity. Here we go on to consider the case of “teleological” or, as some
wouldprefer to call it,
“goal-oriented” causation.
At last year’s S.P.R. Conference (Beloff 1977), I discussed the question of
whether a causal or an acausal analysis of psi phenomena was the more ap-
propriate. The conclusion I reached on that occasion was that, while we could
not prove that the causal interpretation was correct,
as experimentalists we
must hope that this was so, for there would be little sense in carrying out an
experiment if we could not assume that our experimental conditions afforded
some prospect at least of bringing about the relevant results, and to talk of
bringing something about
is just another way of talking about causing it to
happen.
I did not want to deny that there might be coincidences of a mean-
ingful kind, asJung supposed, although how one was to distinguish these from
sheer coincidences remained unclear. Similarly,
I did not wish to deny that
there might be an inherent nonrandomness in nature such that certain kinds
of events tend to occur in
clusters,
as Kammerer believed, although, here
again, we are not told how we could ever know that we were not dealing with
Teleological Causation
a freak run. But, to admit the possibility of synchronistic phenomena, as l am
quite willing to do, does not mean that psi phenomena must be subsumed
under this category. Jung’s mistake was that he too hastily assumed that causa-
tion could only mean physical causation and so he invented synchromcity to
account for psychic causation.
Let us take a homely example of mechanical cause and effect, namely
turning on the electric light. What in this instance connects event A, pressing
down the switch, with event B, the light coming on, is, of course
the flow of
the current along the wires. Generalizing from this to all cases of mechanical
causation we may identify the cause with some disturbance introduced into
some physical system and the effect with some subsequent change in that
system. We may then say that the two are connected by the continuous propa-
gation of energy through the intervening spatiotemporal interval. Now Jung
was,
I believe, perfectly correct in thinking that the psi process did not work
in this way. And
I do not believe that we can get round this discrepancy by
inventing some kind of psychic
field of force to deputize for the missing
physical field offeree. Where, I think, Jung and his present day successors have
gone
astray
is in supposing
that, without this continuous transmission of
energy, there can be no causation. For, to say that A is the cause of B, implies
only that B would not have occurred butfork, the actual nature of the connec-
tion between them
is another matter; so long as
I am satisfied that my light
comes on when, and only when, I press the switch it would not matter
so far
as the logic of the situation goes, whether there were any wires involved, the
system could just as well work by magic!
But, if psychic causation is not like mechanical causation, what other op-
tions are open to us? Believing with Thouless and Wiesner (1947) that t
e pro-
totype both of ESP and of PK is to be found in the interactions between mind
and brain,
I shall digress at this point to say something about what philoso-
phers call the mind-body problem and then return later to the problem of psi
which I hope may then appear as a special case of mind-matter interaction. In
a new book, The Selfand Its Brain, which is written partly by Sir Karl Popper
and partly by SirJohn Eccles, Popper makes the following point which provides
a clue to our problem when he says: “The great difficulty of the Cartesian
theory of mind-body interaction lies in the Cartesian theory of physical causal-
ity according to which all physical action must be by mechanical push
(Pop-
per/Eccles 1977
p. 180). Push and pull, attraction and repulsion,
is, indeed,
the hallmark of mechanical causality but it has always seemed to those who
have thought about the mind-body relationship exceedingly implausible that
mind should operate the machinery of the brain and nervous system by any
conceivable set of appropriate pushes and pulls. At the same time Popper, like
me,
is an interactionist who believes in the self as an active agent and not just
a byproduct of brain processes; how, then, does he attempt to depict the action
answer this question directly but he does
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talk at some length about what he calls “downward causation.” Ordinarily in
science we
like
to
think
reductively and
to
think
of the
properties
of
macroscopic bodies being determined by the behavior of the microscopic par-
ticles of which they are composed. We say, for example, that the pressure and
temperature of the gas in a container is determined by the motions of the gas
molecules. But we could, ifwe wish, look at the situation the other way round
and say that the kinetic energy of the gas molecules and the frequency of their
collisions are determined by the size and shape of the container. As
I under-
stand the concept, downward causation refers to the influence of an organized
system on the components of that system whether that system be a manmade
machine or a living organism. Since the hierarchical principle in nature is ubiq-
uitous, as Koestler (1978) is never tired of reminding us, there is everywhere
considerable scope for the operation of downward causation. Popper’s own on-
tology comprises three distinct worlds: “World 1,” the world of matter, “World
2,” the world of mind, and “World 3,” that peculiarly Popperian world of
culture and objective knowledge that man has created. Within this ontology
there is both upward and downward causation but Popper argues forcibly that
we cannot understand human behavior without acknowledging the downward
causation on the mechanisms of the brain of both World 2 and World 3.
a
Since such downward causation is common alike to psychophysical beings
like ourselves as well as to inanimate machines like automobiles, we may have
to look further afield for a type of causation that characterizes the activities of
mind. Fortunately,
it may not be necessary to invent a type of causation that
has never previously been considered. Instead, we may have to reconsider an
idea which science discarded some centuries ago but which, before then, under
the influence of Plato and Aristotle, was not merely familiar but was regarded
as the supreme expression of causal law, namely teleological or final causation.
In the world view which prevailed before the scientific revolution of the 17th
century, the behavior of objects, organisms and all natural systems had to be
explained primarily in terms of those ends or purposes which represented their
natural goal and only secondarily in terms of whatever mechanical forces were
acting on them, the extent of whose effect was to make them deviate tem-
porarily from their natural goal.
As we now know, teleological causation was swept away by the scientific
revolution
along with
all
the
other
discredited remnants of Aristotelian
science. One obvious objection to the concept from a scientific point of view
was that one could never be sure, in advance, what was the natural goal which
a given system was set to pursue; except, that is, by waiting to see what hap-
pened and then
it was too late to explain anything except retrospectively,
which was of no use to an experimental science. Mechanistic explanation, on
the other hand, was soon to prove itself an immensely powerful tool for pre-
dicting and controlling the forces of nature. Later a further blow was dealt to
teleological causation during the 19th century with the advent of Darwinism.
The ostensible design and purposefulness that is evident in plants and animals
could thereafter be viewed as no more than the incidental consequences of a
mechanistic process of selection which had eliminated all but those organisms
which displayed these adaptive features. Eventually, what appeared to be the
coup-de-grace for teleology was delivered during the present century as a result
of the combined assault of behaviorism and cybernetics. Behaviorism
is best
understood as the attempt to explain the behavior of conscious, intelligent be-
ings using the same sort of terms that would be appropriate to an explanation
of
the
behavior
of simple
organisms,
inanimate
systems
or
machines.
Cybernetics furnished behaviorism with its most powerful conceptual tool with
its concept of “feedback.” What, hitherto, had been taken as indisputable
evidence of purpose or intention in human behavior could be reinterpreted in
mechanistic terms using the idea of feedback loops and of self-correcting servo-
mechanisms. The voluntary behavior of man, though doubtless more subtle
and complex, was no different in kind from the behavior of a self-propelled
missile or rocket or any other self-steering robot. Since these latter could be
understood without recourse to any metaphysical notion such as free will, so
ultimately could the former. Thus did the scientific revolution, which began
by destroying the anthropomorphic conception of nature, end with the crea-
tion of a mechanomorphic conception of man.
But, while the behaviorist and mechanist program makes good enough
sense if you believe that having a mind is just an incidental consequence ofhav-
ing a brain and nervous system like ours, if you believe, as 1 do, that mind has
at least some degree of autonomy and performs some function in the deter-
mination of behavior, then you cannot escape such questions as how does, and
where does, the mind influence the brain? Eccles, for his part, in this same
volume on which he collaborated with Popper, does not flinch from this ques-
tion and is, indeed, exceedingly bold in speculating both on the locus of the
mind-brain interface and on its mode of interaction. Thus, he speaks at one
point of the mind acting upon certain critically poised “modules” of cortical
cells and of its “modifying the dynamic spatiotemporal patterns of the neural
events” (Popper /Eccles 1977, p. 495). But, beyond implying that this is some
kind of holistic process, typical of downward causation, he does not, any more
than Popper, commit himself to the view that some radically different kind of
causal process is involved to anything we find in the rest of nature. It is at this
point,
I suggest, that we need the concept of teleological causation.
A teleological process may be defined as one that cannot be explained
or understood except by reference to the end state of that process. Perhaps
the most familiar example that we could take of an ostensibly teleological pro-
cess in behavior is that of simply raising one’s arm. What appears to happen
in such a case
is that the physiological machinery of the body
is set in mo-
tion in obedience to a volitional command in order to bring about the state
of affairs envisaged by the agent. Now we can, of course, adopt a materialistic
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The Relentless Question
Teleological Causation
interpretation of the case and regard the raising of one’s arm as no different
j
from any other physical process except,
note,
that,
for some inexplicable
i
reason, the earliest identifiable stage of the process is accompanied by the sub-
j
jective experience we call a volition which gives us our illusion of being free
agents. We can also adopt what I would call a paramechanical interpretation
of the events, that is we could suppose that the mind has complete knowledge
of the anatomy and physiology of the body and is able to activate the appro-
priate neurones at the appropriate moments in order to execute its intentions.
But, what I am suggesting as a much more parsimonious and plausible inter-
pretation,
is to suppose that
it
is the volition
itself that
sets in train the
sequence of events and constrains them to produce the intended result by
whatever means may be available; in other words, that we are dealing with an
irreducibly teleological process. A volition may be ineffective if the means are
not available;
I may intend to raise my arm only to discover that I am in fact
paralysed so that nothing ensues. What makes volition teleological in this sense
is only that, given the appropriate conditions,
it produces an effect which
would not otherwise have come about through any purely mechanical causes.
To take an analogy from the physical realm, we could, perhaps, think of a voli-
tion as like a mold. A mold does not produce anything unless some suitable
substance
is injected into
it but, given these circumstances, the substance
is
then constrained to take on the form of the mold.
There
is much to be said,
in my opinion,
for the view advocated by
William James, a psychologist who thought long and hard about the problem
of the will in the days before behaviorism has excised words like “will” from
the psychologist’s vocabulary as indecent. Injames’ “ideo-motor theory” of ac-
tion the main function of the will was to sustain one idea or image in the focus
of attention against any countervailing idea or image that might come before
the mind.
Given
this
situation,
this
idea per
se, James thought, would
automatically translate itself into action without requiring any additional fiat
of the will (James 1890, chapter 26, section 518). Thejamesian “idea” was thus
a pure teleological cause. Curiously, there is a remarkable parallel to this con-
ception
in the recent parapsychological
literature where Haakon Forwald,
perhaps the most successful PK subject on record in tests with dice, offers his
own view of the PK process based on his own experience as a subject. He
worked specifically on placement tests where the aim is to make the die deviate,
to whichever side is designated as target for that trial, when it reaches the bot-
tom of the chute down which it falls. This is what he has to say:
In order to obtain positive results in a PK experiment, the subject must put himself
in a special psychological situation, generally characterized as “willing” or “desir-
ing.” According to the author’s experiences, however, results can be obtained in
other psychological situations. A person with the ability to produce strong mental
images of physical events may well succeed in obtaining PK results without relying
on the mental capacities will and desire. This would mean that thejnental image
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is projected to the physical world outside the subject and produces there a real,
meaningful effect. A mental picture which the author has successfully used on
many occasions in the actual placement experiments is an imagined wall at the foot
of the incline where the cubes roll out on the horizontal plane. The wall is imag-
ined as forming an angle with the moving direction of the cubes so that, when hit-
ting the imagined wall, the cubes would be deflected to the target side of their
movement [Forwald 1969, p. 71; italics in original],
I do not think Forwald is asking us to believe, here, that an imaginary wall can
take on the mechanical properties of an actual wall; the way I interpret this pas-
sage is that the idea of the cubes being deflected to the right, as represented by
Forwald’s image of the wall, acted as the teleological cause of their swerving to
the right.
We are now ready to look again at psi phenomena generally. However,
to simplify my task I shall deal only with the case of PK because, although I
believe that teleological causation is relevant to an understanding of ESP, it is
not usually clear in the case of ESP just what constitutes the cause. Now a
typical PK phenomenon may be conceptualized in a number of different possi-
ble ways. One of these is what I would call the “paracybernetic model.” Sup-
pose that the task in question is to make a die fall with a given face uppermost.
We could, if we wished, imagine that we kept track of the orientation of the
die as it tumbled down the chute by means of a clairvoyant feedback and that,
at the appropriate moments, we put forth ghostly fingers, as it were, so as to
impart the requisite PK impulse in order to make it land finally in the right
position. However, this model is, in my opinion, grotesquely extravagant in
assumptions. Thus, for one thing, unless we had clairvoyant ability far beyond
anything we could demonstrate independently this mode of operation would
be useless, there would be too much scope for error to allow even for the
modest success rate of a good PK scorer. But the model becomes even more
grotesque if we move from the macroscopic to the microscopic level and con-
sider what is involved in the electronic type of PK test. Thus, in Schmidt s ex-
periments, where the subject has to influence the output of a random number
generator in order to score a hit, it would be necessary to assume that the sub-
ject could somehow arrange for the electron, emitted from the radioactive
source, to arrive at the Geiger counter at the precise moment when the high-
frequency oscillator was in the right phase. No wonder that Schmidt, for one,
has abandoned the paracybernetic model in favor of his own teleological rneory
of PK. As he puts it: “it may be more appropriate to see PK as a goal-oriented
principle in the sense that it aims successfully at a final outcome, no matter
how intricate the intermediate steps are” (Schmidt 1974, p. 272).
Schmidt prefers to talk of a “goal-oriented principle
rather than of a
“teleological cause,” as I have been doing, perhaps because, being a physicist,
he tends to think of causality as equivalent to physical causality and hence
wrongly assumes that a goal-oriented principle must be noncausal, but I do not
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think that anything more here is involved than a question of semantics. What
is important is that Schmidt has designed and carried out a successful experi-
ment specifically to throw light on the nature of teleological causation (Schmidt
1974a). Briefly, what happened in this experiment is that two different types
of RNG were involved, the one based on a relatively simple circuit diagram,
the other a more complex design. However, the subject knew nothing about
the electronic equipment used which was even housed in a separate room. All
that the subject had to go by was the feedback display which, in this instance,
consisted simply of two lamps of different color, the one representing a hit,
the other a miss. His instructions were just to increase the frequency of the hit-
lamp coming on relative to the frequency of the miss-lamp. PK was implied
inasmuch as there were no normal ways by which this could be done. Now,
trials on which the feedback display was controlled by the simple RNG were
randomly and automatically alternated with trials on which the complex RNG
was operative. Some 35 subjects participated in the confirmatory test and the
results were as follows. Although scoring on those trials on which the simpler
RNG was operative was slightly higher than the scoring on those trials on which
the more complex RNG was operative, there was no significant difference be-
tween the two, both conditions yielding highly significant deviations from
chance with scoring rates of around 54 percent as against a 50 percent baseline.
This crucial experiment was carried out in 1973 and, unfortunately,
I
know of no subsequent work that has been done to confirm it. But Schmidt’s
findings are very much in accord with the earlier research with dice where it
transpired that using a multiplicity of dice or similar target objects did not
depress the rate of scoring. All such evidence supports the teleological model
which assumes that, so long as the means are available, the same end will be
attained no matter how complex those means, but
it contradicts the para-
cybernetic model which would predict that an increase in the information load
should lower the rate of success.
Schmidt has attempted to formulate his model in terms of what he calls
his “mathematical theory of psi” (Schmidt 1975). What is critical in this con-
ceptualization of PK is the feedback received by a motivated subject or “psi
source” as Schmidt would have it.
It is only at the point where the subject ob-
tains confirmation of success that the psi process is activated and, tracing back
events to the start of the experiment, these can then be shown to follow a teleo-
logical course to produce in the end the very results whose observation consti-
tutes the feedback. Schmidt goes further and extends his theory to all instances
of psi,
all of which now become a species of PK. Precognition, for example,
is no longer a case of the future fulfilling event causing a present precognitive
response in the subject, rather it is now a question of the observation of that
event, when this eventually comes to pass, retroactively and psychokinetically
eliciting the precognitive response from the subject’s brain which, in Schmidt’s
model, here corresponds to a random number generator.
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r”^r»^;Sco*d
rbXmtlraltd t^ctiTlhe chief empmcal
grounds, apart from Schm^
when
Se sumes ofthe experiment by retroactively and teleologically t'™s
‘‘“
'
problem
clearly weighed with Schmid
j
„ Ac „ork 0f Walker
and exists simultaneously in a range of poss bie states, eacn
do we get a collapse of the state yeew
g
g
neutral observers
or result of the experiment. So long as « are dealing^with
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rather than another outcome of the experiment, then we get the systematic
bias which we interpret as a significant psi score. Thus, theoretically, a paranor-
mal event
is no more than a highly improbable event brought about by the
psi source who can modify the distribution of probabilities defining the state
vector. On this showing, PK does not act like a physical force, rather it is, as
Schmidt points out (1975a, p. 226), a stochastic phenomenon that “violates t-he
second law of thermodynamics without violating the conservation laws for
energy etc.” Since virtually every physical object in nature exhibits
at the
microscopic level a certain fuzziness or noisiness, there
is always ample scope
for PK providing that object is coupled with a motivated psi source which feeds
information into the system.
Following Schouten
(1977),
I
shall
use the
expression
“observational
theory of psi” indifferently fot all such theories as those of Schmidt and Walker
in which feedback is critical for the psi process.
It represents an entirely new
theoretical approach to parapsychology and whatever it portends there can be
no doubt of the strong attraction it has already had for such experimentalists
of the new generation as Richard Mattuck, Brian Millar or Richard Broughton.
The reasons for this appeal are not hard to seek. In the first place this approach
holds out the promise of linking parapsychology with advances in quantum
physics and thereby ending its long isolation as an unattached and anomalous
field of inquiry. In the second place it offers, perhaps for the very first time in
parapsychological history, the possibility of precise, deductive, quantitative
predictions. For example, we could deduce that the noisier the target system
the more sensitive it should be to a PK effect. Admittedly there are still some
awkward implications that need sorting out, for example the so-called “diver-
gence problem” raises the question ofwho is to count as the ultimate observer?
Until this question is settled we cannot even know when an experiment is con-
cluded. But the theorists are actively struggling with such questions and we
must give them time.
As a mete layman, I can, of course, offer no opinion as to the soundness
of such theories, whether, for example, they represent a legitimate extension
of quantum theory, whether Walker (1974)
is justified in identifying con-
sciousness and will as hidden variables of the quantum process, and so on. But,
even as a layman, there are certain logical aspects of the observational theory
that
I find disconcerting and to which
I feel justified in drawing attention.
Now, as I have argued elsewhere (see the preceding paper in this volume) there
is no fundamental objection, that I can see, despite what some philosophers
have said, to the idea of backward causation per se, hence
I have no a priori
objection to its apparent circularity. Such circularity exists already in connec-
tion with the so-called intervention paradox in precognition. Thus, if an acci-
dent about which I have dreamt should occur because of certain steps which
I took in consequence of my dream, we would have a typical self-fulfilling
prophecy while, equally, if the accident is avoided only because of certain steps
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I took in consequence of my dream, we would have a typical self-defeating
prophecy. In either case we become involved in what I would call a causal loop,
in this instance an event A (the accident) retroactively causes an earlier event
B (the precognitive dream) which, in turn, becomes a causal ancestor of the
original event A; of, even more paradoxically, in the negative example, be-
comes the causal ancestor of an event not-A. What, on the face of it, we appear
here to be saying is that an event may be indirectly the cause of itself or even
the cause of its own nonexistence! Various more or less far-fetched theories
have been advanced in order to deal with the paradox of intervention including
the idea of multiple universes and potential fiitures. But while we may have
to resign ourselves to living with paradoxes in the case of precognition, the
price we are being asked to pay by the protagonists of observational theory is
to have to tolerate such paradoxes in every case where psi
is involved since,
whether
it be an instance of ESP or PK that we are considering we are con-
fronted with an event A, the feedback event, influencing an earlier event B,
the psi response, which in turn, eventually produces the event A. The theorists
themselves do not appear to be specially worried by these consequences of their
theories; Schmidt (1975), for example, claims that his mathematical formalism
can take care of the intervention paradox, but whether we
their customers
ought to be so unconcerned, I am less sure. Even if, from the formal point o
view
there are no inconsistencies in their theories, we still have a duty to try
and make sense of it all intuitively. Hence, while I would hesitate to proclaim
that what I have been calling causal loops are logically inadmissible, in the way,
for example, that self-referring statements are logically improper, they are, to
say the least, troublesome.
b
.
.
Finally on the assumption that a psi effect is involved m normal voluntary
action, can the observational theory be extended to cover this situation as well?
This would mean that my capacity to raise my arm when I will to do so depends
not only on the intention, volition orJamesian “idea” which can translate itself
into motor responses, plus a muscular system that
is in working order, but
also on my subsequent perception of my arm as having risen. At first it struck
me that such an interpretation of what was involved in every voluntary action
was
altogether
too
far-fetched and
implausible
to be worth
defending^
However, when
I came to try and formulate specific objections to it,
I found
that none of them stood up to examination. Hence, rather than sacrifice
symmetry between normal and paranormal action, or PK
I am inclined to
think that if the observational interpretation is valid in the latter case, it must
be valid in the former case also. What complicates the issue, where ordinary
voluntary behavior is concerned,
is that it is a continuous process involving a
continual feedback cycle between output and input. When we perform some
skilled action, such as writing a word, for example, there
is a constant visual
and kinesthetic monitoring of the action from start to finish. Cenain skilled
actions
it is true, are executed so swiftly that such continuous feedback is not
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theoretically possible and accordingly they are presumably simply run off from
a preprogrammed sequence— piano playing would come into this category—
but the point is that all our perceptuo-motor skills can be understood in terms
of the accepted principles of cybernetic control. At what point, then, would
the intervention of mind, in the form of a volitional act, take effect?
It is here, above all, that we have to distinguish between ends and means.
Behavior consists very largely of automatizing our habitual skills so that our
conscious attention can be directed towards the novel contingencies in life that
call for special decision-making. Raising an arm is a case in point, so is walking
towards a chosen destination. We have schooled our body in the past to execute
such performances like a well-programmed cybernetic robot. All that we then
require is to initiate,
or, in the case of a repetitive or extended sequence of
movements, to sustain the relevant process which then automatically unfolds
in a self-regulating way. The teleological element in all this would enter only
at the higher level of control which supervenes to make the whole performance
an intentional action as opposed to a mechanical routine.
To sum up what
I have been saying in this paper,
I would make the
following points:
,
(1) Psi phenomena, properly so called, are causal phenomena although
this fact neither asserts nor denies the possibility that there may also be acausal
or “synchronistic” phenomena such as meaningful coincidences.
.
(2) Causality may be either mechanical or teleological- Psychic causation
is teleological in its mode of operation, that is to say psychic phenomena can
be understood only in terms of the ends which they are designed to bring
'osteal Causation
-5
-Tb, Oto-W Tbecne,
“teS
s
^ *** -
Millar. ”
about.
(3) The observational theory of psi, which has only recently been pro-
pounded, implies that psychic causation is both teleological and retroactive in
its effect. It is too soon to say whether this new theory of psi will be vindicated
by further experimental work but,
if it
is, then for the
first time since the
demise of Aristotelian science, we would have an acceptable scientific theory
which uses the notion of an irreducibly teleological cause for explanatory
purposes.
(4) I have suggested that the explanation of PK cannot be divorced from
an understanding of normal voluntary action. Both involve teleological causa-
tion at the point where mind intervenes in an otherwise physical process.
Notes
,
a.
I have elsewhere discussed this work in a review article I wrote for Ihe
British Journal
for
the
Philosophy
of Science
under
the
title
“Is Mind
Autonomous?” (Beloff 1977).
•
,
•
T
a
c d d
b.
The debate continues: Stephen Braude (1979), in his article in J
. A.b.r.K.
,
Approved For Release 2000/08/15
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000701 040001 -5