We applaud Baumard et al. for their timely and far-reaching treatment of human morality: timely, because today's crisis of confidence in moral values is widespread; far-reaching, because their treatment promises to enable scientists to go after the monumental challenge of discovering a solution to what the authors call the “puzzle of the missing contract” (sect. 1, para. 3). In this commentary, we argue that the puzzle is a special case of the “paradox of the missing function” applicable widely to biological systems. In our related research, the paradox is about a sharp distinction between biofunctional understanding and biofunctional cognition, and arises because biofunctional understanding is something evolution knows how to do but people don't, including today's scientists – at least not yet. By contrast, biofunctional cognition defines the sphere and the limits of what people are able to know how to do, at least in principle. The gist of the paradox is that people have conflicting intuitions about their own understanding. They know, by means of biofunctional cognition, that they understand; but they also know that they know nothing else (their undeniable ability to understand notwithstanding) about the nature of how that understanding takes place (in the nervous system).
Biofunctional theory began in the late 1970s when understanding was discovered to be different from the knowing capability of people. Accordingly, understanding was defined as the special function of the nervous system, designed and field-tested by evolution, about which the understanders themselves knew nothing (Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad1978; Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Iran-Nejad et al. Reference Iran-Nejad, Marsh and Clements1992). The special function of understanding was analogous to the special function of the human immune system, also designed and field-tested by evolution to recover patients from infectious diseases, without the patients themselves knowing anything about the function by which recovery takes place or even having any idea that there exists such a system as the immune system whose special function is to take care of the recovery process.
Over the years, biofunctional theory has evolved in our work into a new perspective on understanding, knowing, and their relation encompassing the following four areas of focus: (a) a growing distinction between understanding and knowing (Iran-Nejad & Stewart Reference Iran-Nejad and Stewart2010b; Reference Iran-Nejad and Stewart2011), (b) two different kinds of understanding, (c) two different kinds of knowing, and, overall, (d) what has emerged to be two distinguishable realms of biofunctional understanding and biofunctional cognition (Iran-Nejad & Gregg Reference Iran-Nejad and Gregg2011). For example, there is convincing intuitive, observational, and scientific evidence to suggest that understanding may very well be the special function of the nervous system, just as breathing is the special function of the respiratory system (Iran-Nejad & Stewart Reference Iran-Nejad, Stewart, Ifenthaler, Kinshuk, Isaias, Sampson and Spector2010a). This implies that immediate and effortless biofunctional understanding may be contrasted with psychological understanding or the understanding that may result from effortful mental reflection (Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Iran-Nejad & Gregg Reference Iran-Nejad and Gregg2001; Prawat 2000). Similarly, biofunctional science makes a similar kind of distinction between two types of knowing, namely, (a) personal biofunctional knowing (i.e., biofunctional cognition), and (b) social knowing or the knowing that results from information exchange with other people (Iran-Nejad & Stewart Reference Iran-Nejad, Stewart, Ifenthaler, Kinshuk, Isaias, Sampson and Spector2010a). Specifically, biofunctional cognition is the special function, sculpted by evolution, by which biology produces knowledge effortlessly out of the immediate ground of biofunctional understanding in the form of first-person revelations, insights, or clicks of understanding (Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad1978; Reference Iran-Nejad1990; Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Iran-Nejad & Gregg Reference Iran-Nejad and Gregg2011; Stewart et al. 2008). Social cognition, then, occurs in the global coherence context provided by the ground of biofunctional understanding (Iran-Nejad 1994).
It is possible, we believe, to demonstrate that the target article's “puzzle of the missing contract” is a special case of biofunctional science's “paradox of the missing function” first discovered, to our knowledge, in the 1970s and refined in our work during the decades since (Prawat 2000; Rosch 2000). According to the target article, humans possess inordinately stable intuitions about the existence of a tacit contract that commits them to behave morally – for example, to help those in need and desire punishment for those in guilt. Paradoxically, people also know that there exists (within the sphere and limits of their biofunctional cognition) no moral contract that they have signed or to which they have agreed by choice or otherwise. The authors argue, ingeniously, that the puzzle of the missing contract is analogous to the puzzle of the missing designer; and they suggest that the answer to both puzzles is evolution. We agree, and add that the puzzle of the missing contract is a special case of the paradox of the missing function, the answer to which is, by evolutionary design, biofunctional understanding, which is itself the special function of the nervous system and the (currently missing) link in the realm of biofunctional cognition. Therefore, it follows that the answer to the puzzle of the missing contract is also biofunctional understanding.
The striking similarity between the paradox of the missing function and the puzzle of the missing contract may be explained as follows (see, e.g., Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Prawat 2000). People seem to report fact-like (or self-evident) intuitions acknowledging an internal capability for understanding the world and the people around them. This is analogous to the selective mutualistic pressure to be fair or to help, for example, a fellow human being in need in order to be a fellow human being in deed. Paradoxically, people also report that similar intuitions tell them that they know nothing else about this internal capability (or missing function) and how it might work. For example, they know they do not have to choose to understand someone else (the choice is already made for them by the function missing in biofunctional cognition), and, if they did have to make the choice, they would hardly know enough about the missing function to make it work, certainly not by their own volition. This, we believe, is the same as being compelled (freely) to help someone without having already signed a (marriage) contract to compel one to the selective desire or the behavior of helping. For example, people strongly agree that discovering new ideas causes excitement in them, but they seem to be equally willing to acknowledge that they have no clues about where those ideas or the related excitement come from (Iran-Nejad & Chissom Reference Iran-Nejad and Chissom1992).
In closing, the paradox of the missing function leads to some immediate questions beyond the target article's puzzle of the missing contract. Intuitive, observational, and scientific evidence is uncanny in the direction of some natural function – some function more than a human-drawn contract, something systemic not yet discovered by humans, something that is artificially unmanufactured up to this day – but puts selective pressure on people to want to engage in mutualistic fairness. Is this function similar enough to be included in biofunctional understanding and still be different from understanding in the biofunctional cognition sense of the term?
We applaud Baumard et al. for their timely and far-reaching treatment of human morality: timely, because today's crisis of confidence in moral values is widespread; far-reaching, because their treatment promises to enable scientists to go after the monumental challenge of discovering a solution to what the authors call the “puzzle of the missing contract” (sect. 1, para. 3). In this commentary, we argue that the puzzle is a special case of the “paradox of the missing function” applicable widely to biological systems. In our related research, the paradox is about a sharp distinction between biofunctional understanding and biofunctional cognition, and arises because biofunctional understanding is something evolution knows how to do but people don't, including today's scientists – at least not yet. By contrast, biofunctional cognition defines the sphere and the limits of what people are able to know how to do, at least in principle. The gist of the paradox is that people have conflicting intuitions about their own understanding. They know, by means of biofunctional cognition, that they understand; but they also know that they know nothing else (their undeniable ability to understand notwithstanding) about the nature of how that understanding takes place (in the nervous system).
Biofunctional theory began in the late 1970s when understanding was discovered to be different from the knowing capability of people. Accordingly, understanding was defined as the special function of the nervous system, designed and field-tested by evolution, about which the understanders themselves knew nothing (Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad1978; Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Iran-Nejad et al. Reference Iran-Nejad, Marsh and Clements1992). The special function of understanding was analogous to the special function of the human immune system, also designed and field-tested by evolution to recover patients from infectious diseases, without the patients themselves knowing anything about the function by which recovery takes place or even having any idea that there exists such a system as the immune system whose special function is to take care of the recovery process.
Over the years, biofunctional theory has evolved in our work into a new perspective on understanding, knowing, and their relation encompassing the following four areas of focus: (a) a growing distinction between understanding and knowing (Iran-Nejad & Stewart Reference Iran-Nejad and Stewart2010b; Reference Iran-Nejad and Stewart2011), (b) two different kinds of understanding, (c) two different kinds of knowing, and, overall, (d) what has emerged to be two distinguishable realms of biofunctional understanding and biofunctional cognition (Iran-Nejad & Gregg Reference Iran-Nejad and Gregg2011). For example, there is convincing intuitive, observational, and scientific evidence to suggest that understanding may very well be the special function of the nervous system, just as breathing is the special function of the respiratory system (Iran-Nejad & Stewart Reference Iran-Nejad, Stewart, Ifenthaler, Kinshuk, Isaias, Sampson and Spector2010a). This implies that immediate and effortless biofunctional understanding may be contrasted with psychological understanding or the understanding that may result from effortful mental reflection (Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Iran-Nejad & Gregg Reference Iran-Nejad and Gregg2001; Prawat 2000). Similarly, biofunctional science makes a similar kind of distinction between two types of knowing, namely, (a) personal biofunctional knowing (i.e., biofunctional cognition), and (b) social knowing or the knowing that results from information exchange with other people (Iran-Nejad & Stewart Reference Iran-Nejad, Stewart, Ifenthaler, Kinshuk, Isaias, Sampson and Spector2010a). Specifically, biofunctional cognition is the special function, sculpted by evolution, by which biology produces knowledge effortlessly out of the immediate ground of biofunctional understanding in the form of first-person revelations, insights, or clicks of understanding (Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad1978; Reference Iran-Nejad1990; Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Iran-Nejad & Gregg Reference Iran-Nejad and Gregg2011; Stewart et al. 2008). Social cognition, then, occurs in the global coherence context provided by the ground of biofunctional understanding (Iran-Nejad 1994).
It is possible, we believe, to demonstrate that the target article's “puzzle of the missing contract” is a special case of biofunctional science's “paradox of the missing function” first discovered, to our knowledge, in the 1970s and refined in our work during the decades since (Prawat 2000; Rosch 2000). According to the target article, humans possess inordinately stable intuitions about the existence of a tacit contract that commits them to behave morally – for example, to help those in need and desire punishment for those in guilt. Paradoxically, people also know that there exists (within the sphere and limits of their biofunctional cognition) no moral contract that they have signed or to which they have agreed by choice or otherwise. The authors argue, ingeniously, that the puzzle of the missing contract is analogous to the puzzle of the missing designer; and they suggest that the answer to both puzzles is evolution. We agree, and add that the puzzle of the missing contract is a special case of the paradox of the missing function, the answer to which is, by evolutionary design, biofunctional understanding, which is itself the special function of the nervous system and the (currently missing) link in the realm of biofunctional cognition. Therefore, it follows that the answer to the puzzle of the missing contract is also biofunctional understanding.
The striking similarity between the paradox of the missing function and the puzzle of the missing contract may be explained as follows (see, e.g., Iran-Nejad Reference Iran-Nejad2000; Prawat 2000). People seem to report fact-like (or self-evident) intuitions acknowledging an internal capability for understanding the world and the people around them. This is analogous to the selective mutualistic pressure to be fair or to help, for example, a fellow human being in need in order to be a fellow human being in deed. Paradoxically, people also report that similar intuitions tell them that they know nothing else about this internal capability (or missing function) and how it might work. For example, they know they do not have to choose to understand someone else (the choice is already made for them by the function missing in biofunctional cognition), and, if they did have to make the choice, they would hardly know enough about the missing function to make it work, certainly not by their own volition. This, we believe, is the same as being compelled (freely) to help someone without having already signed a (marriage) contract to compel one to the selective desire or the behavior of helping. For example, people strongly agree that discovering new ideas causes excitement in them, but they seem to be equally willing to acknowledge that they have no clues about where those ideas or the related excitement come from (Iran-Nejad & Chissom Reference Iran-Nejad and Chissom1992).
In closing, the paradox of the missing function leads to some immediate questions beyond the target article's puzzle of the missing contract. Intuitive, observational, and scientific evidence is uncanny in the direction of some natural function – some function more than a human-drawn contract, something systemic not yet discovered by humans, something that is artificially unmanufactured up to this day – but puts selective pressure on people to want to engage in mutualistic fairness. Is this function similar enough to be included in biofunctional understanding and still be different from understanding in the biofunctional cognition sense of the term?