Biological Competency: What Must Any Explanation Posit?

Abstract: This essay examines what any adequate explanation of biological development and regeneration must minimally posit. The target is not physicalism per se, but pure bottom-up sufficiency—the claim that local molecular interactions, without control-level primitives, fully explain how organisms reliably achieve and maintain complex anatomical form. The phenomena examined—embryogenesis, regeneration, bioelectric patterning, and developmental plasticity—are mainstream science with strong empirical grounding. The argument is structural, not metaphysical: certain biological systems exhibit competency—the reliable achievement of global outcomes under perturbation—and competency requires control architecture (goal states, error signals, corrective dynamics). These primitives cannot be eliminated into purely local microcausation without being reintroduced under different names. The essay concludes by noting how different ontologies interpret this constraint, but the central contribution is the constraint itself, not the ontological comparison. Keywords: biological competency · embryogenesis · regeneration · bioelectric patterning · bottom-up causation · control architecture · teleology · philosophy of biology Part of the Return to Consciousness research program — 26 philosophical essays exploring consciousness-first metaphysics. Full project: https://brunoton.github.io/return-to-consciousness/