the typical objection to such versions of teleosemantics are swamp-man counterexamples: suppose a thermodynamic miracle occurred, with a perfectly formed human spontaneously assembling out of matter in a swamp. This person’s thoughts cannot be ascribed semantics in a way that depends on evolution. My version of teleosemantics would be comfortable ascribing meaning to such a person’s thoughts, because those thoughts would still be well-understood as being optimized for map-territory correspondence, much like a chess grandmaster’s moves are well-explained by the desire to win.
Swampman’s thoughts haven’t been optimised for map-territory correspondence because Swampman hasn’t actually undergone the optimisation process themselves.
If the point is that it’s useful to describe Swampman’s thoughts using the Intentional Stance as if they’ve been optimised for map-territory correspondence then this is fair but you’ve drifted away from teleosemantics because the content is no longer constituted by the historical optimisation process that the system has undergone.
Swampman’s thoughts haven’t been optimised for map-territory correspondence because Swampman hasn’t actually undergone the optimisation process themselves.
If the point is that it’s useful to describe Swampman’s thoughts using the Intentional Stance as if they’ve been optimised for map-territory correspondence then this is fair but you’ve drifted away from teleosemantics because the content is no longer constituted by the historical optimisation process that the system has undergone.
My reply to this went long, so I made it into a post.