I must admit I was not fully aware of the philosophical background for "intentionality" http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ Maybe I confused "intentionality" with intentions. I am not sure what "intentionality" really means. Nevertheless, the aspect of "intentionality" as world-directedness seems to be interesting (lat. "intendere" means being directed towards some goal or thing, to aim in a particular direction): "intentionality" as existence of a "force" which directs evolution and constraints a sequence of events (incl. possible behaviors and actions). Systems with "intentions" can be considered as organizers, they try to organize things by imposing their order specified in internal plans or schemas on the sequence of external events.
Liveless, physical material has no intentions, even if it is subject to evolution (evolution as gradual development through time, lat. "evolvere" means to unfold, unroll), it evolves usually towards a more uniform, disordered state. Evolution in general is not directed into a particular direction. It has no direction, no plan and no goal. A closed system without non-living elements evolves always towards greater disorder, to a more equally distributed state. -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
