Steve Kurtz wrote: > > Brad, > > I was using "teleology" in the grandest sense: a direction of reality, > a purpose or meaning of life other than our anthropogenic ascriptions. > Is it necessary to "find justification for our[-]selves" outside of > the values and meanings nurture&nature (incl our creativity) produce? > Is any other notion of teleology verifiable/falsifiable?
I think that this is going to be a continuing problem, although, as Marx said, by solving our current problems we are led to "higher order" problems, and I think I'd rather worry about the maening of life than about where my next meal is coming from. Personally, I would find any external purpose unacceptable. For instance, I consider Kant's Categorical Imperative to be a form of "Tyranny of practical reason". I can only accept something that *appeals* to me rather than compelling me (even just argumentatively). But how do I know what a[ppeals to me isn't tricking me? (Or that it appeals to me because of my uncritically reflected childrearing and adult social conditioning?) I think a verifiable or falsifiable teleology would be an "existential self-contradiction" even if not a strictly logical self-contradiction. However, I can perhaps conceive of an Omnipotence(?) Who created the world for some purpose of His but gave me "free will", entering into a peer-to-peer dialog with me (But could I ever *fully* trust Him?) and trying to get me to want to approve of the world He had made and of His purpose for it. I can conceive of this because I can conduct the analogous thought experiment of conceiving of the owner of the company I work for doing the same thing (mutatis mutandis). > > The only one I've been able to accept is the tendency of life to > perpetuate itself, and there are exceptions to that - it's not an > absolute in 100% of individual life forms (but may be for life in > general??). In my opinion, Abraham (myth?) is an example of the > exception that proves the rule. Yes, life seems to have a tendency to perpetuate itself. Did you read in last week's New York TImes (or probably lots of other places) about the Catch-22 gene the scientists have found that helps prevent us from getting cancer *and* makes us age, so that we can have longer life and more cancer or shorter life and less cancer. (As for me, I eat my yoghurt and hope to live to be 140 like the Russian peasants in the Dannon ads.) It's just a good thing Y-w-h didn't tell Abraham to learn to fly Boeing 767s (no need to learn how to take off or land one). \brad mccormick > > Steve > > B.McC: > "Teleology is not easy to justify" --> One way of reading that > sentence destroys teleology, since teleology is supposed to > be how we find justification for our[-]selves, rather than > the other way around. Abraham did not anguishedly debate > with himself whether to take Isaac up onto the mountain. > > -- > http://magma.ca/~gpco/ > http://www.scientists4pr.org/ > Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a > finite world is either a madman or an economist.�Kenneth Boulding -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
