Re: Re: Re: Re: life is teleological
Hi Telmo Menezes purpose /Noun The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. Verb Have as one's intention or objective: God has allowed suffering, even purposed it. That seems reasonably straightforward, or at least it's not completely arbitrary. In Leibniz this is the basis of the principle of sufficient reason. Things must be the way they are for some reason. That quest is the activity of science. [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] 12/17/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-12-16, 06:16:47 Subject: Re: Re: Re: life is teleological Hi Roger, Man has no purpose (wise or foolish, it doesn't matter) in life ? He has evolved, hasn't he ? So man is at least one example of purpose driving or enhancing evolution. Purpose is a human construct. DNA encodes the developmental process (or algorithm) for our brain. This developmental process then takes place in an environment inhabited by other humans and a lot of other stuff. The directives encoded in DNA allow the brain to adapt to this environment. So the brain is encoded with a preference to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The way that experiences are classified as painful or pleasurable is fine-tuned by aeons of evolution. The homo sapiens occupies a very specialised evolutionary niche, in which it relies in the superior pattern-matching and future state-predicting capabilities of its gigantic brain. So in a way, the homo sapiens niche is that of being capable of adapting faster and better to new situations. This requires a level of neural sophistication that is unmatched by any other species we've seen so far. This sophistication includes complex constructs like purpose. You're right in that, in a way, we have now transcended evolution. We developed medical technology that allows us to keep members of our species alive when otherwise they would have died (I would have been dead at 1 month old, killed by a closed stomach valve). We developed artificial insemination, allowing for reproduction where it would have been impossible. Our super-complex society keeps altering the mate selection process. Changes in sexual morality across time and space continuously affect the evolutionary process. We are now in the process of becoming full-blown designers, by way of genetic engineering and nano-tech. All this came as a by-product of the evolutionary drift towards our niche: gigantic brains and their complexities. Avoid pain and seek pleasure - now with super-super-super computers. Why do we avoid pain and seek pleasure? Why do we have gigantic brains? Because this configuration passed the evolutionary filter. It turns out that it's stable enough to persist for some time. Now back to evolution itself: it does not have any preference for niches. That's an anthropomorphizing mistake. We persist doing our thing, e-coli persist doing theirs. So finally my main point: evolution does not have a purpose, but it is capable of generating systems sufficiently complex to feel a sense of purpose. Have a great Sunday, Telmo. [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] 12/15/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-12-13, 11:30:40 Subject: Re: Re: life is teleological Hi Roger, To be purposeful you need a self or center of consciousness to desire that goal or purpose. The key word is desire. Stones don't desire. Ok, but what I'm saying is that purposefulness is not present in evolutionary processes. [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] 12/13/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - From: Telmo Menezes Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-12-12, 14:21:04 Subject: Re: life is teleological Hi Roger, Anything goal-oriented is teleological, which is what the word means. And the goal of life is to survive. So evolution is teleological. Sorry but I don't agree that life or evolution have a goal. That would be a bit like saying that the goal of gravity is to attract chunks of matter to each other. You could instead see life as a process and evolution as a filter: some stuff continues to exist, other stuff doesn't. We can develop narratives on why that is: successful replication, good adaption to a biological niche and so on. But these narratives are all in our minds, we ourselves looking at it from inside of the process, if you will. From the outside, we are just experiencing the stuff that persists or, in other words, that went through the evolutionary filter at this point in time. In other words, life is intelligent. Suppose I postulate that the goal
Re: Re: Re: life is teleological
Hi Roger, Man has no purpose (wise or foolish, it doesn't matter) in life ? He has evolved, hasn't he ? So man is at least one example of purpose driving or enhancing evolution. Purpose is a human construct. DNA encodes the developmental process (or algorithm) for our brain. This developmental process then takes place in an environment inhabited by other humans and a lot of other stuff. The directives encoded in DNA allow the brain to adapt to this environment. So the brain is encoded with a preference to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The way that experiences are classified as painful or pleasurable is fine-tuned by aeons of evolution. The homo sapiens occupies a very specialised evolutionary niche, in which it relies in the superior pattern-matching and future state-predicting capabilities of its gigantic brain. So in a way, the homo sapiens niche is that of being capable of adapting faster and better to new situations. This requires a level of neural sophistication that is unmatched by any other species we've seen so far. This sophistication includes complex constructs like purpose. You're right in that, in a way, we have now transcended evolution. We developed medical technology that allows us to keep members of our species alive when otherwise they would have died (I would have been dead at 1 month old, killed by a closed stomach valve). We developed artificial insemination, allowing for reproduction where it would have been impossible. Our super-complex society keeps altering the mate selection process. Changes in sexual morality across time and space continuously affect the evolutionary process. We are now in the process of becoming full-blown designers, by way of genetic engineering and nano-tech. All this came as a by-product of the evolutionary drift towards our niche: gigantic brains and their complexities. Avoid pain and seek pleasure - now with super-super-super computers. Why do we avoid pain and seek pleasure? Why do we have gigantic brains? Because this configuration passed the evolutionary filter. It turns out that it's stable enough to persist for some time. Now back to evolution itself: it does not have any preference for niches. That's an anthropomorphizing mistake. We persist doing our thing, e-coli persist doing theirs. So finally my main point: evolution does not have a purpose, but it is capable of generating systems sufficiently complex to feel a sense of purpose. Have a great Sunday, Telmo. [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] rclo...@verizon.net] 12/15/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com *Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Time:* 2012-12-13, 11:30:40 *Subject:* Re: Re: life is teleological Hi Roger, To be purposeful you need a self or center of consciousness to desire that goal or purpose. The key word is desire. Stones don't desire. Ok, but what I'm saying is that purposefulness is not present in evolutionary processes. [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] rclo...@verizon.net] 12/13/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - *From:* Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com *Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Time:* 2012-12-12, 14:21:04 *Subject:* Re: life is teleological Hi Roger, Anything goal-oriented is teleological, which is what the word means. And the goal of life is to survive. So evolution is teleological. Sorry but I don't agree that life or evolution have a goal. That would be a bit like saying that the goal of gravity is to attract chunks of matter to each other. You could instead see life as a process and evolution as a filter: some stuff continues to exist, other stuff doesn't. We can develop narratives on why that is: successful replication, good adaption to a biological niche and so on. But these narratives are all in our minds, we ourselves looking at it from inside of the process, if you will. From the outside, we are just experiencing the stuff that persists or, in other words, that went through the evolutionary filter at this point in time. In other words, life is intelligent. Suppose I postulate that the goal of stars is to emit light. Are they intelligent? If not why? What's the difference? [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] rclo...@verizon.net] 12/12/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - *From:* Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com *Receiver:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Time:* 2012-12-11, 16:03:57 *Subject:* Re: Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional,brain study shows On Tuesday, December 11, 2012 3:46:23 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Yes, I sent a search link for you to know the opinions about it. in EP
Re: Re: life is teleological
On Thursday, December 13, 2012 8:32:10 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg Teleology or intending from inside toward a goal is the science of final causation, to use Aristotle's term. Because from inside, it requires intelligence. Such is life. Or driving a car. Science or determinism deals with effective causation (pushing from outside). No self-directing intelligence is needed. I agree with that, although to be precise, effective causation is not so much a pushing as a falling or flowing. This is why evolution is effective causation. There's no intelligence there. Some species die out, others live on. The species themselves have intelligence, but that doesn't always give them an evolutionary advantage. Sometime the stupid ones sleep in their caves while the tiger kills off the smart ones hunting in the jungle. Craig [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net] javascript: 12/13/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - *From:* Craig Weinberg javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2012-12-12, 15:41:47 *Subject:* Re: life is teleological On Wednesday, December 12, 2012 2:48:31 PM UTC-5, Terren Suydam wrote: Hi Telmo, I agree with everything you said. However, a goal is something that can only be formulated in some kind of mind - it's a mental construct. So to say life has a goal makes no sense, *except* as the implicit statement that e.g. we interpret that life's goal is to survive. All goals are interpretations... e.g, the goal of a thermostat is to regulate the temperature is still an interpretive statement, because there is a level of description of a thermostat that is perfectly valid yet yields no concept of regulation. Exactly right. The difference between teleology and teleonomy (evolution) is that teleonomy is the accumulation of unintentional consequences. Even if the goal of life were to survive, that goal has nothing whatsoever to do with natural selection. I'm sure that the dinosaurs wanted to survive as much as the mammals who superseded them. Teleology is about initiating sequences and carrying them out voluntarily - sometimes in spite of consequences or in direct opposition to them. Teleology is the defiance of evolution - it is artificial selection over and above natural selection. Craig So then the statement that the goal of life is to survive is ok... so long as we acknowledge that goals are always in the mind of the interpreter. Terren On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 2:21 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.comwrote: Hi Roger, Anything goal-oriented is teleological, which is what the word means. And the goal of life is to survive. So evolution is teleological. Sorry but I don't agree that life or evolution have a goal. That would be a bit like saying that the goal of gravity is to attract chunks of matter to each other. You could instead see life as a process and evolution as a filter: some stuff continues to exist, other stuff doesn't. We can develop narratives on why that is: successful replication, good adaption to a biological niche and so on. But these narratives are all in our minds, we ourselves looking at it from inside of the process, if you will. From the outside, we are just experiencing the stuff that persists or, in other words, that went through the evolutionary filter at this point in time. In other words, life is intelligent. Suppose I postulate that the goal of stars is to emit light. Are they intelligent? If not why? What's the difference? [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net] 12/12/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - *From:* Craig Weinberg *Receiver:* everything-list *Time:* 2012-12-11, 16:03:57 *Subject:* Re: Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional,brain study shows On Tuesday, December 11, 2012 3:46:23 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Yes, I sent a search link for you to know the opinions about it. in EP this your example does not offer a clear hypothesis. But there are others that are evident. It depends on the context. for example , woman have more accurate facial recognition habilities, but men perceive faster than women faces of angry men that are loking at him. I think that you can guess why. It's the guessing why which I find unscientific. It helps us feel that we are very clever, but really it is a slippery slope into just-so story land. There are some species where the females are more aggressive ( http://www.culture-of-peace.info/biology/chapter4-6.html ) - does that mean that the females in those species will definitely show the reverse of the pattern that you mention? Just the fact that some species have more aggressive females than males should call
Re: Re: life is teleological
On Thursday, December 13, 2012 8:40:49 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg Since evolution is evolution of living creatures, who must have the desire to live and grow and mate, A lot of living creatures don't mate. While I agree that life is about desire as much as evolution, I don't see the two as related. Creatures evolve with or without desire. Everything evolves. Crystals evolved from minerals. it is goal-oriented, and thus at least partly teleological. Everything is partly teleological. Teleonomy (I had to look it up) is defined as only apparent puposeful-ness. How do those that assign telonomy to evolution know that it is only apparent ? That sounds like a dodge to me. It's not my idea and it's not a new one either. http://philpapers.org/rec/LAGTRO I don't think that was the paper I read actually, but the one that I did read was compelling in making the distinction between the two. It's unshakably obvious to me now. Teleonomy is a quant game. Teleology is everything else. Do you feel that your life is only apparently purposeful ? No, but my life has nothing to do with reproduction or natural selection. I say that if life appears to be purposeful, it IS purposeful. If you think you're having fun, you're having fun. I agree, of course, but evolution isn't having fun, and it's only purpose is diversification and consolidation. You are conflating the mechanics of natural selection with the progressing quality of life. They are only tangentially related. You are aware, I assume, that some mammals evolved to go back into the sea. It's not always a forward arrow. Some species devolve qualitatively. Craig [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net] javascript: 12/13/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - *From:* Craig Weinberg javascript: *Receiver:* everything-list javascript: *Time:* 2012-12-12, 15:43:15 *Subject:* Re: life is teleological On Wednesday, December 12, 2012 11:56:39 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: Hi Craig Weinberg Anything goal-oriented is teleological, which is what the word means. And the goal of life is to survive. So evolution is teleological. In other words, life is intelligent. Just repeating my comment above: The difference between teleology and teleonomy (evolution) is that teleonomy is the accumulation of unintentional consequences. Even if the goal of life were to survive, that goal has nothing whatsoever to do with natural selection. I'm sure that the dinosaurs wanted to survive as much as the mammals who superseded them. Teleology is about initiating sequences and carrying them out voluntarily - sometimes in spite of consequences or in direct opposition to them. Teleology is the defiance of evolution - it is artificial selection over and above natural selection. Craig [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net] 12/12/2012 Forever is a long time, especially near the end. -Woody Allen - Receiving the following content - *From:* Craig Weinberg *Receiver:* everything-list *Time:* 2012-12-11, 16:03:57 *Subject:* Re: Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional,brain study shows On Tuesday, December 11, 2012 3:46:23 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Yes, I sent a search link for you to know the opinions about it. in EP this your example does not offer a clear hypothesis. But there are others that are evident. It depends on the context. for example , woman have more accurate facial recognition habilities, but men perceive faster than women faces of angry men that are loking at him. I think that you can guess why. It's the guessing why which I find unscientific. It helps us feel that we are very clever, but really it is a slippery slope into just-so story land. There are some species where the females are more aggressive ( http://www.culture-of-peace.info/biology/chapter4-6.html ) - does that mean that the females in those species will definitely show the reverse of the pattern that you mention? Just the fact that some species have more aggressive females than males should call into question any functionalist theories based on gender, and if gender in general doesn't say anything very reliable about psychology, then why should we place much value on any of these kinds of assumptions. Evolution is not teleological, it is the opposite. Who we are is a function of the specific experiences of specific individuals who were lucky in specific circumstances. That's it. There's no explanatory power in sweeping generalizations which credit evolution with particular psychological strategies. Sometimes behaviors are broadly adaptive species-wide, and sometimes they are incidental, and it is nearly impossible to tell them apart, especially thousands of years after the fact. Craig The alignment detection
