Is there teleology in nature?

[niceatheist]

This seems like a strawman of what neurologists and pyschologists are studying. No, they don’t observe emotions in a test tube, they use actual subjects. And yes, there is an inherent subjectivity, in large part because we’re a long way from a “theory of the mind” as it were. But then again, we’re a long ways away from a unified theory of all the fundamental physical interactions, but that doesn’t make using General Relativity and quantum mechanics to answer many physics and cosmology problems impossible.

It strikes me you’re trying to argue for a god of the gaps argument here. That’s your prerogative, of course, and I won’t be able to counter it, other than to say that not being able to fully measure things today doesn’t mean we won’t tomorrow.

 

[IWantGod]

No, they don’t observe emotions in a test tube

Precisely.

 

[Wesrock]

It strikes me you’re trying to argue for a god of the gaps argument here. That’s your prerogative, of course, and I won’t be able to counter it, other than to say that not being able to fully measure things today doesn’t mean we won’t tomorrow.

You talk of strawmen then throw out a god of the gaps accusation.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

If you want to conflate what geese do as being the same as human love, make your case

Geese do exactly what people sometimes do, they mate for life. The logical assumption is, that they do it for the same reason.

Cool. But you’ve got to prove that. And then write an epilogue on the comparative divorce rates between geese and people.

Now this may be incorrect, but why assume that it’s incorrect?

Easy.

The theoretical, philosophical default is always “uncertainty”.

It’s a fallacy of logic to assume something is correct.

 

[Vonsalza]

niceatheist:

It strikes me you’re trying to argue for a god of the gaps argument here. That’s your prerogative, of course, and I won’t be able to counter it, other than to say that not being able to fully measure things today doesn’t mean we won’t tomorrow.

You talk of strawmen then throw out a god of the gaps accusation.

Ooooh.

I felt that over in Kentucky.

 

[niceatheist]

Because that’s what I’m seeing here. A lack of a total “theory of the mind” seems to have become a rather big parking garage for inserting various forms of dualism. “Ah well, you can’t know all that goes on in the grey matter, therefore, my theory works!”

What we do know is that hormones, neurotransmitters and even base electrical activity can be used to alter behaviors in both human and animal subjects. That’s a pretty good hint that underlying behaviors in higher animals have a biochemical origin.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

The theoretical, philosophical default is always “uncertainty”.

It’s a fallacy of logic to assume something is correct.

And so it’s irrational to assert that one can know that there’s a God.

I take it we’re not talking about the telos of nature or “love” between geese and between people anymore???

 

[Wesrock]

Because that’s what I’m seeing here. A lack of a total “theory of the mind” seems to have become a rather big parking garage for inserting various forms of dualism. “Ah well, you can’t know all that goes on in the grey matter, therefore, my theory works!”

What we do know is that hormones, neurotransmitters and even base electrical activity can be used to alter behaviors in both human and animal subjects. That’s a pretty good hint that underlying behaviors in higher animals have a biochemical origin.

It’s not a question of “we don’t know,” it’s that it’s impossible to have a consistent theory of the mind with purely quantifiable, strictly materialist assumptions unless your conclusion is “there is no theory of the mind because there is no mind,” which, admittedly, some eliminative materialist philosophers have taken, such as Paul Churchland.

 

[Wesrock]

We’ve moved well beyond a discussion of teleology, though.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

I take it we’re not talking about the telos of nature or “love” between geese and between people anymore???

It all sort of runs together. One must be careful when making assumptions…

Like assuming it all runs together?

Best to forego them whenever possible.

I agree. Otherwise assumptions could lead one to saying silly things like geese mating for life and human courtship are somehow the same thing.

But I’m with you on God. There’s no way to empirically and independently prove it exists.

Those of us who finished intro to western logic also understand that this isn’t the same as proving it doesn’t exist. Just stating truth.

 

[Vonsalza]

Ditto and amen.

 

[niceatheist]

Oh nonsense. I’m sorry, but that’s just assuming your conclusion. A theory of the mind would be a theory that explains the neurological and related processes that go into a functioning mind. If you proceed from the concept that what we call the “mind” (which appears to be multiple processes) is an emergent property, you hardly need to invoke supernatural explanations. And really, what kind of theory of the mind can you produce, and by theory I mean an actual testable set of hypotheses to explain observed behaviors?

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

There is a scientific answer to that. Which is based on evolutionary requirements from a deep, deep past. But there is nothing to say that we can’t add to it in some way. To imbue it with some reason that is personal, that rises above simple animal instincts.

Which doesn’t, need I say, require a deity. Just enough intelligence to understand our position in the cosmos.

Do you believe that all human choices are solely the result of physical cause-and-effect?

No. I don’t.

 

[Bradskii]

oldnskeptical:

Vonsalza:

Sorry, I don’t have to prove the negative.

It’s not a matter of proving a negative. Some may call it pairing, some may call it love. The question is…why call it one thing in one case, and another thing in another case?

Again, sorry.

If you want to conflate what geese do as being the same as human love, make your case.

There’s this couple. They meet at an early age and after some initial courtship they found that they were attracted to each other. They set up home and started a family. They are constantly together and can be seen showing affection to each other constantly. They have never been interested in anyone else. This union is for life. They watch each others backs and are very protective of each other and their offspring. If either partner died, the other would be devasted and would remain single.

Now it would appear that we could say that to all intents and purposes this couple are in love. If you agree, then they are geese. If you disagree, then it’s Mr. And Mrs. Bradski.

I see no difference.

Edit: And we seem to have no problem recognising grief in animals and describing it as such. And you would have to draw a very long bow indeed to explain it as instinctive. So if you grieve for someone, then what was the emotional attachment that causes that grief when a partner dies?

 

[Bradskii]

niceatheist:

We can observe emotional behaviors at a physical levels

But objectively, we do not directly experience emotions at a physically testable or quantifiable level. We do not observe the experience of love in a test tube. Clearly there is reasons to think that there is a duality, even if you disagree…

It’s just one of those things. You either get it, or you don’t.

There is no one thing called love (which sounds like a lyric from one of Sting’s more dreary songs). It goes through stages.

Lust, attraction, infatuation, attatchment, companionship - there’s probably a few more that you could slip in there somewhere as well. And almost all of them associated with various chemicals. At each stage we could accurately measure the chemical output from various parts of the body and list them. Plus all the readings we’d get from anger, jealousy, fear etc. From a strictly materialist viewpoint, we are just a bag of reacting chemicals. That’s all that these emotions are at a molecular level.

But… Just knowing what causes any given emotion does not reduce that emotion to the level of reacting chemicals. It is real on a molecular, materialistic level without ANY doubt. But it is also real at another level. The human level. It’s not either/or.

 

[PetraG]

No. I don’t.

What other force do you think causes them?

This is what I’m getting at:
Take the example of water boiling in a kettle. It is famously said that the reason it is boiling could be said to be that it is boiling because there is a flame under it which transfers energy to the water molecules, causing them to gain sufficient energy to break the intermolecular forces in the liquid and begin the conversions from water to steam OR because someone came along, turned on the stove, and put the kettle over the heat because they wanted tea.

Teleology is the idea that things are the way they are for a purpose. That immediately raises two questions:

1. How does anything have a purpose? Well, for something to be a certain way for a purpose means that some being acted on it with intention, whether or not the intention was realized. The purpose of the hot water boiling was to make tea, and that is true whether the tea is ever made or not.
   There are some people who are so wedded to a mechanistic universe that they don’t think there is any being that acts with intention, that all beings are ultimately driven to act as they do by mechanistic forces.
   In other words, there isn’t much point to discussing teleology with someone who thinks there are no beings who can act with a purpose that is independent of mechanistic forces.
2. What sort of being could (a) have a purpose for nature and (b) have the kind of power required to act upon the entire natural world in order to achieve a purpose? Since we’re talking about all of nature and not postulating the source of crop circles, of course we’re talking about a being with capacity that would strike us as being in the realm of deity.

I appreciate, by the way, that conceding or even proving that the natural world must have been created by a being with both purpose and a capacity that is tremendous beyond comprehension is a very long ways from conceding or proving the existence of an eternal and all-knowing monotheistic deity. You can accept that the Trojan Horse was a kind of a gift without having proven that Santa Claus visited the city of Troy.

I just want to know if anyone has rejected teleology out of hand from the very beginning, simply because the person does not believe that a being with purpose exists that has power of the scope, magnitude and antiquity necessary to have arranged nature for a purpose.

 

[catholic1seeks]

Four approaches to teleology

In his fine book Aristotle , Christopher Shields usefully distinguishes Aristotle’s approach to teleology from two others. Teleological elim...

edwardfeser.blogspot.com

 

[Bradskii]

I just want to know if anyone has rejected teleology out of hand from the very beginning, simply because the person does not believe that a being with purpose exists that has power of the scope, magnitude and antiquity necessary to have arranged nature for a purpose.

From a personal point of view, I see no purpose in the universe. And that view then precludes the existence of God. Well, a personal God in any case. They are mutually exclusive views.

 

[PetraG]

From a personal point of view, I see no purpose in the universe. And that view then precludes the existence of God. Well, a personal God in any case. They are mutually exclusive views.

Well, actually, from a purely logical view it is most reasonable that if an entire universe has a purpose, not every sentient being will immediately appreciate it.

Consider the evidence: People do things for purposes quite beyond the appreciation of the sentient beings around them all the time. Children don’t know why their parents do things. Parents don’t know why their children do things. New people come into older areas and trample on traditions and customs because they see no purpose in the initial arrangement or patterns of things. As often as not, they don’t even recognize that there is a pattern!

Just this amount of self-knowledge makes it reasonable for any of us to conclude that we would be more likely than not to miss the purpose of the universe even if it were sitting right in front of us. Based on your everyday experience with sentient beings and the abundant evidence of how bad people are at discerning the purposes of others, the deity would practically have to contact you personally to let you know what it is, correct? You’re not that much better than the average person at mind-reading the purposes of others, right?

Now, I appreciate that your first impression is that there is nothing in the arrangement of the universe that leads you to the conclusion, “Someone must have arranged this; it could not have gotten this way by the operation of random chance.” I’m only saying that it is typical for an average person to say, “I don’t think there is any method to this madness” and to be, as it turns out in the end, merely uninformed. That is a logical possibility, too.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

From a personal point of view, I see no purpose in the universe. And that view then precludes the existence of God. Well, a personal God in any case. They are mutually exclusive views.

Well, actually, from a purely logical view it is most reasonable that if an entire universe has a purpose, not every sentient being will immediately appreciate it.

Consider the evidence: People do things for purposes quite beyond the appreciation of the sentient beings around them all the time. Children don’t know why their parents do things. Parents don’t know why their children do things. New people come into older areas and trample on traditions and customs because they see no purpose in the initial arrangement or patterns of things. As often as not, they don’t even recognize that there is a pattern!

Just this amount of self-knowledge makes it reasonable for any of us to conclude that we would be more likely than not to miss the purpose of the universe even if it were sitting right in front of us. Based on your everyday experience with sentient beings and the abundant evidence of how bad people are at discerning the purposes of others, the deity would practically have to contact you personally to let you know what it is, correct? You’re not that much better than the average person at mind-reading the purposes of others, right?

Now, I appreciate that your first impression is that there is nothing in the arrangement of the universe that leads you to the conclusion, “Someone must have arranged this; it could not have gotten this way by the operation of random chance.” I’m only saying that it is typical for an average person to say, “I don’t think there is any method to this madness” and to be, as it turns out in the end, merely uninformed. That is a logical possibility, too.

Exactly right. But I can only go where the evidence takes me. And note that I didn’t say ‘there is no purpose’. I said that I can see no purpose. And there’s been a lifetime of looking.

And I think that the best you can say is ‘there must be a purpose’. Because I don’t believe there is any evidence for it. Other than personal opinion.