Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 05, 2016, 20:44 (2887 days ago) @ David Turell

This is a long essay which discusses the fact that obvious teleology exists in cellular and organismal actions, source of the intelligence behind this not discussed. Natural selection is taken from its grand position as a driver of evolution into what it really is, an arbiter for survival working with variations presented to it. Talbott is one of my favorite authors for the questions, like Nagel, he presents: - http://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2016/teleology_30.htm - "Of course, rejecting the natural looks rather like bad karma. But then, embracing strictly material meaninglessness is not an obvious key to enlightenment. - *** - "we need only observe the remarkable display of wisdom and carefully coordinated, apparently goal-directed activity so evident in dividing cells, developing embryos, mating animals, and organisms seeking food. We can hardly dismiss the evolutionary relevance of these adroit, adaptive, and seemingly intentional performances. - *** - "Darwin's biology does not deny — rather, it reaffirms — the immanent teleology displayed in the striving of each living being to fulfill its specific ends ... Reproduction, growth, feeding, healing, courtship, parental care for the young — these and many other activities of organisms are goal-directed”. - "Here, however, is where a strange ambiguity begins. For even if what Arp points out seems obvious, he cannot quite bring himself to accept it at face value. So he hedges those remarks with a crucial qualification: “with respect to organisms, it is useful to think as if these entities have traits and processes that function in goal-directed ways” (his emphasis). In other words, the organism's purposive behavior is not quite what it seems. - "This “as if” has long been a cliché of evolutionary biology. - *** - "Of course, Dawkins' own strong predilection runs toward purposeless design by natural selection, a “blind watchmaker”13 who gives us an apparent purpose that — no need to worry! — isn't quite the real thing. On the other hand, many of the opponents Dawkins commonly has in mind prefer an intelligent designer. - *** - "Or, which is much the same thing: “Darwin assumed only variation and natural selection, resulting in adaptation. The ‘results' are the same as if they had been ‘intended'”. We might want to ask, “If the results really are the same as if they were intended, what makes them not really intended?” But perhaps it's not worth the bother. - "The thing to hold onto in all this is natural selection. If there seems to be real purpose in organisms, so we're told, then natural selection explains it, or explains it away, in non-purposive terms. If there is only an illusion of purpose, natural selection is the responsible agent behind the illusion. Just as we trace the machine's intelligence and intentions to a human designer, we must trace the organism's intelligence and intentions, such as they may be, to natural selection, the blind, mindless, unintelligent, yet wondrously effective designer whose existence Darwin exposed. - *** - "So the organism possesses, or is, a power of origination. It constantly brings about something new — something never wholly implied or determined by the physical relations of a moment ago.16 We could also think of it as a power of self-realization. The “design work” accounting for the organism is an activity inseparable from the organism's own life. It is an expression of that life rather than a cause of it. - *** - "It needs adding, finally, that our recognition of intelligent and intentional expressions does not require us to understand everything about their source. - *** - Hugo de Vries [quotes]: - "Natural selection is a sieve. It creates nothing, as is so often assumed; it only sifts. It retains only what variability puts into the sieve. - *** - "Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest”. - *** - "What is life? How can we understand the striving of organisms — a striving that seems altogether hidden to conventional modes of understanding? What makes for the integral unity of every living creature, and how can this unity be understood if we're thinking in purely material and machine-like terms? Does it make sense to dismiss as illusory the compelling appearance of intelligent and intentional agency in organisms? - "No one can deny that our answers to these questions could be critically important even for the most basic understanding of evolution. But we have no answers." - Comment: This essay is on point for our discussion. There is a long discussion on the initiation of variation. Please read it all.