Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!caip!seismo!ll-xn!mit-amt!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.bio,net.origins,net.philosophy Subject: Re: the Goal of evolution Message-ID: <1028@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Wed, 23-Apr-86 14:04:26 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1028 Posted: Wed Apr 23 14:04:26 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 1-May-86 03:43:05 EDT References: <487@bcsaic.UUCP> <1002@cybvax0.UUCP> <32@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <204@spar.UUCP> <311@dg_rtp.UUCP> <211@spar.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 116 Xref: watmath net.bio:419 net.origins:3053 net.philosophy:5164 This was a difficult note for me to understand: I had to print it to try to get the author's intended sense. I think I disagree with you, Michael: if I've misunderstood, I apologize in advance. In article <211@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes: > >>>>Evolution is undirected: ie. it has no long-term goals. [HUYBENSZ] > > >> Survival? Existence? [ELLIS] > > I guess I shouldn't be surprised that so many are quick to assert that > Aristotle's `telos' (roughly `purpose, goal, or aim') has no place in > scientific explanation. After all, physics and chemistry flourished only > after purging all but efficient causes, yes? Yes. Purpose and goals have no place in scientific theory about (literally) brainless subjects because adding them to an explanation adds no more predictive or descriptive ability. Thus Occam's Razor throws out "purpose" and "goals" in favor of "function". (There are meanings of "function" that do not imply purpose.) > Viewed game-theoretically, the evolutionary payoff matrix has two > results -- extinction or survival. I fail to see how to prevent > evolution from becoming tautological unless it is seen as the rationale > behind the first scientifically sanctified `goal'; appropriately, this > goal is existence. Wait a minute: who chose survival as a goal over extinction? While we may personally prefer one over the otehr and pay more attention to it, there is no reasonable argument that one or the other is a purpose or goal of evolution. Both are phenomina associated with evolution. > Sure -- we usually view biological teleology behavioristically -- one > does not have to attribute conscious goals to genes, organs, species, or > whatever, to speak of the `purpose' of that which is under analysis. > The purpose of my heart is, after all, to pump blood, is it not? Actually, "function" can serve quite as well, and without the burden of excess meaning that "purpose" provides. The only thing I can say in favor of the word "purpose" is that it makes explainations to most people (who are most familiar with teleological explanations) simpler and more direct. ... > Such teleological explanations are totally different from `real' causes > as the gravitational attraction behind falling rocks; evolution, like > entropy, operates on the level of information, not the level of raw > matter itself. I don't perceive any such "level of information". Evolution operates on just plain matter like any other descriptive law. We make descriptive abstractions like matter and species for our own convenience, where it is simplest and most compact for us to describe and predict. > Evolution, or any kind of feedback loop, is likewise unanalyzable viewed > by discrete cause=>effect events, whereby causal explanations are > reducible to primitive discrete interactions, such as described by > Wesley Salmon in "Causal Structure of the World": > > chain fork junction collision > > before c1 c1 c1 c2 c1 c2 > | / \ \ / X > after e1 e1 e2 e1 e1 e2 > > There is no way to embed anything like feedback loops or evolution > within such interactions as the above. Feedback loops require that a > later event, such as a next-generation copy of (genetic) information, > be identified with an earlier `instantiation' so that we `imagine' that > the cause effects itself. I disagree. Any time-based feedback loop can be unwound into chains of the discrete structures you list above. The idea of loops is simply a shorthand for long chains whose elements are extremely similar. > As far as I can tell, evolution is the implicit rationale whereby > teleological arguments (`the purpose of my heart is to > pump blood') are supposedly reduced to `proper scientific causal' > explanations (`hearts gradually evolved because pumping blood > led to species more fit to survive'). I think here you are just noting that it is clumsier to speak in a non- teleological fashion than otherwise. We are raised from infancy with teleology embedded within our language, because human institutions are teleological. The rest of the universe doesn't seem to operate that way. Thus we're at a disadvantage because we are less practiced with non- teleological modes of speech. > What's so awful about `purpose', anyway? Goals imply that `information' > exists which can refer to and cause potential future real world states > of existence. Every text I have encountered on modern biological > methodolology and epistemology embraces teleology in some form. > (Re: Mayr's "Growth of Biological Thought" or Rosenberg's "The > Structure of Biological Science"). There seems to be a metaphysical > rebellion among biologists these days. The answer to "what's so awful..." is the same as the answer to "what's the benefit of Occam's Razor?" "Purpose" is more comfortable for us to use, but less accurate. I don't think you are identifying rebellion so much as convenience. > I think it is clear that the natural teleology intrinsic in evolution > explains WHY consciousness is intentional and goal-directed (rather > than strictly rational) in the first place. I think you are placing the cart before the horse. You are finding "natural teleology" in evolution because that is the way your consciousness works most conveniently. -- Strephon: "Have you the heart to apply the prosaic rules of evidence to a case brimming with such poetical emotion?" Chancellor: "Distinctly." From "Iolanthe", by Gilbert and Sullivan. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh