Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
From: throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: net.bio,net.origins,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: the Goal of evolution
Message-ID: <364@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-May-86 13:16:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.364
Posted: Sat May 24 13:16:54 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 15:44:18 EDT
References: <487@bcsaic.UUCP> <1002@cybvax0.UUCP> <1494@umcp-cs.UUCP> <324@parcvax.Xerox.COM> <269@spar.UUCP>
Lines: 51
Xref: linus net.bio:362 net.origins:3106 net.philosophy:5021

> ellis@spar.UUCP

>     The existence of mind with conscious goals is a different question from
>     whether goal-directness a scientifically respectable quality to
>     attribute to biological entities.

Naturally, I agree.  Goal-directedness is a good way to talk about
things that model the world, and which use these models to reach certain
preferred states of being (goals).  Obviously, some biological entities
are among these things.  *However*, the process of evolution itself is
*not* one of these things.  It has no preferred states, and no model of
the world, (it *is* a model, it doesn't *have* a model) and thus has no
goal.

Note that the existance of commonly observed or even clearly preferred
states in a system is *not* enough to conclude that there is a
goal-directed mechanism at work.  The use of a model of a relevant part
of the system to attain the preferred state is also required.

>     By my account, the possession of "mind" is not a requirement of
>     goal-directness; what counts is the possession of an internal program
>     which is able to reference and attain potential real world states
>     through self-monitoring and self-directing mechanisms, such as the
>     teleomechanisms DNA employs to assure the development of an embryo,
>     despite remarkable laboratory-induced disruptions that would never occur
>     in nature.

I agree with this.  However, it is *still* easy to mistake complicated
static construction mechanisms with goal-directed mechanisms.  The DNA
example may in fact be such a confusion, since I don't know that it has
been shown that the DNA posesses a model of the embryo (It *is* this
model, again, it cannot *posess* this model).



I go rather further than Jim Balter in attributing purpose and goals to
systems.  I'd say that when a system understands some aspect of the
world (in the Frank Adams sense of understanding), then that system can
be said to have goals and purpose.  For example, a steam engine with a
centrifugal governer *might* accurately be said to have the "goal" of
running at a constant speed.  But I agree with Jim completely when he
says (paraphrased) that in attributing goals to a system, it is crucial
to pin down what the preferred states are, and what entity has
understanding of these preferred states.

I still maintain that Darwinian evolution, as a process, has no goal.
The members (or perhaps in some cases, groups of members) of the
evolving species have the goal of survival, but the evolutionary process
does not.
-- 
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw