Evolution and Purpose

[Flannel Jesus]

Here's a great article on how off it is to talk about evolution as a process with the purpose of 'advancing' the species:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/l5/evolving_to_extinction/

It is a very common misconception that an evolution works for the good of its species. Can you remember hearing someone talk about two rabbits breeding eight rabbits and thereby "contributing to the survival of their species"? A modern evolutionary biologist would never say such a thing; they'd sooner breed with a rabbit.

It's yet another case where you've got to simultaneously consider multiple abstract concepts and keep them distinct. Evolution doesn't operate on particular individuals; individuals keep whatever genes they're born with. Evolution operates on a reproducing population, a species, over time. There's a natural tendency to think that if an Evolution Fairy is operating on the species, she must be optimizing for the species. But what really changes are the gene frequencies, and frequencies don't increase or decrease according to how much the gene helps the species as a whole. As we shall later see, it's quite possible for a species to evolve to extinction.

[James S Saint]

Well, okay guys. From what you have said, I now have the impression that either A) neither of you actually understand evolution beyond the very most simple-minded standpoint or B) what they are calling evolution today is seriously different and less than what it has meant for many years.

So educate me here.
1) Are you saying that the process called "evolution" is no more than merely the mutation process? If not, what else does it include? [Yes, it is just the changing]
2) Are you proposing that the process of evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with advancement of a species in any way, such that it is just as likely to retard due to evolution as advance?

[Yes, it is just the changing]
If you don't understand that natural selection is a purposeless process (hence the word NATURAL, meaning it doesn't need any guidance, it happens naturally on it's own) and that evolution has no goal, then you don't understand evolution. You are a christian after all, so it's to be expected. I wouldn't expect a christian to get it.

Evolution has meant this for a long, long, long time. If you think evolution has the explicit purpose of 'advancing' a species, then you're understanding is below the most simple-minded standpoint. But, again, you are a christian...

I find it interesting that atheists think I am a Christian. Christians think I am Judist. Jews think I Nazi. Muslims... well.. I suspect "think" doesn't apply.

OKay, so now you have convinced me.

Evolutionists ran into some serious problems with their theory that they couldn't explain (or seriously didn't want to reveal). So to save face they (as they often do in Science) redefined the words. Now the word "evolution" has no meaning other than to refer to a changing. But it is critically important to realize that there is absolutely, absolutely no reason for the changing whatsoever. It is purely 100% random. It is purely accidental. No one is to blame. Sometimes bad things just happen to species. Honestly, no one is to blame. No one. Don't think that anyone had anything at all to do with why the species died out. There was NO REASON AT ALL. Such things just happen. No one is to blame. Don't look for anyone to blame. No one is to blame. It is just a NATURAL accident. Go back to sleep and everything will be fine in the morning.

[Flannel Jesus]

The fuck are you ranting about? Who the hell is talking about blaming anybody? That last post just showed how truly, truly off the mark you are. You're on your own trip brother.

But, as I said to Amorphos, this thread is more for people who understand evolution more deeply. I'm not excluding you to hurt your feelings, it's just a quality-control thing.

[nameta9]

MATTER TALKS TO ITSELF....

But even if you knew all of the exact steps, the exact sequence of action - reactions, of configurations Matter underwent in 1 billion years to lead to that exact organism, the Man, the Man Brain, the Human Mind, and even if you knew all of the always partial repetitive patterns (the Bit Set, the Repetitive Bit Set, the frequency modulation of another frequency modulation of another frequency and so on for many levels and many levels deep that create the resemblance of "laws of Physics") that matter transited through, traversed through, the partial laws of Physics and Chemistry (since there are many little, partial, local laws and effects and applications of the laws of physics that are being executed as Matter traverses all of its intermediate configurations until it reaches "Man", the "Man Brain"), all of that knowledge and detail, the knowledge of all essentially would be worthless anyways since it would be just one example of one path Evolution went through to obtain an end result.

It would be just one fluke example amongst a virtually never ending set of examples and possibilities that evolution could execute, all by chance, by purely blind chance (just 10 molecules for 100 configurations can combine in more than 10^100 possibilites, etc.).

But you could reply, that by knowing even a small sequence of events, a small slice of evolution could make it repeatable in the laboratory, we could repeat some of the tricks of evolution, we could put matter in a configuration and feed it actions to make it react and evolve into a first cell, or partially so, or any other subfunction or subset of an organism, etc. But I doubt this is possible since the three body problem can't be solved, the initial conditions, even if slightly different can make the evolution diverge largely from what we expect or could lead to nothing, just like the 50 years ongoing experiments with the attempt of creating something more than simple amino acids have lead to nowhere no matter how hard they try.

I repeat, this is no longer within the realm of science, there are no repetitive patterns discernible, it can't be repeated, or every possible repetition will lead to a different outcome, etc.

Also, if you look at all of the finely tuned "purposes" and mechanisms of the Human Body, or any other animal, from the molecules, to their intricate folding process to the signals and processing going on in all of the billions of cells, the nerves, the brains, etc. and then the end result of all of this "purpose" and complex machine is simply animals that don't do anything at all all day long, that have a very simple behavior, eat and hunt and reproduce and that is the end, such a simple program made up of only a few instructions, then you see how totally without purpose evolution and its results are: and Man being an Excess Capacity Item with a Brain that tortures itself, forcing it to have more purpose than simply nothing at all, which is its real purpose, has to desperately invent ever new purposes, ever new repeatable patterns, rules and games and interactions just to keep on living and not get "bored to death": the most useless and without purpose of animals is Man who thinks he has and even needs a purpose, incredible, how totally void man is of any meaning and purpose and how complex the mechanisms underlying his living are. Nothing shouts out more clearly than this that "Evolution, Nature, Life Are Absolutely Void of any Meaning, Value and Purpose, are Irrelevant to the Utmost Extent".

Also, it is mostly an artistic choice, an aesthetical choice, what "looks right", what looks like it "makes sense" to say that a certain mechanism created the heart, or the heart must be explained and such. And why does that even need an explanation ? Why is simply saying "there is no explanation" not enough ?

And why is even a long chain of complex mechanisms, even if discovered and even if correct so much more valuable than saying "No Reason At All" ?

And, if you condense all of evolution (see it in fast motion, all in a microsecond ?) , if you look at the ball of matter that the earth is, and see it self manipulate, talk to itself for a billion years and generate Man and Minds and oppose this to a "One Shot Act of Creation", what is really the difference ? They are both the same, the path that lead to any configuration of matter is irrelevant, could be any at all, could even be a one shot assignment from nowhere and nothing, or it could be a path with 10^1000 intermediate configurations of matter that lead up to the "Result".

The debate between creationists and evolutionists is only about where to put the miracle, if in a One Shot Act of Creation, or a 10^1000 Step Act of Creation, etc.

Matter slowly starts to interact and talk to itself, and starts to create repetitive patterns, a bit set, a set of information that repeats and interacts with other chunks of matter, and so on, and the bit set becomes larger and larger and then sometimes gets destroyed and the process goes on and on until a stable bit set is reached and memorized and copied to other chunks of matter and so on.

The way Matter can self organize itself through casual chance and actions and reactions is mind boggling and a miracle in and of itself, much more so than an Act of Creation, an Act of Creation is actually the logical, simplest and most turstworthy explanation compared to trying to figure out how matter can self interact and create internal repetitive patterns.

And can you imagine how many other possibilities matter may have, maybe inside Star Plasmas, having many trillions of levels of bit sets, all creating a form of life and consciousness, and other forms of life and Minds and consciousness that don't even depend of any underlying material substrate, or any substrate at all, or any relationship imaginable at all!

The more you ponder it, the more you see how we will never know nothing at all, the possibilities are truly without end...

And how will evolution evolve when man starts to change his Man Brain ? Starts to manipulate how his brain works and how it decodes the world, other actions and reactions, and processes and so on.

[James S Saint]

The fuck are you ranting about? Who the hell is talking about blaming anybody? That last post just showed how truly, truly off the mark you are. You're on your own trip brother.

But, as I said to Amorphos, this thread is more for people who understand evolution more deeply. I'm not excluding you to hurt your feelings, it's just a quality-control thing.

The problem is, FJ, some people are understanding it only too well.

You and PK have repeatedly expressed that it represents mere random changing, nothing else. And if we were all born just yesterday, that would be fine, except we still might wonder why it was ever bothered to be named. I mean seriously, what was wrong with the word "changing" or "mutating"? Of course those words DO imply a cause, whereas it is made clear time and time and time again, that "evolution" HAS NO CAUSE, "It is purely random".

Throughout what passes for science these days when anyone, such as a doctor proclaims that there is no cause, "it just happens", or in physics, particles spring up out of the "nothingness" with no cause, purely random, it is made very clear that either someone is hiding their ignorance or hiding the cause. Since when has Science ever allowed ANYTHING to have no cause?

So either evolution is merely someone's faith based religion, or it has a cause. Nothing with a cause is "random". And that leaves out everything... including evolution.

[James S Saint]

And how will evolution evolve when man starts to change his Man Brain ? Starts to manipulate how his brain works and how it decodes the world, other actions and reactions, and processes and so on.

"If he had one, he would take it out and play with it."

Well.. until he discovered how to not take it out, but play with it anyway.

But THERE IS NO CAUSE.
IT IS A RANDOM OCCURRENCE.

[nameta9]

Also,Jesus, the SON (or SUN ?) OF MAN, THE KING OF THE JEWS, you may want to study all of these blogs very deeply and meditate upon their contents for many years....

http://instantsingularity1.blogspot.it

and

http://instantsingularity3.blogspot.it

THE APETARD, THE APETURD, THE APE, THE EIGHT MEN.... TOBOR TALKS...

[nameta9]

From:

http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/07/salute ... omeys.html

"As a kid, I used to make red and black ants fight. The reds seemed to have more vitality and always won when of comparable size. Some of blacks were huge though - as a compensation. They could hold their own with the reds or even kill them when really big. "


Jesus ph*kng Khrist, and I thought I was crazy ! So are Homes and Buildings that are painted brown or Black inferior to White buildings ? Are black Cars inferior to white Cars ? Wow, you are really off it, absurd....

THE APE THING, THE APETURD, THE TURD APE, THE TURD, THE ROBOT MAN, THE TOBOR...

[Flannel Jesus]

whereas it is made clear time and time and time again, that "evolution" HAS NO CAUSE, "It is purely random".

Ah, good ol' James, misreading things again. Nobody said it has no cause, just no purpose, no goal. You're getting quite mixed up inside your own head, causing you to put words into peoples' mouths again.

There is a causal reason why species tend to become better adapted to their environments over time. That causal reason can be explained completely without reference to purposes or goals. That explanation is commonly known as 'evolution'. It tends to result in what one might be tempted to call 'the advancement of a species', but that doesn't mean it's goal was the advancement of a species. A goal and a result are not synonymous. Your posts, for example, result in the readers realizing that you really don't know what you're talking about, but that surely wasn't your goal. It's thus important to distinguish between a goal and a result. Evolution has no goal, but it has results.

But you read into it what you like brother. We who get evolution don't really care about all these farts coming from your keyboard.

[Peter Kropotkin]

I think its this idea of probability and chance that has everyone confused.
DNA is nothing more then computer language, programming if you will.
One strand of DNA meets another strand of DNA in mating and the two
combine. Now it is important to note, that the programing has limits.
You get the mating of two humans with human programming, you
can't get completely random results such as a flying pig being born.
the programming (DNA) sets limits to what can be born. It will be
human, with human programing. The variations that can be born
result from possibly recessive genes becoming active for whatever reason
but those possibilities are inherent within the programming. a true mutation
is one that happens outside of the programming. if you copy something over
and over again, mistakes in copying are bound to occur, that is what happens.
DNA is basically a copy machine for humans, instructions how to create a human.
changes in this copying is evolution. the blue print is change every time
it is copied, but the changes are small. Now for those who think evolution
is something more, no it isn't. Natural selection is a connected idea.
but I am saving a post for that one, once people understand this idea.

The second point is this, whenever anyone says, that evolution is a flawed
theory, or has holes in it clearly doesn't understand what they are talking about.
creationist always bring up the old lame nonsense about evolution violating
the second law of thermodynamics, (its doesn't) or there are no fossils, (there are)
or whatever bull they are spouting today. evolution has 150 years of research
and evidence behind it. it is as much a theory as gravity. if you doubt evolution
then you doubt gravity and every single other scientific theory out there.

Kropotkin

[graminella]

Hello:
I am new here. Just a quick reply to the general question on mathematics of selection and whether math adds to understanding. If one knows the heritability of a trait and the amount of selective pressure, then the response to selection can be predicted--R = h squared * S. Further, one can know with some degree of confidence the course of evolution if one knows the system well. That is, something about the environment, heritability of the trait, and the advantage of that trait in a particular environment. Granted we do not have this information for many systems because it takes a lot of time and money. One quick example would be the evolution of resistance to insecticide. As we speak, evolution of resistance to genetically engineered Bt in corn is ocurring. This system is so well studied that the type of mutation that would occur was known in advance; it was just a matter of time before it occurred by chance in nature. Now, models are being applied to estimate the rate of spread. I will get back with references. Got to go.

[James S Saint]

whereas it is made clear time and time and time again, that "evolution" HAS NO CAUSE, "It is purely random".

Ah, good ol' James, misreading things again. Nobody said it has no cause, just no purpose, no goal. You're getting quite mixed up inside your own head, causing you to put words into peoples' mouths again.

There is a causal reason why species tend to become better adapted to their environments over time. That causal reason can be explained completely without reference to purposes or goals. That explanation is commonly known as 'evolution'. It tends to result in what one might be tempted to call 'the advancement of a species', but that doesn't mean it's goal was the advancement of a species. A goal and a result are not synonymous. Your posts, for example, result in the readers realizing that you really don't know what you're talking about, but that surely wasn't your goal. It's thus important to distinguish between a goal and a result. Evolution has no goal, but it has results.

FJ, I'm not concerned with the whole "it has a purpose" issue one way or another. I consider it more than a bit childish.

But realize that anything that has a cause, has a direction pretty much determined by that cause depending on how precisely you defined that cause. Evolution is no more random than its cause.

Like the wind. It might seem random, but it has a cause. Come to understand the cause and you can soon direct the wind pretty easily. At that point is gains purpose even if it had none before. By understanding the cause of evolution you can direct it (what else would be the point in studying it). So even if evolution had no natural goal, it most certainly does now.

The inherent goal in anything caused is the direction in which it proceeds. "The goal of the falling rock is to reach the bottom."
The only serious question isn't even if the rock was foreseen, but whether anyone threw the rock.

[nameta9]

ALIEN ?

We are too used to interpreting and decoding things according to what we are already familiar with, with what we know, we try to always translate things into formats that are similar to what we are used too, etc. So the "Aliens" will always be something human like, something similar to us, something we can relate to. But this is false, the truth is much farther from all of this.

What we have in "Natural Evolution" is Matter that self synchronizes itself when it is in certain very specific configurations, when it is composed of a certain combination of elements, of distribution of Mass Energy, when the cinetic Energy of the particles (the Temperature) is at certain very narrow boundaries and levels, the mix of atomic elements and delimitations and boundaries amongst the chunks of Matter are a very specific combination, very precise or at least wthin a range of configurations, etc. What happens for these configurations is a self synchronization of Matter with itself, it enters a positive feedback loop, a run away chain reaction and starts evolving and developing into more complex and higher synchronized chunks of Matter with itself.

Like a radio gets tuned to certain frequencies and finds a signal, so Matter is tuned to itself and starts talking to itself, starts self manipulation itself, starts a long (or maybe short) process bringing forth ever changing and new structures, some of which may become "alive", some of which may become "Observers", or "Information Processors", etc.

Evolution as we know it is too specific, the general problem of how Matter can self synchronize and enter positive feedback loops of self manipulation and a form of self - internal information processing is the correct level of abstraction. And of course, it may even just configure itself in One Shot, as a One Shot Creation without intermediate steps, there may be families of Synchronized Matter, some like our Nature and Natural Evolution, some as a One Shot combination, some as Synchronized Stellar Plasmas, or in Neutron Stars, or in any other possible environment that we many never know or imagine, etc.

But since the possible configurations Matter may be in is so large, more than 10^1000 for example, it is useful to see it as a long line of numbers, or like a frequency range, like the bandwidth of light that goes from a certain low frequency to another high frequency, and at very specific frequencies a radio can tune in and capture a signal, so matter can tune in and start self modulating itself, start talking to itself, start "playing" with itself to achieve many various structures and such.

But we only know this only example of nature on our planet, but are totally unaware of all of the other possible structures and contraptions Matter may express under certain conditions. Natural Evolution is probably only one very simple mechanism and system for Matter to talk to itself, there are probably many, many other systems, an untold number of systems. So you can look at it as a line from here to a trillion kms and imagine that at km 1,234 Matter is in a configuration that can undergo a positive feedback loop of self synchronization and such. And then at 1,555,666,777 kms there is another configuration that can self manipulate and create bit sets that bring forth totally different structures, self aware structures that may have something similar to Minds and Thoughts and Pain/Pleasure systems like us, or many very much more elaborate or deeper or "more advanced", or very different, etc.

And some of these have Minds that self manipulate themselves, and some of the paths may after a long distance of configurations intersect another configuration that came from very far away, they reach the same configuration by traveling very different paths. But there are probably many more configurations that will never meet, that are too far from each other, etc.

So obviously, we cannot have any idea how much diversity there may be in the Universe, how many things Matter can Express, etc. And the path of simply inventing it and constructing it, with intentionality, by inventing new minds and new worlds is just as valid as any other path, nay, immagination and invention is the real science, is the real path forward.

l’imagination au pouvoir. Immaginazione al Potere. Power to Imagination, or may Imagination have all of the Power...

Matter is tuned to certain frequencies...

TOBOR

[Fixed Cross]

For those who truly understand evolution and who talk about it relatively frequently, I'm sure you've often found it frustrating to find that the simplest way to talk about evolution often involves using the concept of 'purpose' or 'teleology'.

From the wiki on teleology:

Some disciplines, in particular within evolutionary biology, are still prone to use language that appears teleological when they describe natural tendencies towards certain end conditions; but these arguments can almost always be rephrased in non-teleological forms.

Alternatively, some thinkers don't find teleological language a problem when talking about evolution. It's not something that needs to be avoided or explained away -- purpose can be part of a legitimate paradigm of evolution:

In his celebrated book Chance and Necessity, the committed atheist and Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Jacques Monod tackled the theme of purpose. Plainly, he said, it is pointless to discuss the heart without mentioning that it is a pump, whose function is to pump blood around the body. But that is to ascribe purpose. Worse, if we were to say that the heart evolved to pump blood, we would be committing the ultimate sin of teleology – the assignment of a forward-looking purpose, a predetermined end-point to an evolutionary trajectory. But the heart could hardly have evolved ‘for’ anything else; if it didn’t evolve to pump blood, then it is truly a miracle that it happened to become so fine a pump. Monod’s point was that biology is full of purpose and apparent trajectories, and it is perverse to pretend they don’t exist; rather, we must explain them. The question we must answer is this: how does the operation of blind chance, a random mechanism without foresight, bring about the exquisitely refined and purposeful biological machines that we see all around us?

Personally, I think that the purpose and teleology are inappropriate in the context of evolution -- evolution has no 'goal' whatsoever, and is certainly incapable of 'intention' -- but I think Nick Lane makes an interesting case. The way I'm reading what he writes is, it's almost like a re-claiming of the word 'purpose' -- much like compatiblists use a definition of free will that can work within determinism, perhaps he's suggesting a conception of purpose that doesn't depend on intentions or goals, that's truly compatible with the mindless process of evolution.

Or maybe I'm reading him completely wrong, and he's just using the standard conception of purpose, in which case he can perform fellatio on a dwarf.

So, in closing, I'd like to link to a series of articles on Evolution that I found incredibly entertaining and also quite insightful: LessWrong
and also I'd like to ask those who understand evolution what you think about the relationship between Evolution and Purpose.

I like that idea of reclaiming purpose. In general such terms should be treated as plastic, not as absolute noumena.
Evolution does not itself have a purpose, but over the course of its development, produced beings that do have purpose.
Retroactively, these beings sometimes tried to project their sense of purposefulness on the process out of which they emerged (nature, God, evolution, intelligent design, whatever).

Confusion is due to the overlap of evolutions direction ( what actually comes to exist) and the direction that these existent beings take in their lives.

In terms of reclaiming: in some extremes (such as mankind), evolution did attain a teleological component, acquired the capacity to set goals for itself.

[Fixed Cross]

Again in terms of reclaiming - what we now call purpose is in fact a derivative or at least product of evolutions "course" - so it is not entirely false to interpret evolution as having a purpose in retrospect - given that we really are honest about what purpose really means, in biological terms. When a human holds a purpose (and as far as the word purpose has any meaning at all, this is possible), he is not really different from "blind" nature - he also simply develops in the ways that are possible for him, but he is "aware" of some of these possibilities.

What is this awareness? How is the plant that grows to the sun less aware of its purpose than the man who works to buy a new car?

[Flannel Jesus]

But realize that anything that has a cause, has a direction pretty much determined by that cause

Ah, moving the goalposts I see. I consider that more than a bit childish.

If you're not concerned with it, don't post about it. The title of this thread is "Evolution and Purpose" ffs. You sure are posting a lot about a topic that's more than a bit childish.

[James S Saint]

But realize that anything that has a cause, has a direction pretty much determined by that cause

Ah, moving the goalposts I see. I consider that more than a bit childish.

Until you understand "Purpose" and its concepts, what you say regarding Evolution's relationship to it, is meaningless.

Purpose is derived (as FC put it) by the "course"/"direction". The claim that evolution has no direction, is just silly.

What is this awareness? How is the plant that grows to the sun less aware of its purpose than the man who works to buy a new car?

In a word - "Cognition"; the preformed image of the goal being sought... an essential element to "Consciousness"; the awareness of ones situation (hence ontological imagery).

[Moreno]

You don't have to be able to calculate the advantage any specific trait gives, you just have to accept the premise that a trait could give you a % advantage. If you can accept that, then you can calculate, given a certain % advantage, the trait's likelihood of fixating in a population on a given instance is only 2 times that percentage.

I can't give you the derivation of that, but I gave you the source already.

I can understand this. I am not sure what it does for us, but I am not sure what the original context was for this idea in this thread. Still, neutral traits, it seems to me, could catch on, through the vagaries of chance.

I am still not clear what the terms teleology and purpose refer to at all in a determinist universe. IOW it seems to me that even human 'agents' are simply unfolding, inevitable subprocessed within the evolutionary whole of nature and lack these qualites also.

Double IOW it is often presented as a differentiation. No, evolution - as opposed, implicity to actions or to processes set up by agents like humans - is not teleological, does not show purpose. But I don't see any room for purpose at all, anywhere in that paradigm. There could be the purpose quale, but that's about it. The process of evolution is not different from anything else in its lack of purpose including us or our actions.

[James S Saint]

I am still not clear what the terms teleology and purpose refer to at all in a determinist universe. IOW it seems to me that even human 'agents' are simply unfolding, inevitable subprocessed within the evolutionary whole of nature and lack these qualites also.

In a strictly deterministic perspective, a "purpose" is a "qualified" or "filtered" direction. The object proceeds only conditionally in one direction or another by internally filtering/qualifying rather than merely whatever direction it happened to be facing. That is somewhat FC's "Value-Ontology" perspective ("value"=goal).

[Moreno]

I am still not clear what the terms teleology and purpose refer to at all in a determinist universe. IOW it seems to me that even human 'agents' are simply unfolding, inevitable subprocessed within the evolutionary whole of nature and lack these qualites also.

In a strictly deterministic perspective, a "purpose" is a "qualified" or "filtered" direction. The object proceeds only conditionally in one direction or another by internally filtering/qualifying rather than merely whatever direction it happened to be facing. That is somewhat FC's "Value-Ontology" perspective ("value"=goal).

I can almost understand that language, I just think the term purpose would be misleading. The organism is propelled forward by the arrangement of its molecules. This happens to lead to certain outcomes that may benefit the organism, but there are no purposes, just as there are none in evolution. Note: going on the premises of determinism and evolution. (or stochastic processes including evolution - since this is a combination of random or probablistic factors and certain kinds of biological machines ((iow allowing for indeterminism)))

[James S Saint]

I can almost understand that language, I just think the term purpose would be misleading.

Of course, people don't typically think or speak in strictly deterministic/analytical terms.

The organism is propelled forward by the arrangement of its molecules. This happens to lead to certain outcomes that may benefit the organism, but there are no purposes, just as there are none in evolution. Note: going on the premises of determinism and evolution. (or stochastic processes including evolution - since this is a combination of random or probabilistic factors and certain kinds of biological machines ((iow allowing for indeterminism)))

Yes, but at some point the notion called "purpose" becomes real. That is the point that I am referring to. It becomes purpose when the entity preconcieves of the goal and qualifies its behavior based on that target.

A mechanical example would be a simple thermostat.

The thermostat has a prearranged target and a mechanical means to determine when it will turn on or off.
It senses the environment, but doesn't merely react in a simple minded probabilistic manner.
It doesn't react (turn anything on or off) until a condition is met.
Upon that internally set condition, it turns on or off.

Random probability doesn't apply because by whatever means, it gained a conditional response mechanism.

When it comes to the concept of evolution, the issue is whether its behavior caused an increase in both its stability (survival) and its propagation (more people using/building such things).

Thus the simple thermometer can be said to be an evolutionary example of a purposeful endeavor. But not because of Man's role in creating it so much as because of its own ability to pursue a purpose within itself and that behavior is amiable to Man (its environment).

[Stoic Guardian]

It's only natural for people to jump ahead and apply themes to things like this true or no.

Is it scienific to apply the idea of purpose? Doesn't seem so, but that doesn't make it wrong.

[James S Saint]

Nothing can be "scientific" until a philosopher properly defines what it actually is.

[nameta9]

From:

Mathematics Has Peaked:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=179784

"And actually the use of Mathematics would render the theory less correct and less precise since even if you could have all of the exact formulas and sequence of events that lead from Molecules to the First Cell to the End Result of a Man Brain, even if you had all of the Mathematics precisely correct and such (something I doubt possible), it would be useless, it would be just a random case of formatting just one sequence of events to the utmost precision, but wouldn't reveal anything at all with regards to the true nature of the sequence of events and namely that the events are totally casual, random, disconnected between each other, are not formattable at all, cannot be decoded in any logical way at all, and indeed mathematics hides the real nature of what is going on, falsifies reality by pretending that it abides to something that has Formulas or Repeatable Patterns when this is not the case at all, even if they are discovered in just that one case of natural evolution that we managed to decode, those formulas would not have any general meaning, any deeper meaning than being just casually applicable."

[Amorphos]

Flannel Jesus

so it's nothing short of retarded to take that information and posit that human life is clearly the goal of evolution.

My posit is that advancement is the way of evolution, given enough time that one in a million chance is bound to happen ~ it doesn’t have to but its likely. When we say there are millions of evolutionary lines, we can also say there that the categories are more in their thousands.

---
DNA does not randomly exchange, each life-form eats, shits, drinks and fucks in some way, neurons make utility of their vehicle e.g. in experiments neurons can use machines, once attached they quickly adapt to the given vehicle. Utility is fundamental to evolution and I cant see how you can have that with no teleology, the two concepts are deeply associated with one another.