Evolution has no guiding direction as it is sporadically random. There is no higher purpose of anything beyond simple survival and procreation.
Without teleology there is no reason for religion. A billion or so believers think there is . Some of the believers are even evolutionists. Subtract purpose from existence and you deny it has meaning.
All I see is random existence fluctuating everywhere and with chaotic random manifestations of being not only is purpose redundant but also it isn’t even necessary. So yes, I am largely anti teleological.
Without teleology creative evolution is a myth. Why create anything if there is no meaning or purpose to life.
Even Dawkins suggests that altruism is an evolutionary plus. So how do you explain a universe in which survival and procreation are not the sole motivators of human activity?
If that is what you see, how could you even find out or know that you are largely anti-teleological? That perception that is all noise, no signal. How do you even decide what is you, let alone what qualities that you really has?
When you look at the world you see altruism, where exactly?
There is of course uncertainty everywhere but the difference between me and others is that I don’t attribute that to an absentee God.
I am not sure how that responds to what I wrote. If there is uncertainty everywhere how do you even have self-knowledge? For example regarding your own anti-teleological belief?
Zero,
No evolutionary teleology? Every stem cell in your body “knows” what organ it will produce. This is hard determinism on a biological level. It is evidence that DNA construction of organisms contains its own deterministic purposes.
Whether it’s correct or not there has to be some level of pragmatism concerning day to day survival.
I will never say all of human survival or existence is rational, far from it.
Be as that they may be for me that is far more sufficient in saying than some make believe nonexistent God deity.
Most of evolutionary theory is incomplete and imperfect where I’m not even comfortable speaking about any of that in absolute terms. It is the best explanation thus far however and I am a determinist.
Haha if you can’t trust yourself, can you trust your mistrust of yourself? If you can’t trust yourself, you can’t trust anything. I trust myself knowing I will be right and wrong sometimes because I have no other choice but to trust myself. Nothing is certain, but I still have to trust my statistical assessment.
There is no teleology because there would be no point if there were. The plan is to not have a plan.
Yeah, basically my own point also.
Sure, and as a practical heuristic I take the same stance. If I can’t trust myself, then…well, it’s game over. This is oversimplified, since we both, presumably, calibrate, notice where we have biases and weaknesses and try to fix these, but sure. But I also think there is some order outside. If I am in a sea of just noise and no signals, well, I am fucked, regardless of how much I trust myself.
This does not allow for learning. And even if present, would not be evidence of planning or not. Could be a frivolous deity.
What are we trying to discover here? If you desire to create a robot that can walk and you’ve no idea how, then the best strategy is to create an evolutionary algorithm to let the robot learn what you have no idea how to teach. In the design of the algorithm, there can be no plan because you cannot presume you know how a robot should execute commands in the proper order and timing to produce a stable gait. So the idea is to not make any assumptions and let “nature” take it’s course.
You have to let what works be the test for what is right and not what you dictate to be right from the beginning. If you could dictate what is right from the beginning, then there would be no point in the evolution. If you knew how to program a robot to walk, then just program it; no need for algorithmic learning.
You see?
It’s not that the universe is a chaotic and random mess, but a dark place where we must build our own eyes and fumble around learning as we go. If it could have been understood from the beginning, then there would be no point to any of this. Life is the discovery of the unknown; not rediscovering what is already known.
Sure, and the robot will learn because of regularities - gravity, objects no being able to occupy the same space, downhills causing this set of issues, uphillls these, and so on. The robot will also be perceiving its environment and not just getting random perceptions.
Put a robot in ‘random existence fluctuating everywhere and with chaotic random manifestations of being’
and it will not learn how to get anywhere or really, it might get somewhere, but it will not be able to learn how to do this. Like Skinner’s superstitious pidgeons the robot might keep trying something, but the results would be random.
Perhaps we are talking past each other somehow.
Any kind of frivolous, indifferent, or even imperfect God would not be worth worshipping. What’s that saying again, if God existed we would have to find a way to kill him.
There’s actually much to learn and gain from chaos.
Could it be that we project genetic determinism onto the cosmos as our way of understanding the universe we inhabit?
Sure, I don’t see why not.
Says the nationial socialist, fascist autocrat. Well, you’re an interesting mix. I might buy my robots from someone else, however, if I didn’t dislike robots.