For purposes of this discussion.
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Chance = non-teleological causes that happen to result in particular effects via regularities referred to as “lawful” and stochastic in nature.
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Purpose = teleological causes that are intended to result in particular effects; the organization of causes towards a pre-defined future goal.
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My question is: can chance causes generate all of the effects normally associated with purpose,but without purpose? IOW, is purpose necessary to produce all, most, or some apparently purposeful effects, or is purpose, in effect, only an associated sensation by-product or side-effect that isn’t necessary to the generation of any particular effect normally associated with it?
Ah, okay. You are talking about activities (importantly you are not talking about results, but about actual observed activities) humans are observed to carry out, for which we define one of the proximate causes as *purpose*. My answer to the question “can chance causes generate all of the effects normally associated with purpose, but without purpose” depends on the level of observation/causation. On the proximate level, the answer is obviously: no (that’s basically a definitional matter). On the ultimate level (where the question is: can chance causes give rise to humans acting with purpose) my answer is: yes, probably.
That would probably depend on the spider and the engineer, but generally speaking, IMO, yes.
I would answer this, MOST DEFINITELY YES!
Do stars exist? Do atoms and molecules exist? Do solids and liquids exist? Does matter condense?
Do any of these condensations produce anything with more complexity and structure?
Is anyone made up of nothing, sitting on nothing, typing on nothing, and thinking nothing (well, maybe that last one)?
However, after thinking about this subject and interacting with the answers, I think I’ve expressed something incorrectly. I don’t think that IDists consider “chance” and “purpose” fundamentally different things. I think that the chasm that breaks down communication between IDists and anti-IDists is that their respective “First Principle” metaphysical premises are completely inverted from each other.
While anti-IDists think that chance ultimately subsumes everything (even apparent purpose), IDists think that purpose ultimately subsumes everything – even apparent chance.
So deism is ok with you?
And how is deism inconsistent with simply taking the universe as we find it and studying how it works?
In fact, how is deism inconsistent with no deities whatsoever? How would anyone know?
This discussion reminds me of the talk Richard Dawkins gave in 2009 titled ‘The Purpose of Purpose”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT4EWCRfdUg
Great blog btw, even though I’m lacking in scientific education I’m learning a lot here.
Anything anyone wants to believe is okay with me. I’m not sure what you’re asking.
I don’t know what this question means, either. Or the one after it.
Mike Elzinga,
In regards to the explaining the mechanisms of the physical universe (including evolution), there is no practical difference between a strictly materialist view and a TE view like that of the Catholic church. It’s on matters of metaphysics and faith that there are conflicts.
ID proponents like Stephen Meyer, however, assert that a TE view is theologically illogical, and it’s from this starting assumption that Creationists devised Intelligent Design theory.
Thank you, too, William, but I hope you read beyond the “yes”.
rhampton7,
Indeed.
As I have often said about ID/creationists, with them it is dogma first and everything else is bent and broken to fit dogma.
While I am not religious, I accept the fact that religion is intricately wrapped up in the history of human civilization going back before recorded history. For many people, religious institutions are a central part of their social support network and tradition. Many people have other interests that don’t involve science yet they must get on with their lives with some kind of template for living. Religious affiliations provide that for many people.
No one has the infinite time required to learn everything; we will all die without having learned most of what there is to know. So those who don’t have an interest in science yet have other obligations, and make other contributions to community and society, will not likely ever address these questions of science and religion within their own lifetimes.
I accept the fact that most people make peace with science even though they are religious. It’s not my business how they do it. They have the right to work these things out for themselves. We all start with different backgrounds and must progress through life in the ways that best suit each of us.
There are, however, a number of sectarians who can’t seem to keep their noses out of other peoples’ business; and they apparently have sufficiently demonized others in their own minds and through their sectarian dogmas so that they feel justified in pushing their “religion” off onto others by whatever means possible, including using secular governmental institutions.
The ID/creationists have taken the extraordinary step of bastardizing scientific concepts to construct a pseudoscience that props up their dogma to make it “more rational” and acceptable; and they presume to push it off onto everyone else while simultaneously taking haughty, gratuitous offense when they are rebuffed by others and in the courts. Why would any sectarians do this unless they imagined themselves to be morally superior to everyone else? These are the kinds of “religions” that are meddlesome and destructive.
But human engineers learn their trade. Knowledge and skills are accumulated, shared and passed on. Spiders don’t go to web school, they can build webs without being shown. In fact, their ability to build webs declines with age.
I disagree. As far as we can tell, a spider builds its web because it has no choice (and it will die if it gets no food, hence only spiders that feed, breed). The spider doesn’t know this, and can’ decide to have the day in bed instead of building. The web has function, but is not answering its builder’s purpose, because the builder has none – although it will survive because of the web’s function
The human engineer builds a web because he/she wants to; and can choose not to. The purpose of doing so may be nothing to do with the spider-beneficial function of a web – materials testing, perhaps; or testing a machine designed to make webs amongst other things
And I still think your subsettings and subsumings are invalid, and aresimply an attempt to justify the squirmings about the meanings of words and phrases used in relatively specialist contexts.
If I talk to another biologist about “natural selection” he/she knows what I mean, that it is a portmanteau term for a complex subject, and will discuss accordingly.
It is pointless for a third party to enter that discussion assuming or desiring a different set of meanings for the same term.
In common speech, “artificial” is distinct from, even antithetical to, “natural”.
I appreciate your input. You and I have vastly different metaphysical assumptions about what “choice” is, though, which makes my point here about how hard it is for IDists and non-IDists to really communicate about such things.
For you, I would think, “choice” is a proximate cause, not an ultimate cause. IOW, the ultimate cause for both the engineer’s and the spider’s activities is chance (as described in the O.P.). For me, the ultimate cause of both activities is purpose, even though the causative purpose might not be the spider’s or the engineer’s. That means that, for IDists, even if the proximate cause of activity is described or termed a chance cause, it is still ultimately purposeful in some way.
Perhaps they do it for the same reason anti-IDists do what they do; they honestly believe they are stopping the spread of dangerous and destructive ideological disinformation masquerading as objective science.
I haven’t received a non-evasive response to the question regarding spiders and engineers. Why does it depend on the spider and the engineer?
William J. Murray,
I do wish you would stop projecting!
It depends on if either, both or neither have free will.
And yet, many here believe that “artificial” selection is a subset of “natural” selection, so you can see why there is a deep disconnect in attempted conversations about these matters.
And yet, fundamentally, there is no difference between how an engineer has acquired his knowledge, and how a spider has acquired its knowledge, according to many advocates here. It’s all just arrangements of chance occurrences and matter interacting with no “purpose” as ultimate cause.
Both the spider and the engineer acquired their knowledge of how to engineer things from the same kind of ultimate cause – purposeless atoms and chemicals interacting according to regularities of behavior and stochastic outcomes. That the engineer may feel cognizant of and purposeful in the acquisition and application of such knowledge, and supposedly the spider doesn’t, is irrelevant. I’m sure the spider experiences all sorts of things the engineer doesn’t experience as well; so?
Because the experience of knowledge, and the acquisition and application thereof is different from engineer to spider doesn’t change the assumed underlying, ultimate causes (from the anti-IDist perspective).
IOW, there can be no ultimate, fundamental difference between what an engineer, spider, or even a rock “knows”, nor in how they acquire and employ such knowledge. Ultimately, all three (including whatever they “know”) are nothing more the effects of chance (as defined in the O.P.) causes.
You are presenting false dichotomies. The spider’s “knowledge: and the engineer’s knowledge are both products of learning.
What dichotomy did I present? Is any process of learning something other than chance (as described in the O.P.), in your view? Whatever word you put on it, from the “Chancist” perspective, it’s all ultimately the result of chance causes.
Well, yes, learning is not “chance.” that seems to be the one thing that ID advocates have chosen freely to misunderstand.
Next week William leads us through “How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?”
So, using the definition I provided as “chance” in the O.P., what is learning ultimately caused by, if not chance?
Experience.
I was going to suggest individual spiders (unlike engineers) are programmed from conception with web-building behaviour. A little googling seems to confirm that feedback on web construction is more to do with success in catching prey and disturbance which affects an individual’s condition and ability to manufacture silk than “experience”.
Spiders are programmed? By what/ who?
WJM
Many? Believe? I think the disconnect is in the minds of those who struggle, or pretend to struggle, with some very straightforward distinctions.
The coiner of the phrase “Natural Selection”, Darwin, created it in express opposition to Artificial Selection. And this A/N usage is encountered daily in all manner of fields. I have not seen anyone claim that Artificial Selection is a subset of NS sensu Darwin. People are well aware that humanity can be considered both a part of nature and as something separate. It really depends on what particular phenomenon we are examining as to whether we choose the inclusive usage or the dichotomous one.
When people say things along the lines of “it is all just selection”, they are not calling AS a subset of NS, but AS and NS both being subsets of S. It is all just Selection in the sense that qualities in the population (passively!) influence their passage into the next generation. Whether that influence is via something in the mind of a breeder (Artificial), or on the ability of the individual to survive a cold night (Natural), does not affect the outcome: a distortion of frequencies in the next generation attributable to qualities, rather than ‘pure’ stochastic effects.
But the spider (at least according to the literature I have glanced at) does not acquire knowledge about web construction. It is a heritable trait.
I wonder if anyone else is curious as to how such behaviour could be encoded in the zygote? Though I suspect this is a question that may be easier to ask than answer!
Learning and evolution are equivalent processes.
So, inheriting knowledge is not acquiring it?
Then it’s a good thing I didn’t claim that anyone else claimed that AS was a subset of NS sensu Darwin. Whatever that means.
Except that’s not what they explicitly said in the Natural Selection thread and elsewhere. – including Elizabeth, who even gave examples of how intelligent breeders and scientists in labs were a part of the organisms natural environment doing the selecting.
That’s a bit of equivocation. Populations learn in the process of evolution. Evolution is a form of learning.
I am sure that spiders and web construction are results of evolutionary processes and, ultimately so are engineers. How much adaptive behaviour and learning ability might an individual spider possess? Not much at all is my suggestion.
Personally, I think what is going on here is Chancists trying to draw distinctions about ultimate causes where their metaphysics provides none; they just don’t like to admit everything they learn, say & do is, ultimately, by chance (as defined in the O.P.). They’d rather insert a proximal-cause term that obfuscates the fact that ultimately, every thought, word and action is by chance – just like any behavior by spiders or, for that matter, rocks.
If anyone is equivocating, it’s those that just don’t want to agree to the full consequences of the “by chance” pill they’ve swallowed.
One of the interesting problems is that Chancists cannot even debate, think, talk, or act as if “Chancism” is true; they must debate, think, talk and act as if Purpose is an ultimate cause, even as they assert and argue against it.
Which, of course, brings us to the fatal flaws in “Chancism”, or holding “chance” (as defined in the O.P.) as one’s first principle metaphysic.
I agree. Bigger and more complex brains learn more and are more flexible. But brains embody a kind of evolution.
The reason evolution is sometimes called the greatest idea is that it adds something to our understanding of causation that wasn’t previously within our vocabulary.
Sorry, William, I was just side-tracked by speculating how heritable behaviour in organisms would actually be encoded genetically (maybe there could even be some epigenetic input in some instances) But, since you ask, I don’t see the process of adaptation of heritable behavioural traits in a population as identical to learned behaviour in an individual organism, especially with regard to humans and shared recorded experience.
Indeed! Once you grasp the simple concept of heritability, variation and survival, almost anything can be seen in evolutionary terms.
Your vocabulary and conceptual framework are remnants of stone age thinking. They simply aren’t contributing anything useful to science.
Intelligent Design is OK with evolution.
Citation please.
Nature does NOT select. natural selection is an oxymoron.
And if they were to do that, what would that consist of?
Killing at whim perhaps? Is that what you think?
And that’s also what’s lacking from the antievo side.
A new idea, fact or thought that is useful. Something that adds to the pile of knowledge.
I’ve asked William many times what new information, insight or fact his unique “viewpoint” brings, and so far it seems to be as unproductive as Joe’s. Yes, we can “reverse engineer” things we think are designed, but hey, we can do that regardless. Nothing but the most obvious and the obvious is treated as if it’s a revelation.
Like this thread, for example. If there is such a thing as “purpose”, as William sees it, then I’m still waiting for some unique insight that flows from that to be presented.
Just a single damm thing. Until then Williams superior tone is somewhat premature.
Are you trying to launch a meme, William? I don’t think it will catch on. Nobody, nobody, knows the ultimate cause (or if there is one) of the universe and its contents. But no religious movement or philosophical viewpoint has shed any light on aspects of reality. Shared accumulating experience has been the only successful way of tackling such questions so far. At least I find it more satisfactory than making stuff up.
Only, I didn’t ask that question, just as I didn’t ask (and wouldn’t ask) if a pekingese and a labrador were identical.
From what I’ve read, if it’s made up but “works” that’s William happy.
Simply suggest a better way that also produces identifiably superior results then William. It’s easy.
The whole world is full of people who complain. Far fewer have solutions or insight that can move the solutions forward.
And that scares you silly, right?
Sure, fundamentally we’re all atoms. Atoms can’t think, express emotion or design things.
And so?
So, since you are an IDist, I must assume that this is what you believe.
The following conversation then seems curious:
If everything is ultimately purposeful, then “it depends” is the wrong answer. The answer would need to be: yes, spiders and humans are ultimately purposeful under any and all circumstances.
Of course, you could argue that proximately, there may be differences in purpose of actions; but you have made it clear that what you are after are ultimate causes, so that can’t be it….
Side note: I remember you stating in an earlier discussion that you think only a tiny fraction of all humans have what you call libertarian free will. So it is extremely odd that you now think that “generally speaking” engineers and spiders are purposeful, if being purposeful requires free will…
Exactly this. If somebody claims that X is better then Y because it explains more about Z then Y does then they had better provide some details about X rather then just going on and on and on about what Y does not and cannot do.
Somebody tell me a single fact that ID tells us that the anti-ID side was unable to determine. You can’t, there are none. Even the lab work done by Marks etc just goes on and on about what evolution cannot do. Nothing at all about ID.
All we know, we know about “Chance”. For the “purpose” side, for every Joe or William you ask you’ll get a different answer. For the “Chance” side you’ll get an answer plus a margin of error.
So can we have purpose without theological purpose? Depends if you think falling towards a gravitational well is “purpose” or not I suppose. Just word games, and as there is no answer (William is not about to tell us if the universe has purpose or not) there is no end-game, just endless navel gazing.