Is purpose necessary to acquire any apparently purposeful effects?

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?

210 thoughts on “Is purpose necessary to acquire any apparently purposeful effects?

  1. petrushka:
    What other forms of knowledge are there?

    As I understand it, there are two forms of knowledge. There is conditional knowledge, contingent on what is currently known to the best of our understanding, and permanently hostage to whatever might be learned tomorrow. Conditional knowledge rests on the weight of current evidence.

    And then there is Absolute knowledge, not based on evidence and therefore not subject to any pressure to change. Absolute knowledge quite understandably ALWAYS trumps conditional knowledge.

    Conditional knowledge is what us poor benighted materialists suffer through, being wrong as often as we’re right. Absolute knowledge is what is given to those few with Libertarian Free Will, for whom reality is comfortably irrelevant (except for things like crossing the street, of course), and who are therefore never philosophically wrong.

    If there are any other kinds of knowledge, let me know.

  2. By those definitions, Flint, “Absolute Knowledge” is the same as a “delusion” – something held to be true regardless of argument or evidence to the contrary.

  3. Elizabeth:
    By those definitions, Flint, “Absolute Knowledge” is the same as a “delusion” – something held to be true regardless of argumentor evidence to the contrary.

    That fits your position- something held true regardless of anything…

  4. Damitall,

    Regardless of how you argue purpose “came to be”, one must either consider it an ultimate cause, or a proximate cause. It appears that you agree that there are effects that purpose generates that are not reducible to chance causation (as defined in the O.P.), and that some effects exist in the universe that cannot be ultimately explained in terms of chance causation, but rather require reference to purpose.

    IOW, purpose is necessary to explain the existence of things like computers and battleships; if purpose didn’t exist, their existence could not be explained only in terms of chance (as described in the O.P.) outcomes.

  5. So, that is you NOT cheerfully claiming that others make the claim that AS is a subset of NS is it?

    They did. Whether or not they did so “sensu Darwin”, I don’t know, and made no such claim.

  6. BTW, damitall, if the universe began with nothing but chance causes, how is it that a universe with nothing but such causes generated into existence a cause that is fundamentally different and not reducible to chance (as described in the O.P.)causes?

  7. WJM

    Allan: So, that is you NOT cheerfully claiming that others make the claim that AS is a subset of NS is it?

    WJM: They did. Whether or not they did so “sensu Darwin”, I don’t know, and made no such claim.

    OK, I’ll try another tack: who did? Let me just check the actual words people used in order to verify your claim that people here claimed that AS is a subset of NS. It kind of has to be in their preferred sense, because that is the sense in which they would make the claim.

    For someone who appears to have a point to make, your willingness to obfuscate it is quite bizarre.

    To sum up, substituting the terms with which you pretend to struggle:

    WJM “I have seen many here claim that eggs are cubes”.
    Allan “I have not seen anyone claim that eggs are cubes [adding for clarity, not to attribute words to you:] in the sense that [authority X] defines the terms ‘egg’ and ‘cube’.)”
    WJM “Good thing I did not make that claim then.”
    Allan: “You said: “I have seen many here claim that eggs are cubes””.
    WJM: “They did. Whether or not they did so in the sense that [authority X] defines the terms, I don’t know, and made no such claim.”

    For heaven’s sake! You planning to demolish the fabric of Darwinism this way?

  8. Alan Fox: I’ll answer you more simply, then. No.

    Then what is the ultimate (not proximate) cause of the engineer learning, if not chance (as described in the O.P.).

    I see no evidence that must be some ultimate cause.

  9. Elizabeth:
    By those definitions, Flint, “Absolute Knowledge” is the same as a “delusion” – something held to be true regardless of argumentor evidence to the contrary.

    I would go a bit further and assert that absolute principles can be delusional. A quick and dirty example might be trying to jam Einsteinian geometry into Euclidean geometry.

    William, and apparently all ID advocates, are adhering to what amounts Euclidean concepts of causation. Aristotelian? Whatever.

    Anyway, evolution and learning theory have given us new concepts of causation. Things can be caused by accumulated experience. It is a much more productive and useful concept than the dichotomy of free ill and determinism, which have been around for thousands of years without contributing anything useful to society.

  10. OK, I’ll try another tack: who did?

    Elizabeth did. Ask her how she meant it.

  11. For heaven’s sake! You planning to demolish the fabric of Darwinism this way?

    I’m not planning on demolishing it in any way. You are apparently ascribing motivations behind my posts that do not exist.

  12. Well; science as a pursuit is unaffected, or at least the verifiable, repeatable results of scientific endeavour are unaffected, by the religious or philosophical beliefs of the practitioner.

    Since science is necessarily a form of epistemology, I hardly think the epistemological beliefs of those practicing it leave the practice of it “unaffected” by their epistemological views.

  13. William J. Murray: Since science is necessarily a form of epistemology, I hardly think the epistemological beliefs of those practicing it leave the practice of it “unaffected” by their epistemological views.

    No William “I don’t know” is what you’re looking for. We’ve discussed this.

  14. Allan: OK, I’ll try another tack: who did?

    WJM: Elizabeth did. Ask her how she meant it.

    Sigh. OK, Elizabeth:

    damitall2 said: “In common speech, “artificial” is distinct from, even antithetical to, “natural”.”
    WJM rejoined with :”And yet, many here believe that “artificial” selection is a subset of “natural” selection,”
    And I said “I have not seen anyone claim that AS is a subset of NS in the sense that Darwin used the terms – AS and NS are generally held to be subsets of S”

    WJM and I then executed an elegant quadrille – I did not claim, I think you did, not what I meant, ‘twas what you said … and I have been directed to your door as one of the “many”. Not one of the many who so believe in the “Darwin” sense, which of course WJM never said anyway, but in the sense that WJM meant. You’ll have to refer back to him as to what that was, sorry.

  15. William J. Murray: I don’t know. I do know that you and I cannot even identify, much less talk about, such concepts without employing philosophical principles.

    That doesn’t mean those principles are accurate or anything more than merely placeholders for conceptual convention. In other words, that you wish to look at all reality from a philosophical POV vs…say…a practical POV or even a scientific POV does not make your philosophical POV valid or even the only valid POV. The fact is William, from a practical perspective, there is no “first cause” or even anything related to “chance”, so your insistence on such is puzzling for those of us who relate to this “reality” as merely a set of state changes.

  16. William J. Murray:

    IOW, purpose is necessary to explain the existence of things like computers and battleships; if purpose didn’t exist, their existence could not be explained only in terms of chance (as described in the O.P.) outcomes.

    Just curious, but what does being able to explain something like a computer being a result of purpose get anyone, practically speaking? How does it improve people’s understanding of computers or a computer? How does that compare to explaining…say…a rock?

  17. That doesn’t mean those principles are accurate or anything more than merely placeholders for conceptual convention. In other words, that you wish to look at all reality from a philosophical POV vs…say…a practical POV or even a scientific POV does not make your philosophical POV valid or even the only valid POV. The fact is William, from a practical perspective, there is no “first cause” or even anything related to “chance”, so your insistence on such is puzzling for those of us who relate to this “reality” as merely a set of state changes.

    Both “pragmatism” and “science” are subsets of philosophy – as is the idea of varied “points of view”. Because you take your a priori philosophical assumptions for granted and without introspection doesn’t exclude them from being necessary and philosophical in nature.

  18. William J. Murray: Both “pragmatism” and “science” are subsets of philosophy – as is the idea of varied “points of view”. Because you take your a priori philosophical assumptions for granted and without introspection doesn’t exclude them from being necessary and philosophical in nature.

    Sorry William, but I didn’t offer any claim from pragmatism and science has not been considered a subset of philosophy beyond some fringe scientifically deficient folk since the 15th century. ‘Fraid your opinion on such and on my taking some alleged “a priori philosophical assumptions for granted” is rather empty.

    But I’ll take your non-answer as an admission that you recognize that your philosophical POV arguments are weak if not entirely erroneous. Do let me know if you wish to actually address my question however.

  19. Just curious, but what does being able to explain something like a computer being a result of purpose get anyone, practically speaking? How does it improve people’s understanding of computers or a computer? How does that compare to explaining…say…a rock?

    It keeps us from wasting time trying to figure out how a computer came to be by referring to volcanic forces, erosion, etc., and gets us looking for purposeful cause (like we already do in forensics and archaeology). We can also then attempt to discern the purpose of the computer and try to reverse engineer it to glean design concepts and manufacturing techniques.

  20. William J. Murray,

    Both “pragmatism” and “science” are subsets of philosophy – as is the idea of varied “points of view”.

    The advantage of science is that, frequently, one of two people engaged in interminable dialogue can say “hang on a sec” and go and perform or look up an experiment. All manner of further discussion may ensue over terminology and the validity of that or any experiment, and the degree to which one is conditioned by one’s epistemological prejudices … and we cannot experimentally verify everything … but it is an underrated methodology in some parts of the Consciosphere***, IMO.

    *** I made it up.

  21. William J Murray,

    William J Murray: “We can also then attempt to discern the purpose of the computer and try to reverse engineer it to glean design concepts and manufacturing techniques.”

    Then why does no one in ID attempt to find out how the designer does things?

    What are his limits and what are his capabilities?

    In order to discover if the designer’s abilities fall short of those required for designing life, as IDists argue with regards to evolution, we need to investigate the designer.

    Why has no IDist started doing this?

  22. One of three basic questions science asks is “How did it come to be this way?”. IOW science cares about the “how”, meaning “purpose” has an impact.

    Archaeology and forensic science definitely care about purpose as opposed to nature, operating freely. Ya see it changes the investigation- for example geologists make way for archaeologists wrt Stonehenge.

  23. William J Murray,

    As Petrushka has said often, how would you go about designing life?

  24. Then why does no one in ID attempt to find out how the designer does things?

    We are.

    What are his limits and what are his capabilities?

    Won’t know until we can study the designer(s). Until then we just assume designers are capable of designing the things they design.

  25. 1- Determine the requirements

    2- Determine what parts are required

    3- Determine the configuration

    4- Make it so

  26. Joe G,

    Toronto: ” Then why does no one in ID attempt to find out how the designer does things?”
    //—————————
    Joe G: “We are.”

    Specifically, who does?

    Is it Behe, Dembski, Upright BiPed or William J Murray?

    Do you have a name?

    I want to assess what they’ve found.

  27. “I don’t know” should go hand-in-hand with the “theory” of evolution.

    How did the mammalian inner ear evolve? “We don’t know but we know that it did”

    How do you know it did? “Are you a creationist?”

  28. Joe G,

    Joe G: “1- Determine the requirements”

    1) How do you determine the requirements for a future that hasn’t arrived yet?

    2) If you CAN see the future, describe the mechanism for doing so.

  29. In 1997 Dr Spetner provided his “non-random evolutionary hypothesis” in which he offered “built-in responses to environmental cues”

    Then there is Dr Davison’s “prescribed evolutionary hypothesis” and front-loaded evolution.

    Also we have genetic algorithms, and genetic programming.

  30. 1) How do you determine the requirements for a future that hasn’t arrived yet?

    I would be determining the requirements for a living organism.

    Obvioulsy you have never designed anything in your life.

  31. Joe G,

    Joe G: “Won’t know until we can study the designer(s). Until then we just assume designers are capable of designing the things they design.”

    Then why aren’t we allowed to say, “Just assume that evolution is capable of evolving the things it evolves”?

  32. Allan,

    Your position doesn’t have any experiments- you admitted it relies solely on vast amounts of time, as if time was magic.

  33. William J. Murray: It keeps us from wasting time trying to figure out how a computer came to be by referring to volcanic forces, erosion, etc., and gets us looking for purposeful cause (like we already do in forensics and archaeology). We can also then attempt to discern the purpose of the computer and try to reverse engineer it to glean design concepts and manufacturing techniques.

    That’s a waste of time imho. Why? Because no one I know would be silly enough to even consider that a computer could ever possibly be the result of volcanic forces or tornadoes or such processes because (and here’s the kicker) we know exactly what human processes result in computer creation. It’s that simple William. Someone else brought this same point up earlier in this (and even another) thread with you and I thought made the point exceptionally well: ID folks are stuck in the loop of trying to eliminate all possible causes and explanations they don’t like and thus concluding that whatever cause or process they do like and believe in must be true. But such thinking automatically entails a false dichotomy because invariably the set of causes/explanations is incomplete.

    But further, it’s a pointless endeavor. Why not just investigate the actual cause rather than engaging in navel gazing about the possible non-causes, particularly in light of actually having direct evidence for the actual cause?

    So no, your method in fact doesn’t keep anyone from wasting time trying to figure out how a computer came about via volcanic processes; you have actually wasted time considering such in this thread and then dismissing it rather than merely acknowledging that yes, the evidence most definitely supports the conclusion that humans make computers. Period. End of discussion on that subject.

    I realize why you and other IDists wish to engage in such exercises of course – you desperately want an analogy to work from wherein other complex items can be seen as not coming from such non-human processes. The problem though, as I and others have noted, is that such is fallacious thinking. Just because one known product is not a result of a volcanic process does not mean some unknown product is not the result some volcanic process. It doesn’t work that way William, at least not for people who are actually interested in explanations that provide a means of prediction of other phenomenon. Your method offers no such solutions however.

    BTW, It’s perfectly easy to reverse engineer something without having a valid explanation for it’s cause, so that isn’t a very practical result of your method either.

  34. And yet you think tyat living organisms are the result of nature, operating freely. And if it is so easy to reverse engineer something without having a valid explanation for a cause, why hasn’t anyone done so wrt a living organism?

  35. Joe G,

    Joe G: “I would be determining the requirements for a living organism.”

    An organism for the present would be “easy” compared to an organism for an unseen future.

    How do you know what the future is going to look like?

    As an example, design me a computer today, and I’ll give you the specs for it two years from now when it goes on the market.

    If you don’t get it right, the company goes extinct.

  36. Joe G,

    Joe G: “In 1997 Dr Spetner provided his “non-random evolutionary hypothesis” in which he offered “built-in responses to environmental cues”

    Then there is Dr Davison’s “prescribed evolutionary hypothesis” and front-loaded evolution.”

    They are not your “designers of life”.

    As an example of what I’m asking:
    //—————————
    Joe G: What are some of the mechanisms of the designer of MS-DOS?

    Toronto: Tim Patterson of Seattle Computer Systems designed his OS based on CPM. IBM fixed 350 bugs in the code and that eventually became MS-DOS 1.0.
    //———————-
    In the above scenario, you asked a specific question and I gave you a very specific answer that can be further investigated in detail.

    Now, show me the methods of the “designer of life”, not “opinions” from “non-designers of life”.

    How did you determine who the designer was in order to investigate his methods?

  37. Joe G,

    Toronto: “Then why aren’t we allowed to say, “Just assume that evolution is capable of evolving the things it evolves”?
    //————-
    Joe G: “Equivocation- Intelligent Design is not anti-evolution.”

    But if evolution is “capable”, what is the point of the whole ID position?

    We see evolution at work, but you insist we allow a “designer” to sign the artwork.

    Why don’t the paintings of Rembrandt say, “The Designer” at the bottom?

    Do you claim that he was not capable of painting his picture using a brush and paint?

    Why would you introduce this “designer” caveat into “evolution” if you don’t do it for art?

  38. Joe G:
    And yet you think tyat living organisms are the result of nature, operating freely.

    Unless and until evidence is presented that indicates otherwise, that is a reasonable null hypothesis given evidence I have seen and analyzed.

    And if it is so easy to reverse engineer something without having a valid explanation for a cause, why hasn’t anyone done so wrt a living organism?

    While it may be easy to reverse engineer something without knowing the things cause, that isn’t equivalent to saying that all things are equally easy to reverse engineer. You might want to check your equivocation there Joe.

    That said, it isn’t like projects – such as the Human Genome Projects – aren’t part of that very goal. In other words, we are in the process of doing that very thing.

  39. William J. Murray: It keeps us from wasting time trying to figure out how a computer came to be by referring to volcanic forces, erosion, etc., and gets us looking for purposeful cause (like we already do in forensics and archaeology). We can also then attempt to discern the purpose of the computer and try to reverse engineer it to glean design concepts and manufacturing techniques.

    So William J Murray continues to waddle and dawdle along the same path of ignorance and strict avoidance of science.

    This is the guy who takes umbrage at and tries to scold scientists who see through the mumbo-jumbo cranked out by the likes of Granville Sewell, David Abel, William Dembski, and the other pseudo-science peddlers of the ID/creationist movement. He demands the scientists justify their assertions about ID/creationist writers. He demands “authoritative” sources to be pitted against his own “authoritative sources.” Just look at his demands over on this thread, beginning with this post. Follow the rest of the thread and look at what he continues to demand, giving the excuse that he isn’t an expert in science.

    So what happens when the scientists here do just that; and do it repeatedly, time after time? He runs away and avoids reading any of the refutations and dismantling of the ID/creationist pseudo-science but instead launches a bunch of navel-gazing threads in which he just makes up stuff and wanders around in nothingness.

    And he is still making assertions and statements that have been refuted in all those other threads that have taken down the ID/creationist pseudo-science.

    Pseudo-philosophy and navel-gazing are not substitutes for picking up the books, going out into the universe, and learning what is real.

    The purpose of this thread appears to be pure purposelessness.

  40. BTW, It’s perfectly easy to reverse engineer something without having a valid explanation for it’s cause, so that isn’t a very practical result of your method either.

    Yes, but it’s impossible to rationally justify attempting to reverse-engineer something that one formally denies as having been engineered in the first place. Fortunately, science can progress while utilizing ID-intrinsic principles and methods even while scientists formally deny them.

  41. It’s really very simple; computers are either reducible to chance (as described in the O.P.) causes, or they are not. If they are not, all that is left is purpose (because, as described, they are mutually exclusive, all-encompassing categories). If one holds that computers cannot come into existence, ultimately, by chance, but rather require purpose, then purpose must exist as something other than the product of chance causes, regardless of how or when it came into existence.

    If one is going to argue that chance causes generated purpose, then they must explain how purpose operates, if it is not guided by chance (natural law & deterministic & stochastic extrapolations thereof). Ultimately, unless purpose is categorically distinct and separated from chance causes, or somehow able to supervene or contradict what would otherwise be the effect of chance causes, using the term “purpose” is a diversionary tactic.

  42. William J Murray,

    William J Murray: “Yes, but it’s impossible to rationally justify attempting to reverse-engineer something that one formally denies as having been engineered in the first place. ”

    Why’s that?

    If I see a natural geological feature like an arch, I’ll use that design without caring whether it built by hand, Noah’s Flood or a thousand spring run-offs.

    The same thing goes for emulating a flying squirrel and applying that to sky-diving.

  43. William J. Murray: Yes, but it’s impossible to rationally justify attempting to reverse-engineer something that one formally denies as having been engineered in the first place.

    No it isn’t because the term “reverse-engineer” doesn’t actually refer to looking for an engineer or even rely upon there ever having been an engineer in the first place. Reverse-engineer is just a verb that means to examine something and its constituent parts to see how that something works so that you can try to make something similar. It’s perfectly easy to rationally justify wanting to try to mimic something or some process – such demonstrates a more accurate understanding of how it works in the first place, which is the whole purpose of science.

    Fortunately, science can progress while utilizing ID-intrinsic principles and methods even while scientists formally deny them.

    More fortunately, science doesn’t need to posit design to rationally justify understanding how things work or trying to mimic such things on computers or other models.

  44. William J. Murray:
    It’s really very simple; computers are either reducible to chance (as described in the O.P.) causes, or they are not. If they are not, all that is left is purpose (because, as described, they are mutually exclusive, all-encompassing categories).

    It’s much more simple than that: computers are made by humans. Period. Nothing about chance or purpose adds anything to that understanding or understanding any other object’s origin.

  45. Quite so. Base Jumpers really could care less if flying squirrel gliding capability was the result of volcanic processes, evolution, some whimsical god, or invisible pink pixies; they only care if such gliding works and whether it can be modeled in scale for human use.

  46. William J Murray,

    William J Murray: “…then purpose must exist as something other than the product of chance causes,…

    Purpose doesn’t exist outside of “us” anymore than romantic jealousy exists outside of a relationship.

    You keep promoting “characteristics” shown by human beings into self-existent objects.

    If you can show me something like “purpose” distinct from an agent, then you should be able to do the same for “optimism”.

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