Teleological Science?

This is a great topic and I've really enjoyed reading through this thread. For me this is much like watching a egg "fall together" and making it's way back to the egg carton, instead the other way around. In other words "things" would have a tendency to move from higher form of entropy to a lower form of entropy, a higher chaotic environment to a lower form a chaos. Unfortunately this is just not what we see. The randomness just makes more sense. Think of it this way.If you take a deck of cards right out of the pack you realize they are all organized suit by suit and arranged in a unified order or what we perceive as "purpose". In other words the deck of cards are in a low form of chaos. If you throw those cards in the air, and if the teleology is valid then you would see these cards organize themselves towards their "purpose". For these cards to fall organize into their correct order, or their "purpose" millions of processes would have to occur, and after millions of tosses you pick up the pile and realize that it looks familiar to it's original state maybe a few cards out of order, would you call this moving towards order or purpose? Or after millions and millions of tries the randomness of the act resembles our perception of what order should be simply by chance?What would this look like then? I would say this would be similar to us knowing whats supposed to happen all the time, before it happens, knowing calculus before being able to add 2+2 kinda of cool stuff, but does it make sense?

In this, I tend to agree with you. I believe, through my religion, that there is a God. However, looking out the world, and how evolution has formed a bushy, almost fractal pattern of descent, it's hard to see any notion of teleology at all in this world. If everything was guided toward a single, distinct purpose, we would likely see everything convergently evolving toward that one goal.However, since the outward manifestation of the process that's going on is random and branching, not convergent, we can either assume that the process is not structured for a specific goal, or that whatever force is structuring it for a specific goal is doing so in an insanely complicated manner (which may not be particularly complicated for a god, mind you).If the latter case is true (i.e. that God is guiding, but is doing so along increasingly diverse and/or increasingly spontaneous avenues), we as undivine mortals would be hard-pressed to distinguish it from true randomness.Under this case, I would submit that ID is utterly useless (even though it would be true), because our current understanding of evolution by natural selection still comes closer to describing it as a non-directed process than ID does.Edited by Bluejay, : Grammar

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Signed,
Nobody Important (just Bluejay)

This is an interesting thought process. However, I don't like the implication in this that the initial state of the cards (their original order in the package) can be seen as their "purpose." A system based on that concept would be intolerant of change in all forms, and the advance of any goal-oriented process could not be seen.However, it does give the teleological perspective some predictive powers. For instance, if we knew the cards' "purpose" ahead of time, we could then use it to predict how the cards would land when thrown into the air from a given starting order, or how many tosses it would take to get them into that order.Here's another idea I just thought of. If there is a single purpose for the Earth as whole, would we ever see deviations from this purpose in development? Or, in terms of your example, would we ever have to throw the cards more than once?Or, for that matter, would there ever be ulterior motives going on (such as an animal developing a trait that benefits itself, but doesn't improve its usefulness to humans)? If everything was tuned for a single purpose, I would suspect that any new developments would have to contribute to that overall purpose at least as much as they would contribute to their proximate cause. That means, flight in birds would have to be at least as important to God's plan as it is to the bird's ability to find food or escape predators. How could you judge this, though?

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Signed,
Nobody Important (just Bluejay)

Thank you for the response bluejay. The cards are probably a bad example (I was in a hurry sorry). However teleology suggests that "form follows function"; a person has eyes because of the need to see vs the other way around. It's like looking at our development within only the last thousand years and saying that life could not have developed any other way, and your right in that: So how do you assign a "purpose", and what is it? Like the cards and organization, why would we call the initial status "purposeful" when there are literally millions of possibilities, which can lead to millions of adaptations that could also be deemed "purposeful". So then the question is; What is purpose? How do you define this without being subjective? Again form follows function; what is the function? This is a good point, as far, ulterior motives, you first would have to know the rules or the purpose. If this remains unknown then any advantage would really be chance anyway. How do you cheat in a game where you don't know the rules?One last thing I can't believe your "Nobody Important"

But if you lose the anthropomorphic egotism, we see that other forms of life have eyes, so not just our specific development is needed for life to see, to perceive. What would be the common purpose of life, all life? Survival? That doesn't explain diversity or the elevation of more complex forms from simple forms. Redundancy of function that ensures continued trending independent of species specific short term trends, able to survive set-backs. What do the predator and prey have in common, what are they both developing? How do you know what you are looking for without knowing what you are looking for?Enjoy.ps - welcome to the fray.Edited by RAZD, : ps

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Thank you for your response, and your welcome I really enjoy these discussions. Not all animals have eyes or need them to survive in their environment. Case in point the Cave Salamander or Proteus anguinus (link Olm - Wikipedia). This salamander has completely adapted to life in the dark, and has underdeveloped eyes that are completely useless in terms of vision. However other senses have developed to compensate for it to thrive in it's environment. I realize this is just one example, however, if the teleological argument is valid then all animals would develop eyes to see right? Exactly. What is the common purpose of all life? Survival would be a good start, because it encompasses the traits of evolution such as adaptation, reproduction, genetic variations, speciation, as well as natural selection. I would argue that survival is a driving force in explaining diversity, giving rise to more complex forms through the processes outlined above. For example the need for eyes arouse because of a superior advantage over those that could not see, and so on. I am not quite sure I follow. How does this explain major transitions ? Why would function and purpose change? i.e. the transition of whales. I am not quite sure I understand what your asking in relation to the topic. Exactly

I don't see the logic of this at all. All that teleology would claim is that there is a direction and purpose to life. Why should that direction and prupose require that all organisms should develop sight? It might equally (and arguably more likely) require that a variety of organisms develop. We observe in the biological and in the non-biological realms that the history of the Universe is one of emerging complexity. If that is teleological in origin then we would expect variety in the character of the lifeforms. It may explain the selection of diverse forms, but does not explain how that diversity arises. The starting point in any science is observation and description. So look for everything.

No, the cards were actually a good analogy. The only problem I have with it is that the purpose of the cards was set as their initial state, as opposed to (for example) the order that produces the most winning poker hands arranged in descending point value. That's all I would add to your analogy. If you don't know the rules, you're less apt to follow them. So, if there’s a purpose to the universe, but you don’t know it, would you be able to follow a different path? Like RAZD was mentioning with predator-prey “arms races,” are they behaving/evolving/etc. according to an overall plan, or are they working towards their own ends? This is what I was getting at in message 61: even if we found teleological developments in nature, we’d have to find additional evidence linking these things to the purpose we ascribe to God: namely, the salvation, exaltation, or other benefit of humans, in order to make ID a legitimate theory.In response to the “survival” line of reasoning coming up, maybe we could use this segment from Genesis 1 to support evolution as teleological:

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22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

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So, in relation to the animals, God’s purpose seems to be reproduction.

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There was a point to this [post], but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind. -modified from Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams

Teleology claims that

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A teleological argument, or argument from design, is an argument for the existence of God or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction”or some combination of these”in nature...The word "teleological" is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning end or purpose. Teleology is the supposition that there is purpose or directive principle in the works and processes of nature.

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Teleological argument - WikipediaGiven this how do you prove or disprove design or purpose based on scientific evidence given that the same processes of functionality in an organism, or non-biological systems can arise out of random causes? Your right and I don't believe I said it did, by itself, explain how diversity arises, I was pointing out that survival is a driving force in biological systems. My full statement was:

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What is the common purpose of all life? Survival would be a good start, because it encompasses the traits of evolution such as adaptation, reproduction, genetic variations, speciation, as well as natural selection. I would argue that survival is a driving force in explaining diversity, giving rise to more complex forms through the processes outlined above...

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Absolutely, I agree 100%. Look for everything but it doesn't mean that anything could be the answer.

Consilience of several individually statistically improbable processes. Superficially this may look like the irreducible complexity of the Creationists. It is not.
I shall risk repeating an underlying theme: we should not reject intelligent design as a possibility simply because the concept has been usurped by Creationists. Ignoring the possibility for this reason is unscientific.

While I agree that all scientific options should be considered, ID has not been proven nor has been taking serious as a scientific premise. Please explain how it's not. Interestingly we do see this attempt of convergence of knowledge through joining QM, with General Relativity (simple explanation) trying to find the theory of everything, however, this is done through science not ideology.

Why have rules? Another way to look at this might be to say "If I would have turned left instead of right would I have gotten into an accident?" If you say no, because you chose a different path then rules might not apply, if you say yes, then your destined to have the accident because it follows a preconceived path you have no control, and thusly one could argue no way to "bend" the rules in your favor.

To repeat, I wish to totally separate the notion of Intelligent Design as a fatuous excuse by Creationists to pretend they are engaged in science, from intelligent design, in which we acknowledge the possibility of external controls and remain alert for their potential appearance. Crick and Orgel were quite comfortable about postulating intelligent design to explain the orign of life on the Earth(Crick,F. Orgel,L.E Icarus (1973) Volume 19). I am merely arguing for a similar opem mindedness. Scientific hypotheses never are proven, so I am not sure what point you are making. It has been taken as serious scientific premise until two hundred years ago. My point is precisely that it should be given more attention - the words 'baby' and 'bath water' come to mind. The difference lies in the fact that ID is ideologically based, whereas intelligent design should be investigated with the full rigour of the scientific method. But that requires that no a priori judgements be made. The scientific community has been making such a judgement - by and large - for the past century. Now would be a good time to change.

Welcome to the fray Eclogite. In other words, any branch of science (including evolution) could provide that potential appearance. What you may want to consider is using Deism rather than ID. I would say that ID has not been demonstrated. Probably 99% of ID has to do with non-testable assertions, and the remaining 1% amounts to trivial conclusions that do not differentiate ID from standard (agnostic) scientific studies. This means that there is no difference to science with ID from science without ID, so it has no proven benefit to consider ID. Yet 200 years ago science was not defined the way it is today. Is alchemy science? Can you demonstrate this having happened? People keep making assertions like this, but I don't see it. Can you enlighten me?My personal take is that this is a philosophical question that lies outside of the realms of science, that science can support your personal philosophical views (and should for those views to be rational), but not that science rules one way or the other.All science shows is that certain concepts are false. Those concepts are false whether you believe in god or not. Science can steer you away from false beliefs, but cannot tell you what are true beliefs.Enjoy.

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If the purpose is to generate a species with the intelligence to contemplate the existence of god/s, while protecting life in general from trendencies towards extinction by maximizing diversity, you have both niche filling (survival) plus some organisms reaching higher consciousness. And other senses - sonar, radar, infrared (heat) vision. Perception of reality, as a basis for intellectual contemplation of a greater reality. The predator-prey relationship drives development of both predator and prey - it is a tool for improvements.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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