Hi Jonathan:
Glad your e-mail is up and running again. As the only practising biologist on
this site as far as I know, your expertise on matters evolutionary is to be
regarded with the highest degree of respect.
> My e-mail was down for a bit, so I had to go into the MoQ web site and do a
> rush job of catching up. Unless I missed something, it seems that the
> argument about the mechanics of evolution has now died down. The outcome
> appears to be that Darwin is vindicated - evolution by mutation and
> selection is a viable explanation for biological speciation. As far as
> conventional biology is concerned, it is the best explanation anyone has
> come up with so far.
>
> What we are left with is the argument about teleology and purpose. My
> question "does teleology have a purpose?" was supposed to be
> tongue-in-cheek, but generated some serious answers. I also answered
> Platt's great question: PLATT >Is it possible to measure and quantify the
> desire on the >part of organisms to live?
>
> Platt, are you asking what the purpose of survival is? I've gone on more
> than once about what I consider to be "the purpose platypus". My own take
> on this is that we can only know purpose or desire as conscious intention
> when it is our own intention. Attributing desire to anything else is
> unscientific conjecture. As for "unconscious" intention, that would be
> either an oxymoron, or another expression for tendency. To put it another
> way, I don't know if positive and negative charges "desire" to move towards
> each other (in a purposeful sense), but I do know that they TEND to move
> together.
If attributing desire to anything other than human beings is unscientific
conjecture then Konrad Lorenz,. who needs no introduction to you,
must have been off base when he said, "What the organism learns
about its environment can be expressed in the simple phrase, 'It's better
here' or 'It's not so good here.'" (Sorry, I don't have a citation.) Of
course, all that valuing business that Pirsig talks about going on at
inorganic and biological levels must be patent nonsense in your view.
> Platt's question, therefore seems to be about whether we can measure the
> TENDENCY of organisms to survive. The answer is trivial - we measure it by
> observing their survival. Creatures that have a strong tendency to survive
> tend to survive. Creatures that don't, tend not to survive. I think that
> this is the MoQ way to tackle the question, and as so often happens, the
> answer is a tautology - a simple truism.
My question goes to the reason why living things exhibit a tendency to
survive--strong, weak or otherwise. I always had the impression it was
the purpose (there's that word again) of science to unearth causes. If
every now and then things just happen for no reason at all, science
would come to an end. If I ask, "Why does water boil when it is
heated?" I don't expect the answer to be, "It just has that tendency." I
must be missing something.
Anyway, I take it that your answer is, "No, there is no way to measure
the will to survive." As far as I'm concerned, that settles the question
and I appreciate your response.
Still for me the question of purpose is very much unsettled. It's also
under review by Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and author of
numerous books about science. In his book, "The Fifth Miracle" he
writes:
"There is clearly a danger in science of projecting onto nature
categories and concepts derived from the world of human affairs as if
they are intrinsic to nature itself."
This sounds much like the point you make, Jonathan. Davies continues:
"Yet, at the end of the day, human beings are products of nature, and if
humans have purposes, then at some level purposefulness must arise
from nature and therefore be inherent in nature. Is purposefulness a
property that emerges only at the relatively high level of Homo sapiens,
or does it exist in other animals too? When a dog seeks out and digs
up a buried bone, does he 'desire' to retrieve the bone? When an
amoeba approaches and engulfs a particle of food, does it in any sense
'intend' to swallow it? Might purpose be a genuine property of nature
right down to the cellular or even the subcellular level? There are no
agreed answers to these questions, but no account of the origin of life
can be complete without addressing them." p.122
I can't say for sure, but it sounds like Mr. Davies just might be open to
ideas presented in the Metaphysics of Quality. I guess you are too,
Jonathan, though at this point I'm confused as to what in the MOQ you
agree with, if anything. It seems Pirsig's story of evolution and creation
of the value levels is definitely a no-no in your view. But, as Roger has
taught me to say and will probably be on my lips as I take my last
breath, "I could be wrong."
Platt
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