Does evolution have a purpose? (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 10, 2014, 15:41 (3695 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The fitness discussion relates directly to competition and survival, and as we delve into this subject, note that my idea of eventual humans as the goal is another way of looking at a mechanism for evolution, just as my proposal of a driving mechanism to complexity can be another mechanism for evolution. We are stuck with Darwin's approach because it is the dominant current theory, but I can offer substantial arguments, as I have in the past for a different padttern of factors and mechanisms.-Previously, your drive to complexity was powered by a 3.7-billion-year-old computer programme. Apart from that alternative, I really can't see any difference between the inventive mechanism and a “driving mechanism to complexity”. We have agreed that survival does not explain progression beyond bacteria, and the merging of single cellular organisms into multicellular, followed by an ever increasing number of cellular combinations = invention and complexity. But you are right that innovations must still tie in with fitness, since there would not be much point in increased complexity if the new organism couldn't survive! -dhw: An autonomous IM will go on inventing, and each invention will lead to further inventions, and each one will have its own “agenda”, as it either copes with or exploits new conditions. But this may be where you and I have to part company. Let's see.-DAVID: We are not together. I still view an inventive mechanism as following guidelines and semi-autonomously inventing.-We have agreed that the inventive mechanism follows guidelines in the same way as the bridge-builder does: knowledge of what it can and can't do, plus knowledge of current conditions. If the bridge-builder is autonomous, so is the IM. You go on to say: “By semi-autonomous I mean I can see the IM branching off into all sorts of sidelines of live inventions.” We clearly speak a different language, but even my American dictionary offers the definition ”self-governing” . What is half self-governing? “Autonomous” in our context means the mechanism is in control of itself, is not preprogrammed, takes its own decisions. It branches off into many different forms BECAUSE it is autonomous, with the different organisms coming up with different solutions to different problems in different environments.
 
dhw: Dabbling was your other option, but that conflicted with your belief that evolution happened. 
DAVID: No it doesn't. Dabbling simply meant guiding some of the evolutionary changes.-My apologies. You are quite right, and this may become an important factor in our discussion.
 
dhw: The theistic version of the inventive mechanism, i.e. that your God created it, raises the question of his motives for the bush, whereas your anthropocentric 3.7-year-preprogramming - while failing to explain the higgledy-piggledy bush - gives you a tangible purpose to cling to. 
DAVID: Once again, you are making religion's mistake, awarding God with human thinking. He may have had no motives for a bush.-You can hardly complain about such thinking when you have consistently argued that God's evolutionary purpose was to create humans.
 
dhw: It also ties in neatly with religion, since many religious people believe that God is interested in them, and loves them, and wants them to behave properly and be happy. Maybe they're right. Who knows?
DAVID: That is just my point. Who knows God at all?-Indeed. He may not even exist. But you think he does, so do you still believe his purpose in starting evolution was to create humans?