Does evolution have a purpose? (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, October 13, 2014, 16:52 (3692 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Monday, October 13, 2014, 17:41

DAVID: I can find purpose in your description. Both fine-tuning and the IM tend to deny chance. I suggest that humans are different in kind not degree,per Adler, both in the mechanical ability of their bodies but also in the enormous mental ability. It does not look accidental to me. -Nor do the enormous complexities of myrmecophilous beetles and dinosaurs. Nor does an eye or a kidney or a liver. That is the whole point of the inventive mechanism: once set in motion, it designs all forms of life, innovating, accumulating, expanding, all the way through to humans. (But see below for a get-out, if you need it.) -DAVID: Again it brings me back to a semi-autonomous IM which follows some constraints and guidelines. I want my cake and to eat it also. This is just as possible a scenario as yours. It is not pre-programming. An inventor takes what exists to work with and his invention is something new. We have agreed to this. And he has purpose. To create semething useful.-Your motive for all these little quibbles is transparent, and disarmingly and charmingly honest. You want to have your cake and eat it, so if you can slip in “semi” and “guidelines” and an “inventor”, it sort of vaguely keeps God actively involved. But you don't need to be slippery. Your God can still be involved through his invention of the inventive mechanism. Autonomous invention within the constraints and guidelines applicable to all inventions and activities, including our own (what can and can't be done, what conditions are laid down by the environment) is not your scenario, it's mine, as is clear from your reference above to humans and below to the Cambrian problem. And my inventive mechanism takes what exists to work with and its invention is something new, and its purpose is to create something useful. But you can modify my scenario if you think your God's mechanism is incapable of turning apes into humans. You quite rightly reprimanded me for saying that “dabbling” conflicted with your belief in evolution. You wrote: “No it doesn't. Dabbling simply meant guiding some of the evolutionary changes.” That is your scenario. “Dabbling” may be a sign of things going wrong, or a sign of your God making it up as he goes along, and it's not preprogramming. However, this is where you have the problem of where to draw the line, as seen in your next comment:
 
DAVID: One problem I have is the Cambrian explosion. The gap is huge from Edicaran to fully functional animals with several interocking organ systems. A totally unfettered IM just inventing along, cannot have made taht jump without experimenting with intermediate forms. And so far, over the last 100 years of fossil hunting they are painfully absent for Darwin folks.-So what are you suggesting? That God separately created all those new organs? Or that he took existing organisms and manipulated their genomes (= dabbled)? If it's the latter, it suggests your God was not capable of creating an IM that could invent anything so complicated, whereas he himself could pop in and do it just like that. Well, if he could do it, why couldn't he invent a mechanism that could do it? And why would he dabble 500 million years ago, creating a vast array of species - many of which would go extinct - if his real purpose was to create humans? It doesn't make sense, does it? But an autonomous IM explains it all. Organisms go their own higgledy-piggledy way. 
 
DAVID: So, did the IM invent itself? Or again, no purpose? For me the evidence is strongly suggestive of purpose.
dhw: Your question is not a true alternative. The alternatives would be: did it invent itself, or was it invented by a designer (your God)?
DAVID: Exactly my point. The IM must have exquisite planning ability to create the Cambrian animals. A major point for considering it invented by God.-Good. So now you are agreeing that the IM could have done it, whereas a moment ago you were using the absence of fossils to cast doubt on it. That wasn't your point, though. You were telescoping two issues: 1) Was the mechanism designed by your God? 2) Did/does it have a purpose? -DAVID: Your explorations of God's mind are amusing. I still don't know what was on his mind when he created evolution to create us eventually. Why not just do it, instead of evolving a universe and humans over time?-“To create us” is the anthropocentric view I am questioning. Why is that to be taken seriously and the alternatives I offer are amusing? Why assume that human nature is alien to anything your God might experience? Do you think he would have created something capable of love, empathy, joy without knowing anything about such emotions? If your answer is no, then it must also be possible that he's capable of curiosity, boredom etc. Of course we can't read his mind (if he exists at all), but when you claim that his aim was to produce humans, you open the gate to alternative interpretations.
 
DAVID: I see nothing but purpose, and you seem to struggle to champion accidental, balancing on your fence.-But what is that purpose? I'm currently struggling to understand how evolution might work, and I'm offering an inventive alternative to random mutations, to divine preprogramming, and to divine dabbling, and suggesting the purposes of survival and improvement.