Convergence; Simon Conway Morris Teleology (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, June 12, 2016, 12:51 (3086 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Living creatures always try to survive. It seems built-in (epigenetics). To me that is the main purpose of life. We have not explained scientifically saltations of new species.
dhw: Well, at least survival is an improvement over non-survival. As a purpose, it certainly makes more sense than complexification for the sake of complexification.

DAVID: Not if it seems it would be an easy road to the h-p bush. Survivability and complexity fit the pattern of evolution.-Of course they do. But the complexities have to work! I suggest that the “easy road to the h-p bush” is brought about by individual organisms complexifying for a purpose (survival or the chance to find a better way of surviving), not complexifying just to make themselves more complex. 
 
DAVID: IF different 'intelligences' exist. So far it is a supposition based on external observations only.
dhw: Agreed. That is no reason for rejecting the hypothesis and insisting that convergence is the product of divine preplanning or dabbling. That is a supposition based on no observations at all.
DAVID: The only observation is the enormous complexity which has been created by evolution and requires exquisite planning.-Every innovation requires “exquisite planning”, and all our hypotheses are an attempt to explain how the planning takes place. We have observed cells and cell communities adapting to changing conditions, communicating, cooperating, solving problems (“external observations”), but nobody has observed a computer programme of on-board instructions for all innovations, or a God personally intervening to deliver new instructions.