In the last few posts, I have been talking a lot about goals. Goals for humans, for humanity, for nature, for evolution. All and sundry seem to be brimming with goals.
I guess I should point out that I mean “goal” in a purely ontological sense, similar to people like Richard Dawkins et al. For example: when I say that the goal of a protein compound is to replicate, I only mean that protein compounds that replicate, are the ones that end up existing. And hence, one can imagine as if the existing protein compounds had a goal of replicating.
One does not presuppose free-will, consciousness, intelligence or anything for the above concept of a goal.
This answers one question that some people had – that evolution was supposed
to be a random spontaneous process, wherefrom does a “goal” come from?
In the above ontological sense, the “goal” of evolution, of the organic players
in evolution, can be said to be survival.
But in the previous post, I’ve said that the goal of Nature is too complex to describe. If it can be summed up in one word – survival – how come it is too complex to describe?
Well, imagine you are giving a math exam, and you have to find the integral of a complicated looking function. It is clearly insufficient to say that the answer is some function. Saying that the goal of evolution is survival is almost that bad. “Survival” has finer and finer nuances. As the previous post pointed out, for protein compounds, it was mere replication. But for animals, it was being happy. Being in a happy state is a finer nuance of surviving. Similarly, for humans, to remain in a vegetative/bovine state of idle happiness is ground finer – we have to create, to control and to know. To achieve creative progress.
This is a finer nuance of survival than merely remaining happy. In a sense, we survive “better”.
We do not know how far this would go. That is, we do not know the “ultimate” nuance of survival.
Addendum to Addendum: Given that the goal is merely ontological, why should the agents in the present follow that goal? If individual human agents have a goal to be happy and go live a simple life in a farm, then that has more face value than some non-existent metaphorical construct of a goal eh?
You see, evolution finds finer and finer nuances of survival (of all the agents). In other words, the functions that have “evolved” enable the agents to survive “better”. In that sense, it should be the goal of the agents to use those functions. The continuation of the increase in survival complexity depends on it.
The concept of free-will confuses people here. An agent can choose to do what it wants right? Isn’t this need more real? People don’t understand that these needs – to be happy, to achieve creative progress – are all tools at the hand of evolution. Or rather at the hands of the agents in the evolutionary pool.
These needs/functions are evolutionarily hardwired into us. So, when I say we “should” work towards creative progress, it’s required both from an evolutionary standpoint, but also from a fulfillment standpoint.
Another doubt people have is how does it make sense to talk about working towards the goals of humanity. “Humanity” as a superstructure does not exist, does it even make sense to work towards its goals? That is why I was talking about distributed computing. Each agent is next to useless. But together they describe a complicated goal function.
The set of interacting species, with their individual goals, by construction, define some global goal function of survival.
The set of interacting humans, with their individual goals, by construction, define
some global goal function – which is a finer nuance of survival. Creative Progress. This is purely a high level view.
Individual humans have to create, to control, to know. This is at the level of an individual human. So long as he does that, as opposed to sit in a chair being day-dreamingly happy, the global thing is automatic.
seven_times_six, if I were to concede that it makes sense to talk of this “ontological” goal, I’d still hold that to relate this ontological goal to the real goals of humans is meaningless, just as the metaphorical selfishness of genes, as Dawkins would put it, does not lead to selfishness in individuals – indeed, can have quite the opposite impact, as Hamilton’s studies of reciprocal altruism show. Also, your argument carries too many assumptions, especially when you state the imagined short-term goals of animals and humans. Can you, once again, state the crux of your argument in one cogent sentence, and then define all the terms you use in that sentence?
Would that sentence would be something like (I paraphrase from your first post on this subject:) “The ultimate goal of humanity/society is progress.” If so, I shall echo Sathish’s comment for that post, and say that it makes no sense to speak of humanity/society as some kind of a superstructure, as if it can have goals and needs and whatever else of its own. That was the biggest fallacy in social science in the last century. Even if we accept an ontological goal, [back to first para of this comment!].
Sigh. So what’s YOUR goal?
Amit, I have posted an addendum to the addendum.
Does it answer your doubts?
Dawkin’s selfishness argument in fact should make things clearer. The goal of genes is selfish replication, this results in finer goals in humans
which entail that they NOT be completely selfish.
That is what even I’ve been saying to not much success. Don’t regress back to goals of a simpler level.
In other words, the functions that have “evolved” enable the agents to survive “better”. In that sense, it should be the goal of the agents to use those functions.
Naturalistic fallacy, seven_times_six, you’re deriving an ought from an is. Your entire argument breaks down here. Elementary error.
Also, we evolved in prehistory, all the tools/needs/function “hardwired into us” were for that environment. Many are irrelevant as evolutionary tools. For example, the urge towards promiscuity for men is pointless in an age of birth control. That is why any “ontological goal” that “society” “should” have is derived from false premises, even if I were to accept the many fallacious terms you use.
Ugh Amit, Saying that an organism should use a function that has evolved over a long period of time is NOT a naturalistic fallacy and you know it. It follows from evolution being ontologically efficient.
You second argument just buttresses my case again. There are some evolutionary drives which are more primeval. And hence they have a lower importance as compared to more recent ones. Thus, Creative Progress > Being Happy.
Just what are the “so many fallacious” things you find above?
Saying that an organism should use a function that has evolved over a long period of time is NOT a naturalistic fallacy.
We enter the realm of the absurd – of course it is. Our urge towards promiscuity has “evolved over a long period of time” (tautological as that is), but does that mean that we should be promiscuous? Functions that have evolved are textbook examples of demonstrating the fallacy of deriving an ought from an is, as anyone who has studied either philosophy or evolution knows.
The fallacies I was referring to were in quote marks in that same sentence and outlined in my comments to this and your earlier posts.
Amit, again you are being fallaciously combative.
You’re taking what I call the Gould defense.
Yes, we should be more promiscuous in the absence of more evolved functions. This is NOT a fallacy. I agree that if we have more evolved functions, those attain more primacy. In fact, this is exactly the THRUST of my post. That Being Happy was evolutionarily important for a previous complexity-level of existence.
Any derivation of an “ought” (or a “should”) from an “is” amounts to committing the naturalistic fallacy, there are no exceptions to that, seven_times_six. That is such a basic lesson of philosophy that it amazes me that you make one such fallacy the basis of your argument.
Prattle on – I’m out of here.
My eyes skipped back up to that thing about “the Gould defence”. You’re winging it, seven_times_six, Dawkins, Mayr, Hamilton and all the other great Darwinians were on Gould’s side on this one issue – there is no overarching plan in nature. Go and read them, will ya?
A clarification to people enamored by fallacies:
Naturalistic/is-ought fallacy: a conclusion about how things ought to be based solely on information about how things are in fact.
But evolutionary,ontological information is not NO information. If we know something has evolved for survival efficiencies, it is obviously good for survival efficiencies.
One can then make arguments like Gould and Amit did, about promiscuity. I have already answered that in a comment above.
A similar argument:
a. Using evolved functions ==> survival
b. WHY should survival ==> using evolved function.
Saying (b) follows from (a) is obviously a logical fallacy.
But who the hell has ever argued that using evolved functions is the ONLY WAY of surviving.
One just uses the information that it is ONE WAY of surviving, and hence one says one ought to use the evolved functions.
Amit, dude, I’m sorry you didn’t get anything out of this “prattle”.
Do email me at seven_times_six@yahoo.com. Based on exchanges, I’ll post either a retraction or a clarification.
Naturalistic/is-ought fallacy: a conclusion about how things ought to be based solely on information about how things are in fact.
If we know something has evolved for survival efficiencies, it is obviously good for survival efficiencies.
Doesn’t the second half of that second sentence qualify as a statement of fact? Your fallacy is so glaring and your denial of it so ridiculous that I can see why you use an assumed name – why use your real one and make a fool of yourself on a public forum?
Also, the argument about promiscuity was not from Gould – it’s a textbook argument to demonstrate the naturalistic fallacy, and Dawkins and Pinker and Dennett have all used it. It is clear you have read none of them, and no, you hadn’t answered it in an earlier comment, because you can’t. You simply denied there was a naturalistic fallacy involved!
Let me end by quoting your favourite writer, Douglas Adams, to you:
So look out!
Amit, come on man, instead of blustering why don’t you think a little.
Let me state it even more lucidly.
A naturalistic fallacy occurs when you cannot use the evolutionary efficiency argument properly.
i.e. property A exists in nature, SOLELY on that fact, if I call it as an efficient and good property, it’s fallacious.
But if I know organ A has developed for function B, if I say A should be useful for B, it is not a naturalistic fallacy.
If something has evolved over a period of time – say our eye – FOR a particular function – vision – obviously it should be useful for that function. This is not a fallacy, even if I use the word should.
Amit, do you even understand what these people like Dennett and Dawkins say or do you just read them?
The promiscuity argument is a standard ethical strawman technique, that I HAVE seen used by Gould to rubbish evolutionary psychology.
About promiscuity – I’ve read a Dawkins essay which clearly argued about recently evolved functions having greater primacy and functions being tuned to social environments.
Even about the ontological goals, what the heck do you think Dawkin’s ideas of genes being selfish, or proteins wanting to replicate mean?
Your understanding of what Dawkins and Dennett have to say is so tenuous that I wonder why you quote them at all.
Reading is not an excuse for NOT thinking!!!!
So I haven’t understood Dawkins? Well, you failed my challenge to quote him in your support, so let me quote him saying that there is no purpose, or goal, in nature:
From The Blind Watchmaker, a wonderful book it’s obvious you’ve never read. Read it, and you will find that he disputed that there is any such goal you speak of, even ontological.
And I haven’t understood Dennett, it seems? Once again, you fail to quote him in favour of your argument, so let me quote him in favour of mine:
From Brainstorms.
Also, the promiscuity argument could NOT have been used by Gould to rubbish evolutionary psychology, because it is an argument often used by evolutionary psychologists to demonstrate the naturalistic fallacy – I first read it in Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate. All of them would be aghast at your suggestion that they could possibly have agreed with the rubbish you are propounding, because they stood for just the opposite. Now that I have quoted them to the contrary, will you please stop winging it? You know absolutely nothing about the subjects concerned, and are engaged in idiotic mental masturbation.
On the other hand, you could just shift goalposts, and attack them as being wrong, and say they it will take centuries for your grand idea to be accepted, as you said a couple of posts ago! Or you could get personal and call me names again. Take your pick.
Amit, the point I’m making is subtle, please think about it for a second. What Dawkins said and Pinker said and others such said and with which I AGREE – is that evolution is not by CAUSAL design. But it appears as if it has design IN EFFECT. That is ontologically it has design.
I have cried myself hoarse that my arguments are the same as Dawkin’s replicating proteins and selfish genes, which are in his book “The Selfish Gene”. Yet you keep asking me to quote him. And that I’m “winging” it.
Of COURSE there is no CAUSAL design, for a process with design presupposes a more complex process. If Evolution has a goal, there has to be a more complex process that designed it. This was warned against by people like Pinker and Dawkins, who worried this subtlety might be misunderstood and be played into the hands of creationists (And it WAS misused by some).
If you do not understand what I am saying, and think that I believe that there is a deity or something driving an actual goal-driven evolution, feel free to think so.
And regarding promiscuity, again it was originated by bashers of evolutionary efficiency, and Pinker et al clarified it, which sadly you failed to grasp.
They indeed agreed that promiscuity in this age is not correct. I am not saying they didn’t. But what they clarified, in FAVOR of evolutionary efficiency, was that promiscuity IS efficient if we live in the hunter-gatherer period. BUT, we have far more evolved social environments and functions which supercede it. Point me where I indicated otherwise.
I tried, I really did, I don’t want to argue out these subtleties anymore.
Sigh. Read the books, seven_times_six, will you? If you do you will find that both Dawkins and Dennett were arguing against what you call “an ontological goal”, and not deliberate design, which would be too obvious to need to state. The Blind Watchmaker, in fact, was written to counter the creationists, who argued that there is an ontological goal, and therefore there must have been someone to set it (namely god). You are giving the same argument without reaching their conclusion!
Also, “design in effect”, as there certainly is in nature, does not mean that there is an ontological goal, or purpose, to it. Remember Adams and his puddle? (Scroll up to earlier comment.)
As for the promiscuity argument, you miss the point again. The reason to cite it was to demonstrate the naturalistic fallacy you commit, of deriving an ought from an is, which is still the core of your argument.
Once again, before misrepresenting these fine writers, at least READ what they wrote! All of The Blind Watchmaker counters your argument, and I see no point in paraphrasing or quoting Dawkins as you keep shifting goalposts.
Enjoy yourself, I’m out of here.
I sometimes wonder if people are really as confused as they show it to be or whether they are merely being combative. But blustering combativeness presupposes a desire to “win”, which in turn presupposes a desire for respect, but this is clearly negated by blustering.
What could potentially explain this illogical scenario is the hypothesis (I think made by Ravikiran?) that people are instinctually combative. Probably something that evolved even!
I was sure it would end with personal insult as there was nothing left to argue.
Sigh! Since you insist so much, let me please you by conceding that “society” and “humanity” do indeed have a “goal”. But I’m off now, to pursue some goals of my own. I hope I’m allowed to do that in your theory.
Amit, I’m not insulting you as much as you think. If I didn’t have any respect for what you had to say, I wouldn’t have argued with you.
Ditto. But I really do think you’re better at economics. Still, let’s not start again.
Amit – I agreed with everything you said, and thought you provided a cogent and powerful refutation of seven-times-six’s arguments. You were being sarcastic about conceding, I suppose? Because you won this hands down.
Bob – Yes, sarcasm, obviously. But it was also resignation at going round and round in circles. Anyway, I’m tired of being “combative” …