And all the intention required is that of water to run downhill. — unenlightened

Yeah, which is a very unconventional, and so confusing, use of the word "intention" (or "purpose").

This is where we have a difference of opinion, as to what constitutes "purposeful". I think that the carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis are useful in the plant's future, perhaps in the flower, to attract bees. Therefore the plant produces this sugar with the intention of producing a flower, and that is done with the intention of attracting insects, and that with the intention of fulfilling reproductive needs. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how you get from "X successfully achieves Y" to "A intentionally uses X to achieve Y".

You restrict "intention" to "that which is carried out with conscious determination". But there is no need for such a restriction. Intention has been observed to go much deeper than the conscious level. Habitual acts are carried out intentionally, without conscious direction.

I use the word in this restricted sense because that's what the word means. If I intend to do something then I have made the conscious decision to do that thing.

To say that I intend to do something but that I haven't consciously decided to do that thing strikes me as a very obvious contradiction

What, exactly, do you mean by the word "intend"? What does it mean for an habitual act to be carried out intentionally?

So, in my post, I questioned:
"the activities of DNA, such as mitosis, whatever it is which "acts" at this level. I don't think biological science has properly identified what it is which is acting, because it must be acting at a sub-atomic level to produce such molecular changes".
Consider activities such as mitosis and meiosis. What do you think is the active agent in such activities, what is acting? We could say that the cell is acting, then we assume an internal cause. What is this internal cause, or force?

Mitosis and meiosis are reactive events that occur in response to physical changes in their environment. It's not much different to a computer turning on in response to a button being pressed. What, exactly, are you suggesting? You haven't been very clear. Are you arguing against the notion of physical causation and in favour of a supernatural explanation? If so then what's the evidence, and if not then what view are you attacking?

Thanks SX; I was familiar with most of what you wrote, except the "left-handedness of neutrinos and the right-handedness of the DNA helix. I suppose the (I guess we must think universal?) operation of entropy is itself the most basic asymmetry, since it would seem to produce temporal directionality. You say that a symmetrical universe would dissipate symmetrically.Thinking about this the question that comes to mind is whether in an absolutely homogeneous, that is absolutely symmetrical, universe any dissipation of energy would occur at all.

The origin of asymmetry may be "hotly contested" but does it seem plausible there could be any hope of answering this question by either empirical observation or mathematical modeling?

Also, I still don't see why an asymmetrical universe might not simply dissipate chaotically without producing any order. It still seems to be the case that order, in terms of the invariant behavior of matter/energy in its various forms must be inherent, for entropic dissipation in the form of ordered complexification to occur. So, I still don't have a handle on how

these asymmetries [...] account for self-organizing tendencies which do not violate the second law. — StreetlightX

. I can see, that is how it makes sense that the asymmetries allow for self-organization but not how

these asymmetries basically 'force' organization to happen. — StreetlightX

Surely you don't deny that we might have unconscious intentions?

One can surely only have unconscious intentions if one is conscious?

One could surely only be aware of thinking of having unconscious intentions if one were conscious?

You're getting a bit too recursive for my wine-addled brain. I am suggesting that in order to have an unconscious one needs a consciousness. What are you saying?

Are there organisms that are wholly unconscious? I guess it depends on what is meant by "conscious". In any case, even if I must be (at least sometimes) generally conscious in order to have unconscious intentions, it does not follow from that that I could not intend to do something without being conscious of that intention.

selection, in the short term of plant breeders and so on does not rely on novel mutations but variability within the gene pool of populations. — unenlightened

I think the Neo-Darwinian idea is that general, statistically predictable variability within a gene pool just is the expression of novel mutations. For this to follow it would seem that the sheer novelty of the mutations would have to be suitably restricted; and of course it is suitably restricted by the generally lawlike invariant behavior of matter/energy.

An entirely symmetrical universe would dissipate symmetrically, foreclosing any sort of self-organizing capacities. The exact source(s) of cosmic asymmetry are hotly debated, but it's these asymmetries which account for self-organizing tendencies which do not violate the second law. — StreetlightX

I suppose the (I guess we must think universal?) operation of entropy is itself the most basic asymmetry, since it would seem to produce temporal directionality. You say that a symmetrical universe would dissipate symmetrically.Thinking about this the question that comes to mind is whether in an absolutely homogeneous, that is absolutely symmetrical, universe any dissipation of energy would occur at all. — John

SX makes the critical points very nicely. I will add a few thoughts.

The baseline state of the Universe was set up by the symmetry breaking that was the hot Big Bang. The Universe started out as a simple spreading/cooling bath of radiation. So from one perspective, it was an entropic gradient - the Universe was running down the hill from the Planck temperature towards absolute zero. But then because the Universe was effectively its own heat sink - it cooled by metric expansion - you could say that this creation of "new space" was a matching negentropic order.

So from a global perspective - one that counts degrees of freedom or microstates - it is difficult to say the entropy count actually changes. The essential change - the symmetry breaking represented by the Big Bang - already created a maximum entropy state. The radiative contents were already as messy as they could be. The now locked in story of a constant c rate radiative expansion and cooling had been "paid for" in terms of the phase transition that resulted in such a world with its orderly Planck scale structure and three dimensional, radiation dissipating, geometry.

So if we ask the usual question of how the Universe started in a state of high negentropy - an initial orderliness which could then be the fuel for a second law trajectory towards messiness - one answer is that the Big Bang was itself a mathematical-strength structural asymmetry just waiting to happen.

Before the Big Bang was a vagueness or quantum roil - a state of unbounded fluctuation or infinite dimensionality. There was action happening in any direction and so no actual global geometry or real dissipation. For structural reasons, limiting this wild chaos by constraining the action to a 3D heat sink - grabbing a chunk of this primal energy and spinning it into a cool/expanding fabric of radiative events - was a way to make a world. It created a realm of distinct pathways - the three dimensions that allowed powerlaw dilution of thermal action - that could then roll downhill towards a maximum separation between the complementary things of position and momentum, the container that is spacetime and the contents of this expanding box which was its gas of particles or thermalising events.

So before the Big Bang, things would (logically) have been so symmetrical as to be vague. Action was unbounded and so nothing existed to say that anything was happening in some direction. The Big Bang was then the dualised creation of the very split by which negentropy and entropy could even be distinguished. The emergence of an expanding spacetime dimensionality as the organised container was what made possible a matching story of spreading and so cooling particles or thermalising events. Structurally, it locked in a trajectory in which particles could make symmetric exchanges of energy among themselves - there was no trajectory of change at the individual level. But then emergently, statistically, the particles would find themselves behaving asymmetrically, the hotter particles always on the whole yielding to the probability they would make radiative exchanges with cooler particles.

This very simple initial universe - a spreading/cooling gas - then hit further symmetry breakings as its temperature dropped. Like a tide going out, suddenly a rocky deeper structure was exposed and rock pools of trapped negentropy formed.

The critical one was the electroweak symmetry breaking that saw the Higgs mechanism switched on and particles becoming gravitationally massive. This happened all at once at a critical temperature and so represented a sudden entropic deceleration everywhere in the Universe. There was a shift from the steady entropification rate where radiation was spreading as fast as it could - the speed of light - to a Universe where a good chunk of its hot contents was now dragging along at sub-light speed. The balance of the Universe was suddenly out of equilibrium, setting up the need (the telos) for a new level of dissipative mechanism. The Universe was spreading/cooling at a sub-optimal rate now. And so that paid for any further negentropic structure that would help it catch up, re-accelerate the entropification.

Hence stars. Mass clumped gravitationally. But then as a further twist of fate, it caught fire and started turning mass into radiation.

That then left its own negentropic residue in the form of heavy elements and rocky planets. And so afresh, you have the negentropic platform for life to emerge and add its (fantastically tiny) contribution to the universal cause.

So my point is that second law entropy thinking explains a heck of a lot. But metaphysically, we then have to recognise how entropy and negentropy are two faces of the same coin in some deep way. And rather than chasing some chicken and egg question of which comes first - the symmetry or its breaking - we need to have a story where they both co-arise in synergistic fashion from an even more primal state - the state that can be dubbed a chaos, an apeiron, a roil, a vagueness, an unbounded dimensionality of fluctuation.

But it is still the case that the Big Bang looks to represent a properly crisp symmetry breaking. That was the instant when a strictly limited dimensionality clicked into place. And from there, with spreading/cooling as a locked in story, further mathematical outcomes become a historical inevitability. Once action was confined to the point where it had highly constrained properties - once it was playing out in a world in which crisp dimensionality underwrote definite symmetries like those of translation and rotation - then the structural mathematics of those definite symmetries became an inevitable emergent fact. As the Universe cooled enough, it would have to go through the symmetry breakings that are represented by gauge symmetries or lie groups in particular, and so result in the Standard Model family of fundamental particles.

Long-term of course, all matter should be returned to pure radiation even if it has to be swept up into black holes first. At the Heat Death, following a history of sudden global decelerations and subsequent slowly catching up local re-accelerations, the Universe will get back to being a homogenous entropic equilibrium. It will become just the lingering black body fizzle of cosmic event horizon radiation.

But that of course is a steady-state fate that is itself underwritten by the new thing of dark energy or the cosmological constant. Everywhere the spatial fabric of the Universe is undergoing a further faint acceleration for some reason.

This is the reason we can now say the Universe will coast to a halt in terms of cosmic event horizons and so - in third law of thermodynamic fashion - actually arrive at a minimum entropy condition (rather than cooling endlessly). In Red Queen style, the Universe will still be expanding/cooling at c. But that will become running on the spot for event horizons as the underlying spacetime will be continuing to accelerate away at superluminal speed.

Yet while this negentropic dark energy acceleration is a further energy that makes certain the general entropic tale of the Universe is drawn to a close, it is of course now a new source of mystery. The hope is that a better understanding of the symmetry breaking that was the Big Bang will reveal how dark energy is again the negentropic flip-side of some larger entropic symmetry breaking. It must be another tiny source of order that paid for a lot of extra mess in some fashion.

So our explanatory instinct is always to try to arrange existence into a temporal order of causes and effects. If we are talking about entropy and negentropy, mess and order, spacetime and material contents, symmetries and symmetry-breakings, we want to decide which is chicken, which is egg. We want to impose a temporal linearity that conforms with our metaphysical prejudices.

But while that is indeed a useful way of looking at things, and even a true way of looking at things once a state of crisp organisation has developed, there is then a deeper way of looking at things which is dependent on seeing symmetry and symmetry-breaking as itself the two sides of one coin. As each other's dichotomous "other", each has to arise in the presence of its opposite even to be crisply actual.

Four causes thinking can get at this by treating finality as "lurking structure awaiting its inevitable expression".

Who knew that the entropic cooling/spreading of a 3D bath of radiation would have to get interrupted by a cascade of further negentropic symmetry-breakings as it passed critical temperatures? Well those breakings already lurked in the future due to the necessity of structural mathematics. The path to ultimate simplicity was always going to be a bumpy ride as it jolted over these hidden symmetry features that define the Standard Model family of particle species - all the ways that spin in particular can have a complexity, an intrinsic asymmetry, in its directions.

I still don't see why an asymmetrical universe might not simply dissipate chaotically without producing any order. It still seems to be the case that order, in terms of the invariant behavior of matter/energy in its various forms must be inherent, for entropic dissipation in the form of ordered complexification to occur. — John

The most basic answer is that asymmetry means that things will clump together in ways that will accelerate more clumping - hence the formation of local negentropic eddies. It's a matter of feedback: tiny asymmetries in the otherwise homogeneous energy soup of the universe tend to feedback upon themselves to create larger (local) asymmetries. Apo's account is a far better one than I can give - biology is more my shtick, rather than cosmology - but the same principles are operative all throughout nature.

So rather than speak about the sub-atomic realm, which I'm not as familiar with, one can think about the analogous situation at the level of planet formation: planets begin their life as nebulous clouds which, thanks to gravity, begin to clump together at the centre. Because the gravitational forces are generally not uniformally spread - they are asymmetrical! - some parts of the cloud become more dense than others, eventually causing a 'tipping' effect which means that the cloud begins to spin along one axis of rotation rather than another. The angular momentum then engenders a centripetal effect, where matter is drawn into the center of the spinning disk. The end result of this process is a planet.

The point is that while the mechanisms are different at the subatomic level (the Higgs, etc), the actual principles of formation are the same; asymmetrical differences driven by entropic necessity begin to feedback upon themselves after having (contingently) 'tipped over' certain thresholds. So the short answer to your question is this: if you couple feedback with asymmetry in a closed system subject to entropy, you get negentropic eddies of organization. The exact details of the system under consideration will depend on the qualities of the matter in question (i.e. whether you're dealing with dust nebulae, subatomic particles, living populations, etc), but whatever scale of the universe you pick out, the same morphogenetic principles (principles which preside over the generation of 'form' (morphe)) tend to be at play.

What's key however, is that the above is an immanent account of morphogenesis. Planents don't form they way they do because of any 'external' Idea of Planethood; rather, planets are the way they are because of the processes which engender them, processes which abide by the play of necessity and chance at work in all morphogenetic processes. The trick is in extending these naturalist principles down to the level of ontogeny (development of the individual organism) and phylogeny (evolution of the species) as well.

OK, thanks apokrisis and StreetlightX, your replies have given me plenty to think about.

I don't see how you get from "X successfully achieves Y" to "A intentionally uses X to achieve Y". — Michael

X is an attribute, a property which is necessarily attributed to something, and this implies the existence of A, which X is the property of. You say "photosynthesis produces sugar" (X achieves Y). So where's the intention?" I say the intention is in the plant, A. You remove the plant, and you remove the intention.

When you remove the part from the whole, and analyze the function of the part, there is no intention to be found here. Intention is found in the relationship of the part to the whole, the purpose that the part has with respect to the whole. Your computer, for example, has many components, each of which, on its own, has a function. Put together, they make a computer, and each part's function has a purpose in relation to the existence of the computer as a whole. Since each part has a purpose in relation to the whole, we can conclude that it was put together with intention. If someone analyzes the computer itself, the fact that the parts have a purpose with respect to the whole, implies design, intention.

You want to deny the validity of this inductive conclusion, that when the parts of a thing have a purpose in relation to the whole thing, the thing was created with intention. You do this by denying that there is intention involved, in places where there really is. That is simple denial of reality. How can you deny that photosynthesis is useful to the plant? And if it is useful, how can you deny that it is purposeful? And if it is purposeful, how can you deny that it is intentional?

To say that I intend to do something but that I haven't consciously decided to do that thing strikes me as a very obvious contradiction

What, exactly, do you mean by the word "intend"? What does it mean for an habitual act to be carried out intentionally? — Michael

To say that an act has purpose in relation to a larger whole, is to say that it is intentional, it is carried out intentionally. There is no need to assume that the thing which carries out an intentional act, does so consciously. In the example of your computer, each part plays a role with respect to the whole. This makes "the role" an intentional act. What the part does, in relation to the whole, is an intentional act, it was produce with intent, but the part is not conscious. Intention is not acting within the computer, as it does in living things, it is imposed from an external source, and this is called design.

Earlier in the thread, I stressed that we should separate intention as imposed from an external source, design, from intention which inheres within. The former we infer by analyzing artificial things, the latter we infer by analyzing natural things.

Mitosis and meiosis are reactive events that occur in response to physical changes in their environment. It's not much different to a computer turning on in response to a button being pressed. — Michael

Intention is implied within each of these acts. That the computer turns on when you hit the button implies that the computer was created with intention, designed. That the living cell divides when the time is right, implies that it was created with design. So, we look for the designer. The computer has an external designer. The living cell appears to have an internal designer.

What, exactly, are you suggesting? You haven't been very clear. Are you arguing against the notion of physical causation and in favour of a supernatural explanation? If so then what's the evidence, and if not then what view are you attacking? — Michael

What I am attacking is the false representation of intentional acts, commonly referred to as "chance". What I believe is that intention is not evident in observations of physical causation, it must be inferred. It is inferred in a method similar to what I described above. When a part plays a role in a larger whole, then intention is implied. We have much evidence where intention is involved in human artifacts. Artificial things are often separated from natural things. Rather than argue that artificial things are supernatural, I would argue that the exclusion of intention from natural things, is a mistake.

The modern perspective sees intention as something imposed externally. This implies an external designer of the intentional thing, such as the computer. Some may proceed to assume an external, transcendental Designer, of the entire natural world. But this neglects the natural, real existence of intention, as something within. So when we consider intention as it really is, in its natural state, we find it as something inherent within nature, immanent. This is where we find intention, through introspection, inhering within us, each, individually. And this intention is natural.

So to exclude intention from nature, as you want to do, and to say that those who apprehend purpose, or intention, within the natural acts of plants and animals, are invoking the supernatural, is a mistake. We simply see "nature" in a different way, a more comprehensive way, one which allows intention to be a natural thing.

So, we look for the designer. The computer has an external designer. The living cell appears to have an internal designer. — Metaphysician Undercover

A designer is someone who makes conscious decisions to achieve some desired end. So, again, you're misusing words (or arguing for some sort of intelligence that makes genetic mutations occur).

We simply see "nature" in a different way, a more comprehensive way, one which allows intention to be a natural thing.

What's the difference between X being the result of a natural, non-conscious intention and X being the causal consequence of prior physical phenomena?

None the less the concept of acquired characteristics is included in both the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man, and taken as read.
His 'empirical' evidence of evolution via natural selection is never established except by inference with domestic selection. And ever Karl Popper had to give him a free pass when it came to falsification.

I might point out, because it is not clear in the thread, that selection, in the short term of plant breeders and so on does not rely on novel mutations but variability within the gene pool of populations. There is a nice sloppiness about a gene pool that allows the peppered moth to adapt to the industrial revolution and then adapt back without having recourse to happy accidents of mutation and then of re-mutation. — unenlightened

Now, consider what StreetlightX says:

It's not even that genes can be 'turned on and off'; it's that even when they are 'on' they can do 'different stuff'. — StreetlightX

So here's an analogy. Consider that genes are like words, which, together in combination, produce something. You might think that if you select the proper words, you will create a sentence with one fixed meaning. But this is not the case, due to variance in the meaning of individual words, the meaning of the sentence might be different depending on the individual who interprets the sentence. Likewise, the same genes might have a different effect on the phenotype, depending on the individual. This means that there is something deeper which acts to determines the phenotype, rather than just the genes. That is, something deeper than the genes, which actually interprets the genes, like a mind is necessary to interpret words. And it is due to this factor, the necessity of something which "interprets", that words, nor genes, have a fixed meaning.

A designer is someone who makes conscious decisions to achieve some desired end. So, again, you're misusing words (or arguing for some sort of intelligence that makes genetic mutations occur). — Michael

No, I am arguing for an agent which carries out the act of reading DNA and doing such things. It is your assumption, that anything which could carry out such an intentional act must be "some sort of intelligence", which makes you conclude that I am arguing for "some sort of intelligence that makes genetic mutations occur".

What's the difference between X being the result of a natural, non-conscious intention and X being the causal consequence of prior physical phenomena? — Michael

Intention is understood to be non-physical. We understand the intentional agent, a human being for example, to choose the appropriate efficient causes (physical causes), required to bring about the desired end. This is a free will action. Thus intention is understood as a cause which creates a physical activity (efficient cause), without itself being such a thing. What is not understood is how the intentional agent starts a chain of efficient causes. A determinist doesn't allow such a chain of efficient cause to start in this way. That is the difference.

That is, something deeper than the genes, which actually interprets the genes, like a mind is necessary to interpret words. And it is due to this factor, the necessity of something which "interprets", that words, nor genes, have a fixed meaning. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or it might be something shallower. My story is that there are a number of genes that 'mean' amongst other things 'more pepper'. And also possibly some that 'mean' 'less pepper'. So as the industrial revolution changes the environment first one way and then the other, the population, i.e. the gene pool, quickly adjusts the average amount of pepper in the peppered moth, by preferentially eliminating first those with not enough pepper, and then later reverses to eliminate those with too much pepper.
Such changes in distribution of genes in a population cannot conceivably be the result of intention at the cellular, or phenotypical level. I fail to see how one can intend without foresight which is based on memory and projection to a future. I see no reason to impute such things without evidence at the intra-cellular level at which genetic interpretation occurs.

No, I am arguing for an agent which carries out the act of reading DNA and doing such things. It is your assumption, that anything which could carry out such an intentional act must be "some sort of intelligence", which makes you conclude that I am arguing for "some sort of intelligence that makes genetic mutations occur". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not assuming this. It simply follows from the common definition of "intention"/"purpose"/"design". You're misusing these words.

Intention is understood to be non-physical. We understand the intentional agent, a human being for example, to choose the appropriate efficient causes (physical causes), required to bring about the desired end. This is a free will action. Thus intention is understood as a cause which creates a physical activity (efficient cause), without itself being such a thing.

Again you're offering an example of consciousness to make sense of intention. I'm asking you to make sense of non-conscious intention. What is an intentional agent if not a conscious thing with, as @unenlightened explains, (motivating) foresight?

It seems to me that this non-conscious intention/purpose/design is a contradictory concept.

What is not understood is how the intentional agent starts a chain of efficient causes. A determinist doesn't allow such a chain of efficient cause to start in this way. That is the difference.

A determinist does allow for such a chain. They just reject the claim that intention is non-physical. A non-determinist, on the other hand, accepts that intention is non-physical but is an element of consciousness.

I fail to see how one can intend without foresight which is based on memory and projection to a future. — unenlightened

Yes, there is always some type of foresight or projection toward the future with intention, but it may be very basic, to the extent of the will to continue, to subsist. The will to subsist is a projection toward the future. This projection into the future, intention, causes the act of self-nourishment.

Intention is based in desire, want, and this is based in a deficiency, or deprivation of existence. So for instance, because of a deficiency, I am hungry. So I have a desire, or want to eat. Thus I intend to eat. This is all derived from my instinctual projection into the future, my inherent will to subsist.

From this perspective, the subsistence of a living thing, which requires nourishment, depends on this projection into the future. This projection into the future is a fundamental feature of, and therefore an indication of, or evidence of, intention.

I see no reason to impute such things without evidence at the intra-cellular level at which genetic interpretation occurs. — unenlightened

So there you have your evidence, survival is itself a projection into the future. With respect to "genetic interpretation", we still need to assume something which does the interpreting. This "something" is the thing which acts with intention. What do you think performs genetic interpretations? I think it's the soul.

I'm not assuming this. It simply follows from the common definition of "intention"/"purpose"/"design". You're misusing these words. — Michael

I am not misusing these words. You are attempting to impose unjustified restriction on my use of words. Look, "Intend" means to have as one's purpose. Purpose is defined as an object to be obtained. There is no reason to assume, that necessarily, what is referred to by "one", is a human being. Therefore a beaver may intend to build a dam. A bird may intend to build a nest. .

What is an intentional agent if not a conscious thing with (as unenlightened explains) a motivating foresight? — Michael

I already answered this. Plants are clearly not conscious, yet they carry out intentional acts such as photosynthesis. The plant produces sugar, with the "foresight" that it needs sugar within the flower to attract bees for reproduction. The plant produces seeds with the "foresight" of future generations. Foresight is defined as regard or provision for the future.

Though you may be a competent scientist, I don't know, you are simply uneducated, and in complete denial with respect to the facts of life. You attempt to justify your denial by claiming that I am misusing words. But no manner of restricting the use of words can change the reality of living beings.

Purpose is defined as an object to be obtained. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Purpose" is defined as "the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists". The reason in this context is to be understood as foresight. Only conscious things have foresight.

There is no reason to assume, that necessarily, what is referred to by "one", is a human being. Therefore a beaver may intend to build a dam. A bird may intend to build a nest. .

I'm not saying that the intentional agent must be human. I'm saying that the intentional agent must be conscious. A non-conscious thing having intentions is nonsensical. Plants don't intend to do anything. They just react to environmental stimulation.

I already answered this. Plants are clearly not conscious, yet they carry out intentional acts such as photosynthesis.

It's not an intentional act. It's a reaction. Using the term "intention" here is quite simply a misuse of the term.

The plant produces sugar, with the "foresight" that it needs sugar within the flower to attract bees for reproduction. The plant produces seeds with the "foresight" of future generations. Foresight is defined as regard or provision for the future.

Why are you quoting the term "foresight"? Is it because you recognise that foresight is something that only conscious things have, and as such doesn't apply to plants? Plants have no regard for the future. You're just talking nonsense.

Though you may be a competent scientist, I don't know, you are simply uneducated, and in complete denial with respect to the facts of life. You attempt to justify your denial by claiming that I am misusing words. But no manner of restricting the use of words can change the reality of living beings.

If anyone is in denial here, it isn't me.

I'm saying that the intentional agent must be conscious. — Michael

And I am saying that it is quite clear that this is a mistaken assumption. It doesn't matter how many people agree with you, a mistaken assumption is still mistaken. And to change the definitions of common words, to support your mistaken assumption does not make the mistake go away either.

Direct from OED:
purpose: "an object to be attained; a thing intended"
foresight: "regard or provision for the future"
Accordingly, any act of self-nourishment, which is carried out for the purpose of subsistence, is done so according to foresight. Therefore I maintain my charge that your attempt to restrict my use of words, in the way that you are, is unjustified.

Plants don't intend to do anything. — Michael

I'm sorry to have to shatter your illusions, but you're just plain wrong. And the fact that you will go to the extent of redefining words, to support your incorrect premise, indicates that you are steadfast in your refusal to recognize how wrong you are.

Plants have no regard for the future. — Michael

You can deny that self-nourishment and photosynthesis are acts of providing for the future, and that producing seed is an act of providing for the future, all that you want, but you're only fooling yourself.

You can deny that self-nourishment and photosynthesis are acts of providing for the future, and that producing seed is an act of providing for the future, all that you want, but you're only fooling yourself. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not saying that they don't provide for the future. I'm saying that they have no regard for the future. To have regard for something is to think of or consider it.

Raining provides water for people to drink, but it doesn't then follow that the clouds have a regard for the well-being of living things. It doesn't then follow that the clouds intend for plants and animals to drink and survive.

I'm sorry to have to shatter your illusions, but you're just plain wrong. And the fact that you will go to the extent of redefining words, to support your incorrect premise, indicates that you are steadfast in your refusal to recognize how wrong you are.

Nope. You're the one in the wrong here. Something done on purpose is to be contrasted with something done by accident. If I make the conscious decision to break the vase then I broke it on purpose. If I broke the vase because I tripped over the cat then I broke the vase by accident. The series of events that lead to photosynthesis and genetic mutation are akin to the latter – a simple consequence of (non-conscious) physical causes. There's no conscious decision, and so no purpose, no intention, and no design.

My laptop has foresight. It tells me it will shut down unless I plug in the charger, and then if I don't, it shuts down.

But I suspect the intention lies with the programmer.

After further reflection on what you have written, I can't see how it could be that claiming that everything that appears to us as order is really down to entropy, is significantly different than saying that formal cause is really nothing but efficient cause.

It seems to me that entropy just is symmetry-breaking, which just is energy flow, which just is efficient causation.

Another question that comes up for me is the question of necessity in relation to entropy. Would you want to say that all possible worlds are entropic? If that were so, then entropy itself must be thought to stand as a 'platonic-like' principle above all possible worlds

It seems to me that entropy just is symmetry-breaking, which just is energy flow, which just is efficient causation. — John

Energy flow is efficient causation? Apples and oranges?

Questions about causation are usually why? questions. When asking why?, we're looking for how two things relate (or how a car relates to the whole train). For instance:

Why does my heartbeat speed up when I run?

Efficient cause: sympathetic nerve
Final cause: to speed up CO2 removal and glucose distribution

All the parties involved are following the path of least resistance. I'm not sure what entropy has to do with it (or if entropy is just a feature of the way we experience events.)

Why does my heartbeat speed up when I run?

Efficient cause: sympathetic nerve
Final cause: to speed up CO2 removal and glucose distribution — Mongrel

I'm not wanting to valorize reductive thinking. I'm trying to look at the issue from the POV of the thinker who says (as apo and SX apparently do) that all apparent order is really the result of entropy. So, what is entropy? It is, basically, directional flow of energy, no? What is efficient causation? It is the directional (cause to effect) application of force (energy), isn't it?

So the efficient cause of your elevated heart-rate, that is the most proximal cause, might be, for example, an electro-chemical signal from your sinus node to the muscle tissues that constitute your heart. That is more 'proximal' than the antecedent fact you are running, or the nerve signals from your muscles to your sinus node. We might be able to analyze it to an even more local efficient cause or set of efficient causes, but they all, in any case, involve energy exchange ( flow) and it is always directional. Thus we have temporality.

The final cause you example is itself understood to be a a set of outcomes which result from other chains of efficient causation. But again it is all a matter of the forced redistribution of matter/ energy. If this directional flowing of energy, with all its local accumulations, eddies, torrents and trickles, is really all there is to reality; then formal and final cause are reducible, in the final analysis, to efficient causation.

This would be to say that reality is 'all external' there is no genuine 'inner prompting' but just the appearance of it in complex systems (including ourselves); an illusory appearance simply due to our inability to grasp the totality of the determining efficient causes or energy flows.

Now, I don't believe it is the case that all there is is energy and its accumulations and flows, but I acknowledge that my belief is based pretty much solely on the fact that I trust my intuitions. I don't believe anyone can go anywhere near grasping the purported totality of efficient cause, and even if they could they could still never demonstrate that efficient cause is the whole story. The question of whether entropy and efficient cause is all can never be definitively answered empirically, due to our obvious and ineliminable epistemic limitations in that sphere. I think those who champion the idea that all can be explained by symmetry breaking are simply putting their faith in science instead of putting it in their own intuitions (or perhaps they simply don't have the 'temptations' due to any such spiritual intuitions?) In any case, for me, it seems to be inevitable that it comes down to faith.

By trying to look at the situation from the reductionist POV, I am really just trying to clarify to myself exactly what it is they are logically committed to in virtue of their claims.

All the parties involved are following the path of least resistance. I'm not sure what entropy has to do with it (or if entropy is just a feature of the way we experience events.) — Mongrel

See, I would say that entropy is precisely "the line of least resistance".

I think entropy is the tendency of things to go from higher to lower energy states. High energy states are sometimes pretty disorderly (like plasma). But when things cool down, all sorts of amazing things can start happening (like the earth's electromagnetic dynamo.)

And that just tapped out my physics knowledge. :)

As I said.. efficient and final causes are the answers to two different kinds of question. If you know what a sinus node is, you must have studied enough A&P to be impressed by exactly how dense the lines of final causation are with even relatively simple organisms. It's all about the questions we're asking.

I'm not saying that they don't provide for the future. I'm saying that they have no regard for the future. To have regard for something is to think of or consider it. — Michael

Michael, I'm really tired of your childishness. You have an off-handed way of defining words for whatever suits your intention, with total disregard for accepted dictionary definitions. This only demonstrates that you are not well educated on the subject.

There is no definition of "regard" in my dictionary, which mentions "to think", or "consider" as you claim regard means. There are definitions which refer to "see", "give heed to", "look upon", "have relation to", etc., but why do you insist on "think"?

Raining provides water for people to drink, but it doesn't then follow that the clouds have a regard for the well-being of living things. It doesn't then follow that the clouds intend for plants and animals to drink and survive. — Michael

My laptop has foresight. It tells me it will shut down unless I plug in the charger, and then if I don't, it shuts down. — unenlightened

I never claimed that intention is essential to foresight, so I do not pretend that anything with foresight necessarily has intention. Unenlightened brought up foresight, and I agree that foresight may be an indication of intention, in the sense that foresight might be an essential aspect of intention, as unenlightened implied. But all this means is that anything with intention, also has foresight. It does not mean that everything with foresight has intention. So if you want to argue that rain, and laptops, provide for the future, and therefore have foresight, this does not necessitate that they have intention.

But I suspect the intention lies with the programmer. — unenlightened

That's right, I totally agree, and we went though this already, the difference between intention imposed from an external designer, and intention of an internal source. This is when Michael asked if I was making an appeal to the supernatural. So long as we maintain strict principles which define intention as inherent, immanent, intention remains as a natural thing, inhering within living beings, and not the property of an external, transcendent, designer of living things.

The intention externally imposed upon the components of the computer by the designer, and artificer, allows us to say that the parts exist in a specific relationship to each other, due to intention. That the computer exists in this designed way, is evidence that the relations of the parts is intentional. But intention itself, in its natural form, is within the designer. So despite the fact that the thing exists in a designed form, intention itself is separable from the designed form, and is attributable to the designer, as inherent within the designer, not within the designed form itself.

Due to the relationships between parts, we can conclude that DNA is a designed form, the parts exist in purposeful relations, so as to indicate that it is intentional. But intention is not necessarily within that deigned form, nor is it necessarily imposed from an external designer. It may inhere deeper, within a subatomic, immaterial agent, which creates that physical form.