They exist if a physical theory postulates their existence, and that theory is successful in explaining various empirical phenomena.

There are two grounds for contending that X exists: X is a subject of direct experience, or X is postulated by a successful explanatory theory. A theory is successful, of course, when it correctly predicts future experience. — GE Morton

Yep. Like the Copenhagen Interpretation, we accept our epistemic limitations. In the end, all we have got is some state of conception that looks pretty consistent. We create for ourselves some forrmal theory. And then we agree with our selves that certain acts of measurement can be taken as signs of the thing we mean to talk about. We can read a number off a thermometre and say "that is the temperature". And away we go, making predictions - ie: suggestions about further acts of measurement.

So the slippery bit is the act of measurement. We have to presume that our instruments are making some kind of proper translation of the physical reality (the thing in itself) into the symbolic currency on which are theoretical conceptions are grounded. The numbers on the dial are phenomenon, not noumenon. But we operate on the expectation that the relation we have establish with the world in this fashion is reliable. It tells us what we need to know - at least in terms of the purposes we might bring to the table.

So "existence" becomes a symbolised reality. We say yep, that is the temperature - I read the number off a suitable instrument.

Of course we can always hope that through all our scientific advance, we are really getting down to the bottom of things. But just from thinking about the logic of this modelling relation we have with reality, we can see that might be a rather false hope.

For a start, the essence of any act of measurement is a severe constraint on physical existence. The needs of computation mean we have to impose finitude on the world to allow sharp observation. Less is more when it comes to information that has meaning. We want the message coming in from our instruments to be all signal and no noise.

And likewise the other feature of modelling is that good models need to be based on (unrealistically) sharp dichotomies. We want absolute separation of that which (as is itself implied by the contrast) not in fact in a state of actual separation.

So we come at reality with a crisp division - like law vs particle. Or formal vs material cause. We break things apart with conceptual violence so as to stand "outside" the world we must in fact stand within in fully participatory fashion. That is a necessary fact of modelling epistemology. But it is then naive metaphysics to think that the needs of modelling mean that the world in itself has both laws and particles that exist in some mysterious dualistic and absolute fashion.

The complementary limits on reality are just its conceptual extremes. That is why it is equally wrong to talk about laws or particles "actually existing". Yet as far as our modelled understanding of reality goes, both would be real in the sense of being real measurable bounds on actual existence. Formal cause vs material cause (what laws and particles represent) are what you would seem to see if there was really such a thing as standing outside the world as it substantially is.

Of course, folk have little problem of understanding formal cause in this fashion. But they get very prickly when it is suggested that material cause is in exactly the same boat - by logical necessity.

The two stories are a perfect fit. — Querius

But they are not the same story at all.

Your scrambled sentence already begins with the counterfactual definiteness of some set of letters ... a conventional set of marks which I know how to read and thus can tell a gibberish sequence from one that has a reasonable interpretation.

And your citing of Dawkins and evolutionary constraints continues to underline that you are nowhere near the kind of holistic emergence I am talking about.

It is a central problem of evolutionary theory that evolution can only explain the reduction in variety. It can't explain the presence of that variety in the first place.

This is why theoretical biology has gone over to evo-devo thinking in a big way. A theory of evolution has to be coupled to a theory of development (or dissipative structure).

Forgive me, but I can't take any argument for a divine creating intelligence seriously. — apokrisis

I am sorry that you see it that way, but I do forgive you.

Theism (of the first cause type) is simply contradictory of Peicean semiosis ... — apokrisis

Obviously Peirce himself did not think so - not even remotely - since he explicitly affirmed the Reality of God as Ens necessarium.

Your scrambled sentence already begins with the counterfactual definiteness of some set of letters ...

I do suppose that at some point your emergence narrative also gets passed the phase of nothingness.

… a conventional set of marks which I know how to read and thus can tell a gibberish sequence from one that has a reasonable interpretation.

Irrelevant.

And your citing of Dawkins and evolutionary constraints continues to underline that you are nowhere near the kind of holistic emergence I am talking about.

Not an argument. You talk of ‘limitations’, how is that not comparable to constraints?

It is a central problem of evolutionary theory that evolution can only explain the reduction in variety. It can't explain the presence of that variety in the first place.

Random mutations.

I would have thought 'the placebo effect' provides a cogent example of top-down causation.
— Wayfarer
I agree. Also every post on this forum is a cogent example of top-down causation. Question is, do we find such causation in inanimate nature. — Querius

If nature were not animate, we would not be in a position to ask the question.

There is just nothing about this actual observable world which suggests that minds exist outside a state of semiotic complexity. — apokrisis

But neither does semiosis doesn't make any sense in the absence of mind. What is a sign without an interpretant?

I think you've got an issue with your model of the nature of mind and of 'God'. I know you react viscerally against anything you perceive as a 'God idea', but consider other models of cosmic order, such as logos, Tao or Dharma. They too suggest a kind of 'intelligible order' but not along the lines of what is usually described as 'theistic personalism'. (Not looking to start an argument, just making a suggestion.)

There is just nothing about this actual observable world which suggests that minds exist outside a state of semiotic complexity. — apokrisis

If it helps, angels are said to require no speech.

So, you think that electrons (a fermion) and photons (a boson) don't exist? Rather they are merely part of a "conceptual apparatus"? — tom

That is close to Heisenberg's view - electrons (etc) don't actually exist in the way stones and flowers exist; they don't fulfil the requirements that generally define what constitutes an 'existing object'; they are on the borderline between potential and actual.

We must be careful not to automatically assume that cases of mental causation, such as intention and free will acts, are automatically top-down causation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure you're getting the meaning of 'top-down' or 'bottom-up'. Intentionality and free will are both 'top-down' practically as a matter of definition; which is why materialists, such as Dennett, are obliged to try and deny them.

Incidentally, the 'Workshop on Naturalism' which is mentioned in Pigliucci's blog post, referenced by Pierre Normand above, was also discussed in some detail in Andrew Ferguson's review of the reaction to Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, called The Heretic.

I do suppose that at some point your emergence narrative also gets passed the phase of nothingness. — Querius

But the problem is that you don't understand the current science well enough to have a clue what stage the narrative has reached. And you don't seem that interested in finding out either.

Random mutations. — Querius

So natural selection can certainly remove those. But how does natural selection also create them?

(It's a basic issue in evolutionary science.)

I know you react viscerally against anything you perceive as a 'God idea', but consider other models of cosmic order, such as logos, Tao or Dharma. They too suggest a kind of 'intelligible order' but not along the lines of what is usually described as 'theistic personalism'. — Wayfarer

Talk of an external intelligent creator is simply question begging - displacement activity rather than metaphysics.

But talk of an immanent organic telos is something I can get right behind as being even "quite magical", and a good reason to reject "silly reductionists". So I am always citing the various ancient expressions of this general naturalistic view of existence. You could add Judaic Ein Sof to that list.

I'm not sure you're getting the meaning of 'top-down' or 'bottom-up'. Intentionality and free will are both 'top-down' practically as a matter of definition; which is why materialists, such as Dennett, are obliged to try and deny them. — Wayfarer

As I said, "We do not know where the free will act derives from...". Perhaps, you for some reason, think that free will and intentionality are examples of top-down causation, but I think you've got it wrong. Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system, perhaps within the brain, moving outward to move the parts of the body, which move things in a larger surrounding area. How do you define "top-down", such that this activity is consistent with "top-down causation"? As I've argued before, I think the entire concept of top-down causation is misguided, it's a fiction. It's an attempt to explain the existence of life through physicaist principles.

Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system, — Metaphysician Undercover

This begs the question.

But then, explaining free will in terms of neurological events is the essence of the very 'physicalist principles' which you then go on to reject. That is 'neurological reductionism'.

Again, I don't think you get the distinction between top-down and bottom up.

How do you define "top-down"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, I gave an example of the neutron's properties being determined by its being situated in an atom.

But, as mentioned, you could also consider the placebo effect an example of 'top-down' causation. Why? Because it is a case where a subject's belief produces a physical result; belief is 'top down', because it belongs to a higher level of organisation than the molecular and cellular structure of the patient. If the effectiveness of medicine relied solely on molecular potency - which is the 'bottom-up' view - then placebos ought not to work. Indeed there ought not to be any such thing as 'mind-body medicine' or psychosomatic illnesses, and accordingly the existence of those is regularly dismissed by materialists. According to reductionist materialists, there can only ever 'bottom-up' causation.

Thanks for linking that lecture. Bitbol is very good and draws many seemingly disparate elements together.

... the problem is that you don't understand the current science well enough ... — apokrisis

So sayth the emergent self who is confused about the roles of mutation and selection in evolutionary theory.

how does natural selection also create them? — apokrisis

Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations.

It's a basic issue in evolutionary science. — apokrisis

Basic indeed, and I wonder why I have to explain it.

Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations. — Querius

Why are you babbling about mutations? My point about your weasel was that the letters already exist. So how did that situation develop? Recombination is one thing. But where did that alphabet come from? If you want to say it evolved, run me through the story.

Your claim:

It is a central problem of evolutionary theory that evolution can only explain the reduction in variety. It can't explain the presence of that variety in the first place. — apokrisis

The problem with your claim is that evolutionary theory can explain variety. Variety is explained by random mutations in the DNA.
So I replied:

random mutations. — Querius

Your response:

So natural selection can certainly remove those. But how does natural selection also create them?
(It's a basic issue in evolutionary science.) — apokrisis

Here you are talking about ‘random mutations’ and asked: ‘how does natural selection also create them?’ ...
I have tried to read this charitable. I supposed that you were not asking ‘how does selection remove random mutations and also create random mutations?’ That would be a very confused question.
So, again, trying to read your question charitable, I did suppose that your question is not about random mutations, but about variety in general, as in ‘how does selection also create variety?’
So I replied:

Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations. — Querius

Your response:

Why are you babbling about mutations? — apokrisis

I leave it to the unbiased reader to decide, who is babbling here.

My point about your weasel was that the letters already exist. So how did that situation develop? Recombination is one thing. But where did that alphabet come from? If you want to say it evolved, run me through the story. — apokrisis

Let me google that for you.

Let me google that for you. — Querius

I think this is missing Apokrisis's point. I may try to put it differently. There was a sharp qualitative break when abiogenesis occurred a few billion years ago. Prior to that event, there may have been chemical evolution in the sense that more complex molecules grew from random interactions from simpler molecules, and some crude process of selection. But this movement towards complexity didn't have any autonomous teleology since the complex molecules, or their parts, didn't have any organic function. It is only when early replicators not only were passively selected by environment pressure according to fitness, but also began to strive to survive and replicate, that they could be considered alive. They then had teleology in the sense that their parts became functional organs and they acquired autonomous behaviors.

Thus, the alphabet of life -- what is being varied, mutated and selected by environmental pressures -- doesn't consist in meaningless nucleotide sequences. It rather consists in functional (and thus meaningful) elements of anatomy, physiology and behavior. This teleology is manifested in the structure of whole organisms, and their organs, only in the ecological context of the holistic forms of life that they instantiate. From the moment of abiogenesis onwards natural selection became a top-down (and teleological) causal process.

I think this is missing Apokrisis's point. — Pierre-Normand

My claim (see this post) is that Apokrisis' emergence narrative ( see this post) is very similar to Dawkin's Weasel Program. His counter-argument, as I understand it, is that there is a fundamental difference because Dawkin's Weasel has an unexplained starting point and his emergence narrative has not (?).
I do not agree that there is a fundamental difference.

From the moment of abiogenesis onwards natural selection became a top-down (and teleological) causal process. — Pierre-Normand

I hold that naturalistic evolutionary theory is incoherent and I also hold that it does not describe a top-down and/or teleological cause.

I do not agree that...

I hold that...

and I also hold that... — Querius

Why? Why? and Why?

I just wanted to outline my dispute with Apokrisis. Here you can read why I hold that Dawkins' Weasel and Apokrisis' emergence narrative are very similar. In that post you can also find a critique which applies to evolutionary theory. However I decline to offer an in depth critique of evolutionary theory, which would be off-topic.

This begs the question.

But then, explaining free will in terms of neurological events is the essence of the very 'physicalist principles' which you then go on to reject. That is 'neurological reductionism'.

Again, I don't think you get the distinction between top-down and bottom up. — Wayfarer

We cannot ignore the facts of neurological involvement in the free will act. The question for the metaphysician is the cause of such activity. It seems very clear that the activity of the nervous system is the cause of the activity of the human body. And this indicates that top-down causation may not be consistent with the facts. If stating facts is begging the question, then the position I'm arguing against is most obviously fictional. Top-down causation denies that the free will act is free.

So I believe it is you who does not understand top-down causation. And by "understand", I mean to recognize it as a misunderstanding.

Well, I gave an example of the neutron's properties being determined by its being situated in an atom. — Wayfarer

As I explained, this assumes an unacceptable causal relationship. This perspective assumes that the atom is the cause of the relationships which constitute it. From the premise that a cause is necessarily prior in time to the effect, this means that the atom must exist before the relationships which constitute it exist. To my mind, this is impossible, to say that a thing exists prior to the existence of its constituent parts. To resolve this, we could say that the idea of the atom exists prior to the constituent parts, as the "blueprints" for the atom, but then we are no longer referring to the atom itself, but a Neo-Platonic "Form" of the atom, which acts as the cause of existence of the atom

Because it is a case where a subject's belief produces a physical result; belief is 'top down', because it belongs to a higher level of organisation than the molecular and cellular structure of the patient. — Wayfarer

You are using "belief" here as a noun, it refers to a static thing. But you are claiming that this static thing is a cause. This is the problem with Pythagorean idealism which Aristotle demonstrated. Such idealism assigns existence to ideas, but in doing so, it gives the ideas the property of passivity. This makes it impossible that ideas are truly causal. Therefore we have to see beyond this problem, as the Neo-Platonists did, and find a way to understand the ideas as active.

The physicalist and emergentist perspective is to describe the mind as a property of the activity of the brain. This means that things of the mind, consciousness, ideas, and concepts, etc., are caused by the physical activity of the brain. But for a complete understanding we must look for the cause of such physical activity. Why do living things behave in the peculiar way that they do? The emergentist wants to look at the activities of the physical universe in general, and show how the activities of living things is really no different from the activities of non-living things, and this is how they account for the emergence of life and consciousness. They create a false compatibility between the activities of living things and the activities of non-living things, through the means of "top-down" causation. But the dualist metaphysician will understand this as wrong, and maintain that the soul is the true cause of the physical activity of the living being, and this is distinctly different from any top-down causation..

It is only when early replicators not only were passively selected by environment pressure according to fitness, but also began to strive to survive and replicate, that they could be considered alive. They then had teleology in the sense that their parts became functional organs and they acquired autonomous behaviors. — Pierre-Normand

You cannot pass this off as apokrisis' point, because this is completely distinct from and inconsistent with, what apokrisis argues. Apokrisis assigns telos to the universe in general, so it is not as if telos emerges with the existence of life, it was a property of the universe already.

This perspective assumes that the atom is the cause of the relationships which constitute it. From the premise that a cause is necessarily prior in time to the effect, this means that the atom must exist before the relationships which constitute it exist. To my mind, this is impossible, to say that a thing exists prior to the existence of its constituent parts. To resolve this, we could say that the idea of the atom exists prior to the constituent parts, as the "blueprints" for the atom, but then we are no longer referring to the atom itself, but a Neo-Platonic "Form" of the atom, which acts as the cause of existence of the atom. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with your clear analyses.

Perhaps one could claim, as Apokrisis may do, that the shape of an atom is a fortunate ‘limit’ which its constituents run into. So, not the atom is the cause of the relationships which constitute it, but the ‘limit’ is the cause. Moving downward, the constituents of the atom are, in turn, also the result of ‘states of unbounded potential’ running into ‘limits’...

To cut a long story short, it is 'limits' all the way down, up and sideways.

So, starting from "everythingness", there are just all these fortunate ‘limits’ which shape the universe and the stuff in it.

One of the problems with this view is that the positioning of limits is in need of explanation. Limits can produce any possible universe, so why are those limits positioned so fortuitously that we end up with a stable universe fine-tuned for intelligent life? What are the chances that random limits produce human brains, spaceships, jet airplanes, nuclear power plants, libraries full of science texts, novels and super computers running partial differential equation solving software?

To cut a long story short, it is 'limits' all the way down, up and sideways. — Querius

This may be the problem here in a nutshell. We describe the world in terms of constraints, we can call them "laws". There are two types, the laws of physics and the laws of ethics, or societal laws. The former describe the ways that physical objects behave, and the latter describe how human beings ought to behave. When we look at what the laws refer to as real existing "constraints", we can refer to those constraints as "causes". But this is to use "cause" in the sense of an influence, something which affects activity. We can say that these constraints have an affect on specific activities, and in this sense they are causes.

The constraint, as a cause, is inherently passive. It functions as a cause merely by affecting an occurring activity. This presupposes the existence of the activity. So the constraint is a cause only if there is activity. Therefore we still need to consider "cause" in its true primary sense, as the activity itself, which is required in order that a constraint may be capable of being a cause. If we focus on the constraints, as causes, and divide constraints into top-down and bottom-up constraints, we have simply distracted our attention from the true, primary cause, the activity itself, which is being constrained.

You cannot pass this off as apokrisis' point, because this is completely distinct from and inconsistent with, what apokrisis argues. Apokrisis assigns telos to the universe in general, so it is not as if telos emerges with the existence of life, it was a property of the universe already. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I'm aware of this feature of his view, and it was indeed to accommodate this point that I used the qualifier "autonomous teleology" before the passage you quoted to characterize the qualitative break when the teleology manifested by a primitive replicator become its own (meaning that of the life form that it now exhibits) rather than just a general "pansemiotic" teleology. I'll let Apokrisis comment further on my gloss on his argument. I also wanted to add, regarding the alphabet of life, that each life form has, in a clear sense, an alphabet of its own.

I also wanted to add, regarding the alphabet of life, that each life form has, in a clear sense, an alphabet of its own. — Pierre-Normand

In that case there are only ~3 life forms - prions, viruses (based on RNA) and everything else (based on DNA).

We cannot ignore the facts of neurological involvement in the free will act. The question for the metaphysician is the cause of such activity. It seems very clear that the activity of the nervous system is the cause of the activity of the human body. — Metaphysician Undercover

Low level neurophysiological processes play a dual role in the etiology of intentional human behavior. The first role consists in its causal relevance for such things as muscular contraction, and hence of "raw" (physically describable) bodily motion, and can be traced back to low-level "efficient" causes: e.g. to previous neural events and to the physical stimulations of sense organs. But intentional human behavior also has a higher level characterization where it is evaluated in point of practical rationality.

Free actions are actions that an agent can be deemed personally responsible for and that manifest her sensitivity to reasons; and this sensitivity rests on molar ("person level") rational abilities that are merely enabled, rather than caused, by underlying "low level" cognitive functions and neurophysiological processes. (They are also enabled by normal maturation and acculturation within the social context of a rational form of live). The neural cause of a specific muscular contraction can tell you why some muscle contracted at the time that it did, and hence why an arm rose but it leaves you clueless as to why the agent raised her arm (or even whether the motion was intentional at all). It's only from the standpoint of the rational/teleological organization of the cognitive economy of an individual as a whole that rationality transpires and that sensitivity to practical reasons is manifested as a form of top-down causation.

In that case there are only ~3 life forms - prions, viruses (based on RNA) and everything else (based on DNA). — tom

On my view there are as many life forms as there are individual species. Prions and viruses are akin to parasites, so their life forms aren't quite distinct from the life forms of the animals or plants that they infect. The main point is that what is being selected by the environment (selected for or against) always is something like a behavioral ability (or defect) or a bit of physiological function that always already has its significance, as the sort of process/ability that it is, owing to the functional (and hence teleological) rôle that it plays in a distinctive living organization -- an already organized forms of life within a specific ecological context.

You are missing the point because of your unfamiliarity with basic biological theory.

Dawkins' Weasel algorithm is a simple illustration of the power of constraints - given mutable variety. So not only does he have the computer selecting the letter pattern closest to a pre-existing goal, but also the computer generates a population pool of a 100 sequences at a time, with a built-in variance of 5%. So even the mutational variety is set so as to meet some external pre-existing goal.

Dawkins says the final sequence goal is not a big teleological puzzle because in nature, that becomes just the (now utterly contingent) constraint of some fitness landscape. So first you have a world created by some programmer playing God. Then - in good old reductionist fashion - the world suddenly takes over the goal-setting ... in a way that is as little teleological as it is possible to imagine. It becomes good old random shit again.

Great. And also notice that nothing further is said about the programmer's role in setting up the mutational variety so nicely.

Nor also - the even deeper point - that the whole example skips over the issue of the epistemic cut where physical acts become symbolic acts (and vice versa).

So as I pointed out, the very thing of marks with meanings that could be interpreted - letters that could make words that get read by a mind, or gene sequences that could make proteins that then become the switches and the motors regulating dissipative metabolic processes - goes assumed and not explained. In Dawkins example, we have already crossed the Rubicon between the physical realm and the symbolic realm.

So - as usual when listening to an arch-reductionist - there is a ton of question begging. And my holistic approach addresses all those questions that go to the very thing of how life - as a biosemiotic relation - could arise emergently in the first place.

Hence while your strained attempts at a put-down are mildly amusing, I might wish you would make the same effort to actually read a little deeper before parading your basic ignorance of the issues you have chosen to raise here.

The constraint, as a cause, is inherently passive. It functions as a cause merely by affecting an occurring activity. This presupposes the existence of the activity. So the constraint is a cause only if there is activity. Therefore we still need to consider "cause" in its true primary sense, as the activity itself, which is required in order that a constraint may be capable of being a cause. If we focus on the constraints, as causes, and divide constraints into top-down and bottom-up constraints, we have simply distracted our attention from the true, primary cause, the activity itself, which is being constrained. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, the reductionist imperative being expressed as a law of thought. If nature seems divided against itself by a metaphysical dichotomy, we must rush in and save it from itself by deciding that the duality is in fact a monadism. So we collapse the complexity and hoist the reductionist flag, proclaiming all is calm and well in the world again. Only one of any two things can be fundamental.

It is laughable. This is what happens because humans have developed an essentially mechanical culture. If you make machines, eventually you want to be a machine.

Anyway. Causality is dichotomous because that is simply how metaphysical development works. To change a vague state of affairs, the vagueness must be crisply divided towards its complementary extremes of possibility. This is the dialectical logic that got started in ancient Greece and now - because people believe themselves to be meat machines (even if infested with some kind of secondary soul stuff) - it can't even be seen when it stares them in the face.

So it is not a surprise but a prediction of dialectics that causality would gain its real world definiteness by becoming divided against itself in logical fashion. Thus we have - in holism - the hierarchically-organised interaction between global constraints and local freedom.

We have bottom-up construction matched by top-down constraints. Each is the cause of the other (as constraints shape the construction, and the construction (re)builds the generalised state of constraint).

And yes, constraints would seem to passively exist as a context ... because the freedoms are in complementary fashion, the active part of the deal. So causality covers all the bases. It gains real world definiteness because it has both its active and passive forms to create some actual state of contrast ... that is another way it is no longer just vague possibility.

If we focus on the constraints, as causes, and divide constraints into top-down and bottom-up constraints, — Metaphysician Undercover

I should note that you keep getting the detail of anything I say quite wrong in your eagerness to shoehorn it into some semblance of what a reductionist might say.

It is freedom that constructs bottom-up. The role of top-down constraint is to give shape to that freedom. So constraints (as the bloody word says) are all about limiting freedoms. They take away or suppress a vast variety of what might have been possible actions ... and in so doing, leave behind some very sharply directed form of action. Or as physics would call it - to denote the particularity that results from this contextual sharpening - a "degree of freedom".

When we look at what the laws refer to as real existing "constraints", we can refer to those constraints as "causes".
But this is to use "cause" in the sense of an influence, something which affects activity. We can say that these constraints have an affect on specific activities, and in this sense they are causes. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. “Real existing” is a crucial qualifier here, since if constraints have no ontology, how can they have causal powers? Consider a bucket filled with water. If we term the bucket a ‘constraint’, then indeed one can say that the bucket causes (or influences) the water to have a certain shape. But how does this apply to a universe floating in nothingness? Assuming that this universe has a certain shape, we cannot coherently say that ‘nothingness’ causes the shape of this universe, because nothingness cannot have causal power, cannot constrain anything. So unless we are talking about “real existing” constraints, like buckets, we cannot coherently talk about them as being causal actors.

But this movement towards complexity didn't have any autonomous teleology since the complex molecules, or their parts, didn't have any organic function. It is only when early replicators not only were passively selected by environment pressure according to fitness, but also began to strive to survive and replicate, that they could be considered alive. They then had teleology in the sense that their parts became functional organs and they acquired autonomous behaviors. — Pierre-Normand

That is essentially it. But I would add that chemical evolution would be teleological in carrying out the wishes of the laws of thermodynamics. So molecular complexity would arise because its was being successful at accelerating local entropification rates. Chemical evolution would be functional in that (inorganic) sense.

And then the big shift is the development of a semiotic code or system memory - the RNA or whatever that created the epistemic cut between the "program" and "the world". Now you have the new possibility of local functional autonomy. The organism can mean something to itself.

So the inorganic realm is still teleological (in the dilutest fashion). Where it is different is mostly that it lacks local autonomy in the semiotic sense. The telos is the general or "ambient" one of the how the complexly stratified physio-chemical realm of the planet's surface is serving the second law. Life and mind are then actually something new in internalising that telic imperative symbolically, and by doing so, managing to entropify the world at an even greater rate.

Thus, the alphabet of life -- what is being varied, mutated and selected by environmental pressures -- doesn't consist in meaningless nucleotide sequences. It rather consists in functional (and thus meaningful) elements of anatomy, physiology and behavior. This teleology is manifested in the structure of whole organisms, and their organs, only in the ecological context of the holistic forms of life that they instantiate. From the moment of abiogenesis onwards natural selection became a top-down (and teleological) causal process. — Pierre-Normand

Yep. That was the point. Life has meaning because ... there is death as its contrast. So because of biosemiosis or a new symbolic level of action, an organism could become a survival machine. While of course being constrained by the general purposes of the second law, it could also now think its own prime purpose was to flourish and multiply. As a direction in nature, it could point counterfactually away from entropic death and decay and towards negentropic life and growth ... for a time at least.

And even when the body dies, the genome persists into the next generation. The functional information gets transmitted and not lost. What the genes pass on is hardly meaningless noise but the essence of what it means to live again in this world.

So that makes the very idea of "random mutation" rather an obvious conflict. Sure, people used to talk about mutation in terms of "hopeful monsters", but I hope they don't even mention the phrase to school kids anymore.

In fact mutation itself is a highly constrained or tuned thing in nature. Evolvability itself has to evolve. The degree to which the organism exposes its essence to the vagaries of fate has to be a careful choice as the history packaged up in a genome is hard-won information.

Which is why "random mutation" no longer explains anything in modern biology. It is just the start of the unravelling of what has turned out to be a very complex part of the whole evolutionary deal.

But how does this apply to a universe floating in nothingness? Assuming that this universe has a certain shape, we cannot coherently say that ‘nothingness’ causes the shape of this universe, because nothingness cannot have causal power, cannot constrain anything. — Querius

Already your cosmological speculation has started to go very wrong. No-one says the universe floats in nothing, let alone that this would be what gives it a shape.

In general relativity, the shape is flat unless otherwise deformed by its material contents. And because those material contents are constrained by the laws of thermodynamics, they will spread themselves about in a way that minimises the deformation.

As Wheeler so famously put it, "Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve." Which is the holistic view in a nutshell. Each is in complementary fashion the cause of the other.