I don't want to oversimplify. In a way I think this is similar to saying "Because they're true" -- everyone can answer that, so it doesn't get at a philosophical explanation for why there's a difference in choices. — Moliere

I think I explained what I meant by intuition pretty clearly in my first post.

Frank's Common Patterns of Nature is a great paper on this – https://arxiv.org/abs/0906.3507 — apokrisis

This looks like a great paper. Thanks.

I don't know about the universe, as a whole, being teleological. I don't see any reason to believe it is. But teleology is certainly found in the universe. — Patterner

Agreed, but I would say only where there is intention. I guess that means human or other outside intervention.

Sure, you don't have to discuss it if you think it's trivial and not worth your while. — Pierre-Normand

That’s not it. I don’t want to discuss it any further here because this whole discussion grows out of the fact that we’re using the word teleology in different senses. I think my usage is correct, and I don’t think there’s any chance that we will come to further agreement.

Yes, you can make this distinction, but both (1) the functional explanations of the behaviors of artifacts and (2) the purposive explanations of intentional behaviors of humans (or of non-rational animals) are species of teleological explanation. — Pierre-Normand

No. We are clearly not going to get any further with this discussion. Your understanding of teleology makes the whole thing trivial. Of course the heart has a function.

I guess we should just leave it at that.

I don't think you were wrong but that you and SophistiCat were thinking about different things―namely local purposes and global purpose. — Janus

I think you’re right, but my original response was to the OP, which appeared to describe a more general form of teleology. If I’m wrong about that, @Tim111 can let us know.

I've been wondering, is our aesthetic appreciation of the world partly responsible for why one might privilege, for instance, scientific approaches to understanding it? Scientific theories often offer elegant, parsimonious explanation models that display symmetry, simplicity, and predictive clarity. — Tom Storm

I left out something I had planned to say.

In science at least, there's a difference between where an idea comes from and how it has to be presented and justified scientifically.

I've been wondering, is our aesthetic appreciation of the world partly responsible for why one might privilege, for instance, scientific approaches to understanding it? Scientific theories often offer elegant, parsimonious explanation models that display symmetry, simplicity, and predictive clarity. — Tom Storm

That's certainly true in some cases. This is a quote of Kepler by E.A. Burtt in "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science." Burtt describes Kepler as a sun-worshiper.

Since, therefore, it does not befit the first mover to be diffused throughout an orbit, but rather to proceed from one certain principle, and as it were, point, no part of the world, and no star, accounts itself worthy of such a great honour; hence by the highest right we return to the sun, who alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited for this motive duty and worthy to become the home of God himself, not to say the first mover. — Johannes Kepler quoted by Burtt, E. A.. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science

If I may jump in... Individual things in the world, like plants, animals, persons and thermostats, can have goals and functions without there there being an overarching goal for the whole universe. — Pierre-Normand

Thermostats, sure. They are designed by people for a particular purpose. People have goals, e.g. I'm saving money so my children can go to college. Do animals and plants? Some higher animals clearly do. Do amoeba have goals? No, they have reactions to stimuli that evolved by mutation and natural selection. I guess the same would be true of plants. A function is not the same as a goal.

See for instance the two SEP entries about teleological notions in biology or in theories of mental content. — Pierre-Normand

I scanned the two articles in the SEP you, although I didn't read all of them. In both cases, there seemed to be confusion between cause and function. Yes, the function of the heart is to pump blood, but that's not why it developed. Again, it developed in accordance with the principles of evolution by natural selection. There are many examples of organs and tissues that evolved for one function but later evolved for other functions. A common example is the evolution of the bones in the inner ear from the jaw bones of fish.

SophistiCat provided two neat examples. — Pierre-Normand

Yes, I was wrong. There are things other than God that can apply goals - humans and some higher animals. The examples @SophistiCat were the results of human planning.

That's not what teleology is. — SophistiCat

This is what Wikipedia says about teleology:

Teleology (from τέλος, telos, 'end', 'aim', or 'goal', and λόγος, logos, 'explanation' or 'reason') or finality is a branch of causality giving the reason or an explanation for something as a function of its end, its purpose, or its goal, as opposed to as a function of its cause.

I think it’s perfectly accurate to describe that the way I did - as the future, reaching back to influence the past.

As I see it, the only way to make teleology plausible is to assume there is a God.
— T Clark

This is a non sequitur, even to your own caricature of teleology. — SophistiCat

Can you specify a mechanism other than God that could establish a goal or purpose for the universe?

These preferences are often privilege (by you or anyone) because they carry a strong innate or aesthetic appeal. — Tom Storm

In my case, I am sure that the conceptual model of the world I carry around with me is based on experience, including formal learning, and innate factors. Aesthetic? It doesn't feel that way. I haven't thought about it before, but I think it's likelier things that are aesthetically pleasing to me also match something in the conceptual model. There, you see. You've just brought a part of my conceptual model more into focus, or at least you've helped me identify something I need to pay more attention to.

When we think about time progressing as a sequence of events — say, A → B → C — it’s tempting to seek explanations for why things happen the way they do. — tom111

No naturally occurring sequence of events happens this way and only the extremely simplest artificial ones do, e.g. billiard balls. Nothing real is ever caused by just one thing and nothing ever has only a single effect.

As for teleology, how does that fit into this at all? It seems like it is a complete non sequitur. Are you saying that something in the future reaches back and causes something in the past? As I see it, the only way to make teleology plausible is to assume there is a God.

The ideas matter, of course -- not the expression so much.

But why these ideas and not those ideas? — Moliere

I think my answer to that is pretty idiosyncratic. I've talked about it on the forum before. I carry a model of the world around inside me, in my mind - intellectual but also visceral. I visualize it as a cloud lit from within. I stand in front of it and I can see everything. Dogs and trees, but also love, ideas, and experiences. Myself and other people. Neutrinos and the Grand Canyon. Things I know well are more in focus while those I know less are foggier and vague. Then there are things not included at all - things I'm not aware of.

I judge the truth, value, or interest of something by how it fits in with my model. Things that fit well help bring things into more focus or might expand the cloud. Things that don't fit well might cause me to reexamine my ideas and might make things less in focus. Things that don't fit at all, and that includes much of philosophy, I'm not really interested in.

In my experience, this is where intuition comes from. If you want to simplify, I just you could just say I pick the ideas I'm interested in intuitively.

A central question might be "Why do I like the philosophy that I do?", but in the spirit of starting a discussion to think about taste in philosophy I will list some questions that might spur on discussion. — Moliere

My reaction to philosophy is not aesthetic at all. It might matter to me whether something is well written, but that’s mostly just so it’s easier to understand. I do enjoy and appreciate good writing, but that wouldn’t be enough to influence my choices. Bad writing might be enough to push me away from something that I might otherwise find useful.

It’s the ideas that matter.

Would you say the question ''what is real?" Doesn't have a correct answer because it is a metaphysical question?

As in for all x if x is a metaphysical question then the answer to that question can't be true or false? — Jack2848

If so why? — Jack2848

A statement that can’t be verified or falsified, even in theory, does not have a truth value. Metaphysical statements can’t be verified or falsified.

Since no one ever applied the term binary to politics traditionally, applying it to politics creates no controversy. — Hanover

I’m not bothered by the politics, I’m bothered by the misuse of language.

Consider the phrase, "I am politically nonbinary.". Do you discern the speaker's intent differently if they are liberal or conservative? — David Hubbs

I think the term doesn’t really make any sense in any situation I can think of. Most countries have multiparty political systems. Even in the US, there are many political parties that probably can’t be classified as conservative or liberal: Democratic or Republican - communists, socialists, Libertarians, even Nazis. People who aren’t members of any party are often called independents.

This is from Google

In the United States, roughly 36-37% of adults identify as conservative, 34-38% as moderate, and 24-26% as liberal,

Time ends with the end of the last relational intelligence; spacetime ends after the last formulation of a mathematical model of a relativistic continuum. — Mww

I was thinking the same thing. From a Taoist perspective, time ends when naming ends.

Enough. I’m done.

The evidence is everywhere. — Razorback kitten

Show us. At least provide references.

You haven’t provided any evidence for this fundamental reworking of everything anybody knows about physics and cosmology. You don’t show in any fashion how it answers the questions you claim it does. Beyond that you claim things that are clearly not true based on what we know. For example, light is quantized, no matter how you redefine it. Light waves are not fluctuations in spatial density.

As for speculation about the idea of the end of time, it may be one of the tangents of metaphysics. Perhaps, it is something of which Wittgenstein would advise 'silence' as it is possibly unknowable from the human perspective. — Jack Cummins

From my point of view, this is the right way to think about it. Assuming there is no way, even in theory, to determine what happens at the end of time and space, or even if there is an end at all, then the whole question is metaphysics. There is no empirical answer. There is no truth or falsity to any of our speculations.

To put things in perspective, it’s estimated at 50 million people were killed in World War II. Just prior to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the allies bombed Tokyo using conventional explosives. It is estimated that 100,000 people died there. During the rape of Nanking in 1938, it is estimated that 200,000 civilians were killed.

I don’t think Nagasaki and Hiroshima are anything out of the ordinary during what is called total war. I think the atomic bomb had much bigger implications for the future. I don’t think it makes any sense to wring our hands about one incident like this. It’s not the morality of Hiroshima that matters. It’s the morality of war.

The bad news is, he thought this was another way of stating the categorical imperative! — J

Yeah, what's up with that? Here are the three formulations.

[1] Act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.
[2] So act that you use humanity, in your own person as well as in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.
[3] Act according to the maxims of a universally legislating member of a merely possible kingdom of ends.

Kant says they're just different ways of saying the same thing. The first is the one that is most often talked about - the one that says it's not ok to lie to Nazis. I certainly like the second better and I have no idea what the third means.

This may be way out of left field, but it reminds me of Kant. Chuang Tzu is saying, What you do is morally irrelevant, or at least secondary. What matters is why you do it. For him, the "why" is a rather mystical expression of authenticity and oneness. For Kant, it's the good will, also rather mystical in the end. — J

I don’t think this is nitpicking - rather than “why” I would say “how.” How do I know what to do next without reference to conventional morality or expectations?

As for Kant - I don’t know enough to say, although, when it comes to morality, I haven’t yet forgiven him for the categorical imperative.

I think people find it unsatisfactory when they listen to themselves reciting and performing according to the image they have of themselves. They do not listen to the emptiness, but fill it with theory and listen to that. — unenlightened

The note I usually add when I use that Chuang Tzu quote is “Easier said than done.”

I wasn’t trying to be a nitpicker. It’s just that I’ve always understood postmodernism to be a reaction to the stark and dour minimalist rationalism of modern art and architecture from the early 1900s on.

The modern period I put between the Trial of Galileo and the 1920’s, characterized by belief in progress, the normativity of reason and objective fact. — Wayfarer

I have always understood that the modern period was dated between the early and mid 1900s.

I see that. I hope our moral understanding can support that differenc — J

Neither option matches my personal understanding of morality. I’ve talked about this on the forum before. Here’s the quote I always use. It’s from Ziporyn’s translation of the.Chuang Tzu.

“What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more.”

Many people find that unsatisfactory.

Deleted

Did you get your diagnosis on this forum? Is it an inside joke? — Quk

It was a self diagnosis. Yes it is an inside joke - it came from inside me, although I have shared it here on the forum before.

The model doesn't have tiers. It has a sequence: — Truth Seeker

Thanks for the clarification.

Exactly my view. And I think this is true for non-human animals as well. A walking horse will not step on this bird that is sitting on the ground along the path; the horse prefers to not kill that bird. One could call this behaviour "behavouristic". But that's no answer. Actions are accompanied by feelings. I think it doesn't matter whether the "mechnical reflex" is caused by the feeling or vice versa -- or if it's just a correlation. The feeling of "liking something" is just there and it's very powerful. — Quk

This is from what is an instinct by William James. A bit florid…

“It takes, in short, what Berkeley calls a mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the natural seem strange so far as to ask for the why of any instinctive human act. To the metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as we talk to a single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside down? The common man can only say, “of course we smile, of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, of course we love the maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made from all eternity to be loved!”

And so probably does each animal feel about the particular things it tends to do in presence of particular objects. They, too, are a priori syntheses. To the lion it is the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.”

So what we're asking is, Is that "difference" also something that can be subsumed under the same scientific explanation from which we derive the theory of morality as social control? — J

I wouldn’t call it a theory. I think it’s more a value judgment. I do believe there is a biological basis for all the things we think and believe. That’s not to say it’s the only contributing factor. I don’t see moral judgments or beliefs as any different from any other human judgments or beliefs.

How can it leave an escape clause for things that are actually right, as opposed to learned or evolved rule-following behavior — J

I guess I haven’t been clear enough. I’ll say it this way. It makes a difference to me whether I’m doing something because I think it’s right rather than only because it’s what’s expected of me.

What do you think of this model? — Truth Seeker

One major problem I see with your model is that all three factors on the lower tier - desire, capacity, and behavior - are equally influenced by the factors on the upper tier.

I see. Just checked Wikipedia. Hadn't heard of this "syndrome" before; I live outside the USA, haha. — Quk

There’s a good chance I’m the only person yet who has been formally diagnosed.

If we did have a convincing sociological or biological (I'll just say "scientific" from now on) explanation for why people form moral beliefs, — J

I think we do have a convincing, or at least plausible, incomplete scientific explanation.

the content of those beliefs must be mistaken, or at least misunderstood by those who hold them? — J

A good question. Here’s my personal take. I see most public morality as a form of social control, there to lubricate the wheels of social interaction. There are good reasons to follow the rules of society 1) to show respect for our community, 2) to keep from being punished, 3) because we think the rules are reasonable and effective. But sometimes there may also be good reasons not to follow those rules, or at least to question them. When that happens, the difference between morality and social control is important. There’s a difference between doing what’s right, and doing what’s expected of you.

I took a look at your forum profile where you list Donald Trump Jr. as one of your favourite philosophers, hehe. What "reflect/lead" ratio would you diagnose in his case? I'm asking to find out whether a further dimension needs to be considered apart from the "reflect/lead" axis. — Quk

Don’t think too hard about this. I generally include Donald Trump Jr. on every list I make, including my weekly grocery list. You’ve probably heard of TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. I have been diagnosed with TJDS, Trump Jr. Derangement Syndrome.

I forgot to say that I consider the gentlemen I mentioned -- Popper, Russell, Kant, Epikouros, Sokrates -- in some of their works political too. Popper wrote about Marx. German chancellor Schmidt sought advice from Popper. Or think about Russell's pacifism and the moment when he gave up his pacifism in order to stop the nazis. And so on. — Quk

That's one reason I don't think we should spend much time on the evolutionary (or sociological) question. — J

Do you mean we shouldn’t spend much time as philosopher’s, or in general?

Beyond that, I disagree. I think the sociological or biological explanation undermine the basis for some moral positions. I have stated several times here on the forum that I see most of what we call morality as a form of social control, meant to grease the gears.