Maybe read the quote from his p. 303 again, in the light of all this? — J

I went back and reread the OP and your response to my comment, as well as all the other posts on this thread. But I don’t get it. I can’t even figure out what the question on the table is. It’s frustrating because this is exactly the kind of question I like best.

Let’s leave it at that. I’ll follow along and see what I can get out of this.

We would like some sort of absolute knowledge, a View from Nowhere that will transcend “local interpretative predispositions.” But what if we accept the idea that science aims to provide that knowledge, and may be qualified to do it? What does that leave for philosophy to do? — J

The presupposition that a view from nowhere, absolute knowledge, objective reality, exists is the foundation of the orthodox view of what you are calling "natural science." It is metaphysics, philosophy, not science. Is this what you have called "one piece of philosophy which has absolute status?" The problem is that this is just one metaphysical view among many.

If there is or could be such a thing as the View from Nowhere, a view of reality absolutely uninterpreted by human perspectives and limitations, then scientific practice would produce this view, not philosophy. — J

This is exactly backwards. Philosophical conceptions of "a view of reality absolutely uninterpreted by human perspectives and limitations" include Kant's noumena and Lao Tzu's Tao, along with many others in just about all philosophies. Science has nothing to say about this.

Since I was diagnosed with depression, I wanted to get a philosophical approach to why people suffer from this mental state; and on the other hand, if there is another way to get through it apart from medical drugs. — javi2541997

This has been an interesting thread with a whole range of viewpoints, including my personal favorite "Snap out of it." I have been diagnosed with a fairly mild form of bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic-depression disorder, but I am rarely depressed as I normally think about it. It usually manifests as anxiety. I do take drugs, but my advice to those of us who want to really deal with this problem is "Retire." I know @BC will back me up on this. For some reason, many people find this advice unhelpful.

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that nothing I say is a denial that depression is largely a physical, biological, I guess medical, condition.

Some more or less philosophical thoughts:

I have come to see philosophy as a practice like meditation, yoga, or tai chi. It's goal is to make us more self-aware. I think this is true of all such practices. I also see psychotherapy as a practice. I was a very unhappy teenager and like many of those, I majored in psychology when I first went to school. Many people who study psychology are searching for answers to their own anguish. That's why so many psychotherapists are as damaged as their clients, why so many couples therapists are divorced.

Philosophy, especially western philosophy, is a practice focusing on how our minds work, our intellect, how we think. As such, it attracts smart, intellectual, verbal people. Philosopher's are people who think too much and the mental illness of choice for those of us who think too much is depression. And then when we look for a solution, we turn to words, even though it is words that got us into trouble in the first place. If psychology is where fucked up people turn for answers to their unhappiness, then philosophy is where smart fucked up people turn. As evidence, I suggest you just take a look at many of the posts here on the forum.

I think I came to a more focused interest in philosophy with a prejudice that modern, western philosophy, at least, is more a place to hide from our problems than to face them. Here on the forum, I met many people for whom that is true. What surprised me, though, is that there were a few people who used philosophy as a tool, almost a weapon, to take on their problems head on. The first time I remember thinking about that was in a thread with my friend TimeLine. She had a very difficult childhood but she was so smart and so self-aware that you could almost feel her struggle up out of the hole she started in using the ideas Kant, Hume, and all those guys. I found it very moving, inspiring. I still do, and it changed the way I feel about philosophy. That doesn't mean I don't think that for many of us philosophy is still a place to hide.

What do you guys think? — Bob Ross

What you have described is one of the primary arguments used by anti-religionists against Christianity. How can you worship a God who does such terrible things? I don't have the knowledge or the inclination to give an answer to that question. I'm not an atheist or a theist, although I went to a Methodist church with my family when I was a kid. I will note the difference between your seven moral imperatives and the 10 commandments. The Old Testament God seems to have had a different understanding of morality than you do.

I haven't read Dawkins, but I know he has a book called The Selfish Gene. Is that where her days that?

What is your perspective? — Patterner

Yes, I believe that is Dawkins’ book on this subject. I haven’t read it. I’ve only read what other people say about it. He certainly knows a lot more about evolution than I do but I guess I don’t get it. Evolution of organisms, and humans in particular, is what I am interested in. It’s not clear to me whether Dawkins’ perspective would add anything to that.

Googling "information theory and DNA" gave me this: — Patterner

OK. As I tried to make clear, I don’t know enough about this to have a worthwhile opinion.

I think DNA produces the environment in which it can reproduce. Doesn't matter what species, it's what all life is. I'd say that's the definition of life - DNA builds the environment in which it reproduces. — Patterner

Richard Dawkins has claimed that reproduction is just a way for genes to replicate themselves. I think that’s a question of perspective and not definitive statement of fact. Dawkins might disagree with me on that.

But what about information? Do you think DNA is encoded information? — Patterner

I think you have to be careful when you talk about information. It has a very specific technical meaning in information theory, which I don’t understand very well.

There being two football teams playing seems to be what happens in cultural wars, whether it is over religion or gender issues. As for 'the same rules', that is where it gets complicated because the war of opposites leads to different agendas and starting points for creation of rules, including moral guidelines. — Jack Cummins

This is from Verse Two of Gia-Fu Fengs translation of the Tao Te Ching -

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other:
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.

Difficult and easy are playing the same game. Front and back are playing the same game. Maybe it would be clearer if I said it’s people playing the game. Distinctions are a game people play.

I wonder if it's possible that ends, goals, or purposes can exist without intention. — Patterner

Oops, my answer is “no.”

I wonder if it's possible that ends, goals, or purposes can exist without intention. — Patterner

My answer is “no.” [edited]

Protein isn't the result of a spontaneous chemical reaction. (I take this kind of thing to be what Barbieri means by "spontaneous molecules" and "spontaneous reactions".) It's not like vinegar and baking soda coming in contact, and there's a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide. I don't see how CO2 can be the goal of vinegar and baking soda, since they might never have come into contact. — Patterner

I think they’re both exactly the same except that one is much more complex than the other. In addition, the DNA reaction ends up producing something that’s important to humans whereas the vinegar one does not. I think that is what gives the illusion of purpose. People like to tell stories and goals and purposes are stories that People are particularly good at.

Do you view all that in some other way? — Patterner

Clearly, yes. And just as clearly, this is a difference of opinion we’re not going to be able to resolve.

What is the significance of seeing opposites as complementary? How useful or 'true' are such conceptions and what significance does it make in how life is lived? I would argue that the idea of good and evil as aspects of a larger whole is a fuller picture and one which allows for a less aggressive approach to 'otherness'. I see it as relevant to so much conflict in the world. What do you think? — Jack Cummins

I think if it like two football teams. They’re playing in opposition to each other, but they’re both playing the same game by the same rules.

Positing a final goal isn't less logical than positing a first cause. All events follow the first cause, yet we can't have a first cause without a preceding one, so we're left with an infinite regress. Teleologically, we say every event is for a purpose, yet you can't have a final event that lacks purpose either. — Hanover

My position throughout this discussion has been that teleology does not mean just that one event leads, through a chain of events, to another event. Here is the definition that matches my understanding of the meaning. It’s from Google‘s AI summary, so I’m not saying it’s definitive or correct necessarily, but it is my understanding.

“Teleology, in philosophy, is the study of purposiveness or goal-directedness. It examines how phenomena, whether natural or human-made, are explained by their ends, goals, or purposes rather than their causes. The concept suggests that things exist or occur for a specific reason, implying a design or intention behind their existence.”

I think intention is the right word to use here. Teleology implies that an event took place because it was intended. It’s my position that intention is a mental state. You need a mind for there to be a goal or purpose.

Many people here in this thread don’t see it that way and I’ve mostly given up trying to come to any common understanding with them.

If I assemble architects, framers, plumbers, carpenters, landscapers, etc to build me a house, can we not say the teleos of the enterprise is to erect a house, even though the probability of the house coming to be is uncertain? — Hanover

It’s pretty clear that human actions often have goals and purposes. By my reading, the OP raises a broader question of teleology as it applies to the universe as a whole and even to logic.

A lot of work is being done by a lot of different molecules to construct something that will not come to exist in any other way. Is there not intent.. Not thoughts of intent. But the system works toward something in the future. If there is intention here, then human or other outside intervention is not needed for intention. — Patterner

I looked at a few definitions of “intention” on the web. They fell into two groupings 1) as a near synonym for goal or purpose 2) as a mental state. The first definition is no help, since the presence of a goal or purpose is the question on the table here. The second definition clearly does not include the actions of DNA.

It's also a reminder that what matters to me is probably not much constrained by "what ought to matter" -- if there is such a thing. — J

Beyond that, what matters to me isn’t necessarily the same thing that matters to you. I see this as a really personal question, at least for me.

But I'm also thinking about an idea mattering. I take T Clark to mean, more or less, that they'll pursue a philosopher depending on whether the ideas are in some way intriguing or important. I certainly do the same. And yet . . . the ideas in almost any work of philosophy interest me, when viewed from the correct angle. If it's good philosophy, it's going to intrigue me, and most of my candidates for reading are good philosophers. So why this one rather than that one? Rorty used to say that he just didn't have an itch where some philosophers wanted to scratch. And vice versa, I suppose. — J

Yes, intriguing or important to me, not necessarily anyone else. The way I feel seems a lot like what Rorty is describing.

How this fits into an aesthetic appreciation, I'm not sure, but "an idea that matters to me" seems to be square in the middle of why I'll read the next book I'll read. — J

Thinking more about this, I guess everything I’ve said boils down to me being interested in what I find satisfying, not necessarily what I find beautiful. Is that an aesthetic judgment?

Again, a bizarre non sequitur. Even accepting your caricature, what does this have to do with establishing a goal or purpose for the universe? — SophistiCat

As I said to Pierre-Normand, there’s no way you and I are going to come to a common understanding on this.

All of the aesthetic aspects to philosophy are by-products.

The ideas are the products. — Fire Ologist

Agreed.

It’s the ideas that matter.
— T Clark

Or, what he said. — Fire Ologist

Not sure what you mean by this.

"Cuz it's pretty to me"? — Moliere

Because it’s useful to me - intellectually or practically.

Sorry, it was my second post on this thread.

Why "intuition"?” — Moliere

Did you read my first post in this thread? Maybe you don’t want to call what I’ve described “intuition,” although I think that’s a good word for it. I talk a lot about intuition here on the forum and that’s how I experience it.

Hey man, I’m the resident mystic here (or at least the one who admits it). I know what you’re saying and have many ideas about this stuff. Ideas I couldn’t explain to the others, or if I could they’d dismiss it as wishful thinking or something like that. You have to accept that the people here are philo — Punshhh

This would be fine if he were presenting this as philosophy or spiritualism, but he’s presenting it as science.

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.