Are moral values objectively real?

[Exogen]

Turritopsis nutricula

And I am not really sure that degenerating back to chemicals and atoms is best described teleologically, rather that there are competing physical forces which cause that result regardless of the best efforts by life. Life's 'purpose' is to temporarily stave those forces off - fleeting pockets of entropic reduction - not to die.

That's not what I said, I think you misunderstand. So, try to think of it this way. When I say 'actuality' I'm talking about the 'form' which certain potentials result in. If I am a baby and proceed naturally, I will eventually develop into a man, which is the highest actualization of my prior potential as a baby boy. As a fully adult young man, developed to my highest degree in all facets, I reach my apex, my point to which I am in 'top form.' After that, I begin to slowly decline. in other words, I not only fall away from this actuality which is my form but also loses the potential to grain back that actuality. Aging, for instance, is a process of accumulated damage, which destroys the ability to maintain that actuality which is my form. And I begin to degenerate, and eventually die, and decay, at which point I am entirely recycled.

Aristotle gives an example of an acorn. He says the acorn tree is the actuality to which the acorn seed is a potential. The seed grows towards it's highest form, which is the tree. The tree reaches its apex, and then it begins the processes of aging and eventually death.

The 'purpose' is its form, that is, the highest development of its potential, the actuality in other words. Form and actuality within this relationship of cyclic potential, IS the purpose.

Now you mentioned staving off entropy. Sure, that is 'part' of it, but again, that is very 'reductionistic.' You are looking at a 'part' of the process, but not the 'whole.' as distributed through time. If you were an acorn seed, your purpose would be to become an acorn tree. Once that has been fulfilled, you have achieved your 'end.'Same for a human. Your purpose is to become an adult and achieve that end.

Edit: As for the idea of opposing physical forces, again that is just 'part' of what defines the process, part of what contextualizes the potential towards which the actuality is the aim/end, prior to degradation towards a repeat of potential in the orderly cycle. So indeed there are opposing aspects to the process, but you must look at all of this 'as a whole in time.' What is the 'form' of the process, and there you find what the end which function aims at, which is the actuality of the potential? That is the form, which is the 'purpose' in terms of the relation between various aspects of the process in time which includes various opposing distinctions.

 

[Rumraket]

Yeah that all sounds like nonsense to me. Why isn't the acorn the apex, the "highest development of its potential" to which the tree naturally develops? Or the sapling? Or the rotting detritus a dead tree leaves behind? It's just some arbitrary subjective interpretation of the cycle of life you're offering. Every molecule that makes up the tree (or any other stage in the development of the organism) can be consumed by another organism, and thus has the potentiality to become some other organism at whatever arbitrary stage in it's development. From that perspective, the highest actuality of trees is to become part of the body and excrement of snails and woodlice, and the atmospheric carbon dioxide they and their gut bacteria exhale.
It can also reenter the Earth's mantle and become part of the rocky substrate that make up the planet itself. So now that is the apex of life, to reenter the mantle convection and eventually become continental crust? Why not? What makes your story any more true than mine?

 

[Rumraket]

You are looking at a 'part' of the process, but not the 'whole.' as distributed through time. If you were an acorn seed, your purpose would be to become an acorn tree. Once that has been fulfilled, you have achieved your 'end.

Here we see that it is actually you who is looking only at a part of the process, but not the whole. And your delineations of beginnings and ends is at bottom arbitrary. You can just as well put the beginning at where a sapling as spawned, and the end at when the acorn is dropped from an adult tree. And in any case, that is to give a subjectively priveleged interpretation of the material constituents that make up the tree and acorn at any given time.

Most of the carbon came from atmospheric CO2, which can have passed through countless cycles of living organisms before it came to make up the body of some plant. And of course those carbon and oxygen atoms have even longer prehistories outside of life, and will come to spend uncountable eons of time first as part of the Earth's mantle and crust again, then later still as ionized radiation in the future when the Sun swells up, boils away the oceans, destroys all life on the planet, swells up and consumes and disintegrates the inner planets, and eventually dies out itself.

 

[Rumraket]

There is no objective purpose to anything other than in the sense that sentient beings such as ourselves have intentions in our minds. In no other way does it make sense to speak of anything having meaning or purpose, than as something we sentient beings strive to achieve for things/ourselves.

Take the remote control to your television. Does it have a purpose? Only in the sense that whoever created it intended for it to achieve something: the remote control of your television. Does that purpose exist as part of the thing itself? Can we take it apart and find the purpose inside it? No, it is just an idea in the mind of it's creator.

It isn't objectively binding in some way that prevents the tv remote from doing, or be use for something else. Some people will use it as a sex toy. Or a weapon. Or a musical instrument. Does it now have a new purpose? Well yes, but in the same sense that it is only in the mind of the person using it in some other way. It has a purpose in that person's mind. It is still not somewhere in the remote, or floating around in some nebulous platonic ether. This is no more true or false a purpose than the one in the mind of the person who created it in the first place. I suppose that means it can have multiple incompatible purposes as it is being used and intended for different things in the minds of different individuals.

Even if a God exists and created humans(which we know beyond all rational doubt he didn't do even if he exists), there is no "objective" purpose to human life in any sense different from the one of the human engineer who makes a tv remote. Or the person who stuffs it in their vagina/butt.

But that also means that if God's intentions for humanity (whether collectively or as individuals) are "objective" purposes, then so are the purposes and meanings people make in their own lives. Whether in the mind of God or in the mind of a human being, they are just ideas in a mind. If that's an objective meaning when God does it, then we can have objective meaning too even without God. God-belief is entirely superflous to meaning and purpose and there is no more of it, and it is no more "objective" even if a creator God exists.

 

[Rumraket]

In the same way, there are no objective moral values other than as the moral feelings, thoughts, and intuitions of sentient beings such as ourselves. A moral value is just a thought in your head. While we all certainly have moral thoughts, and so in that sense it is an objective fact that we have these thoughts, then if that is what counts as "objectively real", then yes moral values are objectively real in the sense that we have such thoughts and feelings.

But is any one person's moral feelings, thoughts, and intuitions any more "right" than another? Nope. Why would they be? What can anyone offer here other than some claim or subjective definition nobody else is under any obligation to agree to?

Even if God exists the moral values advocated by God would not be any more "objective". God is just another mind with thoughts on morals. Why is God's thoughts more "right" than another? Who can demonstrate they are? If you're going to say that God is "by definition" objectively correct. Then I can simply say that God is by definition objectively wrong. Now we are just trading definitions, and none of us is in a position to show that the other person's definition is wrong.

There's no way out of this.

 

[Exogen]

Yeah that all sounds like nonsense to me. Why isn't the acorn the apex, the "highest development of its potential" to which the tree naturally develops?

Those sorts of questions are all easy to answer, and in fact I have already answered them in my prior posts and the one you're responding to. The acorn 'tree' is the highest potential of the acorn because it's DNA does not allow it to be any form which would be greater in terms of development than the tree. Once it has reached that apex, that final development, it begins to degrade. It doesn't get any simpler than that. The acorn doesn't merely 'stop' developing with respect to that 'stage' of the process, but continues to it's apex, at which point that form, that 'ordered' structure we call the tree, begins to degrade i.e. age. Mind you, the apex may be a window in time.

It can also reenter the Earth's mantle and become part of the rocky substrate that make up the planet itself. So now that is the apex of life, to reenter the mantle convection and eventually become continental crust? Why not? What makes your story any more true than mine?

That wouldn't be 'it's' purpose because once IT dis-integrates, IT no longer exists because IT is no longer that form. It's matter or energy, or w/e you want to call it, has changed form. So 'the acorn's' purpose has been achieved once it has reached its apex. Its matter going back into the mantle and all that is no longer the tree, though it is a natural process that resulted after the death of the tree.

"Here we see that it is actually you who is looking only at a part of the process, but not the whole. And your delineations of beginnings and ends is at bottom arbitrary. You can just as well put the beginning at where a sapling as spawned, and the end at when the acorn is dropped from an adult tree. And in any case, that is to give a subjectively priveleged interpretation of the material constituents that make up the tree and acorn at any given time.

Actually 'not' arbitrary. Once again, the 'acorn' and it's subsequent development of it's potential into the tree, no longer exists after its decomposition. You're attacking a strawman, as I never said that 'all natural processes are not integrated.' Just the opposite actually. The acorn tree gets recycled along with everything else, but the 'order' which is its form has reached ITS process. So no one said various 'wholes' within time cannot also be related to other wholes within time. And there is nothing 'subjective' about anything I've said, it is all rather objectively grounded.

There is no objective purpose to anything other than in the sense that sentient beings such as ourselves have intentions in our minds. In no other way does it make sense to speak of anything having meaning or purpose, than as something we sentient beings strive to achieve for things/ourselves.

Simple disproof. Try making your purpose to become Superman, or to become an elephant. You might 'believe' you are such things, but you would be crazy. Why? Because your beliefs are not grounded and do not match the actual world. You can psychologize this all you like, but you cannot change what your concrete potentials are. Your purpose, though it has some degree of variability, is still your highest potential, and that's the way it is. Nothing subjective about that. Your decision to act on it might be a choice, the choice to actualize your potential or waste it, but the facts are the facts.

Take the remote control to your television. Does it have a purpose? Only in the sense that whoever created it intended for it to achieve something: the remote control of your television. Does that purpose exist as part of the thing itself? Can we take it apart and find the purpose inside it? No, it is just an idea in the mind of it's creator.

Notice again, just because we made it, doesn't mean it can be 'anything' we want it to be. We might be able to use it as a paperweight, but that doesn't really fit, because the form of it only allows limited function, and it's potential is limited, which limits its purpose. It 'can' be a paperweight, but that isn't it's highest potential. So again, there are objective answers here. TV sets could somehow just pop out of thin air and that wouldn't change any of that.

"It isn't objectively binding in some way that prevents the tv remote from doing, or be use for something else. Some people will use it as a sex toy. Or a weapon. Or a musical instrument. Does it now have a new purpose?

The purpose of these artifacts you mention can be 'many' but just as there are many possible applications which are all correct, some more correct than others, there are also many WRONG answers here. You CAN'T use a handgun to block a mile-wide river, you can't use it to get you home as a propulsion engine from Mars.

"In the same way, there are no objective moral values other than as the moral feelings, thoughts, and intuitions of sentient beings such as ourselves."

So this is exactly the kind of subjective stuff I mentioned before in my initial post on this subject. Morals, though feels, thoughts, and intuitions may be 'part of the process' are not ultimately what that process is about. Virtues, for instance, are about A FORM OF ACTION which is defined by being the mid-point or balance between two opposing extremes. An example would be bravery. So if you are too much in excess of fear, and the actions which follow from that, you have the 'vice' of cowardness. If you are too much in excess of foolhardiness you have foolishness. If you have just enough of both, you have courage. The virtue is the mid-point between two extremes. Nothing subjective about that as it doesn't depend on what one 'believes' or 'feels' to be true, it simply either is or is not the case. And morality is achieved by using virtues and reason to achieve one's highest potential.

"Even if God exists the moral values advocated by God would not be any more "objective". God is just another mind with thoughts on morals. Why is God's thoughts more "right" than another? Who can demonstrate they are? If you're going to say that God is "by definition" objectively correct. Then I can simply say that God is by definition objectively wrong. Now we are just trading definitions, and none of us is in a position to show that the other person's definition is wrong.

So I never mentioned anything about God, and I explicitly said "naturalistic ethics" so please kindly do not mention theism ever again to me in this conversation unless you have a logical reason to bring that up. Unless you want to argue 'for' theism, it has no business in anything I said.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Turritopsis nutricula

And I am not really sure that degenerating back to chemicals and atoms is best described teleologically, rather that there are competing physical forces which cause that result regardless of the best efforts by life. Life's 'purpose' is to temporarily stave those forces off - fleeting pockets of entropic reduction - not to die.

That's not what I said, I think you misunderstand. So, try to think of it this way. When I say 'actuality' I'm talking about the 'form' which certain potentials result in. If I am a baby and proceed naturally, I will eventually develop into a man, which is the highest actualization of my prior potential as a baby boy. As a fully adult young man, developed to my highest degree in all facets, I reach my apex, my point to which I am in 'top form.' After that, I begin to slowly decline. in other words, I not only fall away from this actuality which is my form but also loses the potential to grain back that actuality. Aging, for instance, is a process of accumulated damage, which destroys the ability to maintain that actuality which is my form. And I begin to degenerate, and eventually die, and decay, at which point I am entirely recycled.

Aristotle gives an example of an acorn. He says the acorn tree is the actuality to which the acorn seed is a potential. The seed grows towards it's highest form, which is the tree. The tree reaches its apex, and then it begins the processes of aging and eventually death.

Personally, I just see this as an eccentric and somewhat fluffy misreading of the nature of life.

Life's 'purpose' is to survive long enough to reproduce itself, so the tree does all the stuff it does as an adult wholly to maximize acorn production and dispersal, not to become the best tree it can be.

The 'purpose' is its form, that is, the highest development of its potential, the actuality in other words. Form and actuality within this relationship of cyclic potential, IS the purpose.

I find that a bizarre notion when the 'purpose' of the form of the tree is to produce acorns which are its 'highest potential'.

Now you mentioned staving off entropy. Sure, that is 'part' of it, but again, that is very 'reductionistic.'

I am never quite sure what people mean when they use this term because, while it's obviously an observation about a fundamental quality, the expression 'reductionist' tends to be used as a means of dismissing the point rather than acknowledging that there is a fundamental characteristic. I would say that it's simply a focus on the ultimate explanation rather than focusing on proximate layers which may, or may not, be more appealing under different circumstances. There's a bunch of proximal layers of valid meanings in various contexts which, by the time you get to humans, also include psychology, emotion, and philosophy etc., but ultimately they all reside on the success of the living organism to temporarily maintain a pocket of entropic reduction, or else they die regardless of their many other layers. Some things may be superfluous, even if we consider them vital. Tragedies often teach people this lesson.

You are looking at a 'part' of the process, but not the 'whole.' as distributed through time.

I would suggest that misses the contingent element here. They're not independent, but more complex latter parts of the process are wholly contingent upon more fundamental ones. Ergo, I would say it's valid to place more emphasis on bits that are not actually superfluous to the whole process.

If you were an acorn seed, your purpose would be to become an acorn tree.

Ok, but if you were an acorn tree, your 'purpose' would be to make acorns.

So at best, your notion is circular, or else the whole is cyclical.

Once that has been fulfilled, you have achieved your 'end.

With no intended disrespect, I would consider this scientifically illiterate and understandable from a human being who lived two thousand years ago, but not really philosophically valid or justifiable today.

The tree is NOT the fulfillment of the acorn, it is fundamentally the exact opposite. The tree is just a vehicle, a manufactured environment, a vessel built by genes which, following their historical contingent evolutionary pathways, have adopted a strategy to temporarily employ a tree form in order to make more copies of themselves.



'

Same for a human. Your purpose is to become an adult and achieve that end.

Then our purpose ceases at sexual maturity? So sometime around the age of 20 we have already attained our 'highest development potential'? Does that really sound like humanity (the additional proximate layers) to you?


'

Edit: As for the idea of opposing physical forces, again that is just 'part' of what defines the process, part of what contextualizes the potential towards which the actuality is the aim/end, prior to degradation towards a repeat of potential in the orderly cycle. So indeed there are opposing aspects to the process, but you must look at all of this 'as a whole in time.' What is the 'form' of the process, and there you find what the end which function aims at, which is the actuality of the potential? That is the form, which is the 'purpose' in terms of the relation between various aspects of the process in time which includes various opposing distinctions.

I personally think you're ascribing too much importance to elements that are basically superfluous.

 

[Exogen]

I want to make it clear that though I responded to Rumraket's post in snippets, I will no longer be responding like that, save for maybe a few select quotes here and there. I dislike that style, as it tends to fragment discussions and cause more digressions away from the main idea, as well as other forms of incoherence in dialogue IMO. So no offense to anyone who prefers that style, but I do not. With that said, if I think a quote is important to advance the discussion while keeping things concise. I will try to be as accommodating as I can.

@Sparhafoc

I'm not sure what you mean by 'fluffy' and all that. Again, this is all rather straightforward in that it is concrete. The acorn does not have the potential to become a car. It's potential is to develop into the form of a tree. And that highest potential does indeed perform the 'function' of dispursing acorn seeds, which continues the life cycle. But don't confuse the purpose of 'life' which is to continue to exist, with the purpose of particular lifeforms. The acorn's potential is to the actual tree, and that species purpose is to reach that actuality. That is part of a life cycle and part of larger and larger contexts in the natural order, but that doesn't change any of the purposes of the acorn tree.

Now you may find all of that 'bizarre' or odd, but so what?

As for reductionism, my point is that if you break down things into 'parts' and conclude there are only 'parts understood as parts' without seeing the whole, you have committed a fallacy of composition. So when it comes to the relations of a process, say various stages of development whereby the acorn moves from a potential to an actual, and then begins to lose that potential as well as that actuality, we see a whole of a process as defined by those relations. As for contingency, I don't know what you're saying.

Now you wrote

With no intended disrespect, I would consider this scientifically illiterate and understandable from a human being who lived two thousand years ago, but not really philosophically valid or justifiable today.

The tree is NOT the fulfillment of the acorn, it is fundamentally the exact opposite. The tree is just a vehicle, a manufactured environment, a vessel built by genes which, following their historical contingent evolutionary pathways, have adopted a strategy to temporarily employ a tree form in order to make more copies of themselves.

No offense taken, but this statement IMO represents the biggest misunderstanding of what I'm saying.


Again, you're confusing the purpose of other things in nature, and the larger context, with the acorn and the acorn tree itself. Other organisms may find purpose in the tree, say using it as shelter. And I'm certainly not arguing against the interdependence of natural processes. None of that contradicts anything I've said. Recall I said "nature is riddled with purpose" so the idea of interdependent relations and indeed a whole ecosystem isn't incompatible with anything I've said, but in fact supports it.

Try to think of it like this. Does the acorn seed have a potential to become a car, or tiger? Now, you may say, but the seed could eventually be recycled or converted into such things through some other process. That objection still would be to miss the point. No one is saying the energy cannot be converted into other forms, but that the 'form of the acorn seed' itself has a potential TOWARDS the tree, which in turn has a certain function, say making more seeds which continue the life cycle. Nothing about the life cycle contradicts any of that.

So with regard to the human life cycle, our highest potential is in fact when we are in young adulthood, but 20 is a bit to immature. This does not mean we cannot develop other potentials in our life of course, nor does it mean that the process of aging is not gradual. None of that is in contradiction.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Genes use "forms" to reproduce themselves.

If a life-form fails to reproduce, then it has failed its "purpose".

If all a individual life-form has is a "potential" for a reproductive stage, can this really be called a "purpose"? Given that it's the genes that are the drivers here, not the "form" they're using. The genes aren't changing form - they're merely in different "forms" as they pass down through the generations.

Whatever you may believe at the level of individual life-forms, I trust you're not claiming that evolution itself is teleological!?

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Exogen]

Hi Dragan, I will just respond to your whole statement as it is very briefly stated and thank you for keeping it concise. I will try to reflect that as best I can and try not to be to redundant given what I have already said, as I trust you have been following along and your questions are more 'targeted' in that sense.

Greetings,

Genes use "forms" to reproduce themselves.

If a life-form fails to reproduce, then it has failed its "purpose".

If a lifeform fails to reproduce then indeed it has failed its purpose. Mind you though, in the case of social organisms, this may not always be the case. For instance, an ant drone obviously don't reproduce but works as part of a collective of ants towards the survival of the colony. So the individual ant's purpose is whatever its adult 'function' is in terms of the actuality of that form i.e. what the adult ant actually does. That contributes to the purpose of the colony.

If all a individual life-form has is a "potential" for a reproductive stage, can this really be called a "purpose"?

The reproductive 'aspect' is part of the purpose as it is a single function, one of many others that define the 'actuality' which is the fully formed adult lifeform.

Given that it's the genes that are the drivers here, not the "form" they're using. The genes aren't changing form - they're merely in different "forms" as they pass down through the generations.

The genes are only the causal aspects which drive the 'potential' towards the actuality. Their very existence for the sake of the organism insofar as the genes govern the development i.e. the actualization of potential of those genes and the fledgling organism into its adult form. Again, the relationship is of potential that develops into actuality.

Whatever you may believe at the level of individual life-forms, I trust you're not claiming that evolution itself is teleological!?

Kindest regards,

James

First off, nothing I have said is incompatible with evolution, just for the record, nor theological in the slightest (not that you made such an accusation of course).

Does evolution have a purpose? I'm not really sure, but in either case, I don't think it would make any difference to anything I've said.

Suppose it doesn't. It wouldn't change the fact that individual organisms, in particular, all have a purpose defined by the relations of potentiality and actuality in time.

Suppose it does. It would simply means that evolution aims at some sort of end goal, though I suspect if that would be the case it would be something like the continuation of life itself. In other words, evolution would be a process which itself exists for the sake of the individual organisms, not the other way around, in that case. In other words, we wouldn't exist for the sake of our genes, but rather our genes would exist for the sake of us. Mind you, none of that contradicts any of the facts of evolution. Why? Because you can show me all the algorithms you like, say how Dennett explains it in his neo-Darwinianism as an evolution tournament, but this would not change the fact that all he has done is explain the logical structure of how organisms' change. The process means that lifeform designs are refined as they seek equilibrium with their environment, whcih is nothing more than harmony and balance. But none of that contradicts the cycle of potential to actualization of form whcih occurs throughout the entire process with respect to each individual organism. It does not change the fact that the DNA and the fledging organism exist for the sake for the adult organism which is merely to say that there is a relationship of potential to actualization. It doesn't change the fact that each organism has a purpose as defined 'in time.'

Edit: what I'm trying to break everyone here of is the tendency to think of 'purpose' as some sort of subjective thing, as opposed to the origional notion of it.

 

[Sparhafoc]

@Sparhafoc

I'm not sure what you mean by 'fluffy' and all that. Again, this is all rather straightforward in that it is concrete. The acorn does not have the potential to become a car. It's potential is to develop into the form of a tree. And that highest potential does indeed perform the 'function' of dispursing acorn seeds, which continues the life cycle. But don't confuse the purpose of 'life' which is to continue to exist, with the purpose of particular lifeforms.

The acorn's potential is to the actual tree, and that species purpose is to reach that actuality. That is part of a life cycle and part of larger and larger contexts in the natural order, but that doesn't change any of the purposes of the acorn tree.

Not sure why you'd think I might be confused here as this is expressly what I stated above.

The 'purpose' of any given form is the contingent evolutionary pathway the organism and every single one of its forebears took via its genes encountering adversity and responding through a natural selective process. You're taking the acorn and the tree as 2 distinct quantities, whereas they're one and the same thing when it comes to 'purpose', and the very best argument you could make would need to acquiesce to the cycle being the 'purpose'. Mature tree is not its end result. Acorn is not the end result. However, it's a bit more coherent to consider an iteration of genes being the 'purpose' of the entire shabang, and therefore the production of a new generation would fit your metaphor better.

So no, it's not that I am confused here; the form of a mature tree is not the 'purpose', 'potential' or 'actuality' any more than the acorn is the 'purpose', 'potential' and 'actuality' of the mature tree. Rather, the entire cycle is how genes reproduce themselves, and tree-acorn cycle is that assemblage of DNA's contingent history back through the ages. With that, the confusion actually dissipates.

Now you may find all of that 'bizarre' or odd, but so what?

Not so much 'odd' as totally incomprehensible from the perspective of Biology. I am not sure quite why you think that your metaphor is coherent, but whatever the reason you find it compelling is not based on what's evident.

As for reductionism, my point is that if you break down things into 'parts' and conclude there are only 'parts understood as parts' without seeing the whole, you have committed a fallacy of composition.

I don't recognize the way you're using fallacy of composition*, but even taking at face value for now, if that's the case then you also are committing a 'fallacy of composition' for saying that you can only look at the whole not at the parts.

Of course, neither of us actually said we intended to disclude looking at the other parts, or refuse to recognize them as a parts of a whole, but rather, I explained why one could efficiently strip away many layers of potential meaning in certain contexts but any and all valid discussion on life's purpose must necessarily include life being defined via the physical world it inhabits. That cannot be removed from the equation, ergo any hypothetical purpose must be predicated upon that even if nothing else.

When I said 'fluffy' I was reacting to teleological language you're using to talk about life. Perhaps the manner of your speech is normal in the realm of philosophy, and I respect that this thread is in fact within the philosophy forum, however the study of life is not conducted by philosophers anymore, but by biologists. In Biology, we don't employ all these teleological statements about organisms because it genuinely offers fuck all utility in addressing what is really occurring - in fact, it's downright misleading, in much the same way that using earth-centric terminology would be 'fluffy' to astronomers.


* for me, a fallacy of composition is when you try to say that something which is true of a part must therefore be true of the whole, which I assuredly never suggested.

So when it comes to the relations of a process, say various stages of development whereby the acorn moves from a potential to an actual, and then begins to lose that potential as well as that actuality, we see a whole of a process as defined by those relations. As for contingency, I don't know what you're saying.

Now you wrote

With no intended disrespect, I would consider this scientifically illiterate and understandable from a human being who lived two thousand years ago, but not really philosophically valid or justifiable today.

The tree is NOT the fulfillment of the acorn, it is fundamentally the exact opposite. The tree is just a vehicle, a manufactured environment, a vessel built by genes which, following their historical contingent evolutionary pathways, have adopted a strategy to temporarily employ a tree form in order to make more copies of themselves.

No offense taken, but this statement IMO represents the biggest misunderstanding of what I'm saying.

Really? Are you sure that's the case? I've read ahead, and to be honest, it seems you're completely misunderstanding what I am saying.

We will have to overcome this impasse!

Again, you're confusing the purpose of other things in nature, and the larger context, with the acorn and the acorn tree itself. Other organisms may find purpose in the tree, say using it as shelter. And I'm certainly not arguing against the interdependence of natural processes.

This has got literally nothing whatsoever to do with what I wrote. I am not sure what I wrote that gave you the impression I was talking about interdependence of species, but I assuredly was not.

None of that contradicts anything I've said. Recall I said "nature is riddled with purpose" so the idea of interdependent relations and indeed a whole ecosystem isn't incompatible with anything I've said, but in fact supports it.

Let me just try and track what you've written here from my perspective, so please correct me if I am mis-reading.


First, you said I misunderstood you as was evidenced by my statement regarding the acorn and the tree just being forms employed by genes to reproduce themselves.

Second, you then said I am confusing the purpose of other things in nature, and talked about interdependence between different species.... not sure what for!

Thirdly, you then say that the point I didn't make, but which I was supposedly confused by, is actually in support of the argument you'd made before?


Consider me utterly perplexed! :lol:


No. Let me try again.

DNA. Genotype and phenotype. Genes determine form, but not by blueprint as you appear to think. DNA orchestrates the production of molecules such as proteins, these proteins, under various and changing chemical environments (internal predominantly) produce form. The acorn doesn't contain a blueprint for a tree. It contains a blueprint for producing proteins that behave in particular ways under particular environments (embryological development) which, via contingent evolutionary heritage having locked down certain elements of the developmental process, result in a sapling, a tree, a bud, an acorn. That cycle is the the only valid 'purpose' from the perspective of the genes; the mature tree is not any more a 'fulfillment' than the acorn.

The tree, I am glad to say, is unaware of all of this and is thereby saved existential pain it couldn't actually perceive anyway.

Try to think of it like this. Does the acorn seed have a potential to become a car, or tiger?

Does the tree have a potential to become a car, or tiger, or Rolex watch? Then why would the acorn?

I would say that 'thinking of it like this' means 'think via essentialist Platonic ideals' because it makes no sense to me to differentiate the acorn and the tree as you're doing. The acorn and the tree aren't 2 separate things regardless of whether you find it convenient to think of them so; they're a single continuum.

Thus, to look at the acorn and say 'this has the potential to be a tree' can only ever be as valid as looking at a tree and saying 'this has the potential to be an acorn'. If one had to choose which one represents 'fulfillment' then, from the perspective of the biological sciences, it would have to be the acorn as that represents a new generation of genes. But it's still not really a statement that contains any useful information.

I personally think you're employing a number of uninspected assumptions that are misleading you here. Perhaps you might normally consider the acorn the 'first step' and the tree the 'final step', and this may be the result of having seen a tree produce acorns essentially from nothing which themselves produce trees gradually enough to allow you to witness its development into something bigger and thinking, thereby, that the tree is the point of the enterprise.

But the last 150 years of Biology is expressly in opposition with you there. This is not a useful way to consider any 'purpose' here. The tree's form is literally just the clothes a band of genes wore to make more of themselves. Even the most idealized 'tree form' wasn't directed by anything intelligent or fore-thinking but by survival through countless environmental encounters over the generations.

Now, you may say, but the seed could eventually be recycled or converted into such things through some other process. That objection still would be to miss the point. No one is saying the energy cannot be converted into other forms, but that the 'form of the acorn seed' itself has a potential TOWARDS the tree, which in turn has a certain function, say making more seeds which continue the life cycle. Nothing about the life cycle contradicts any of that.

I am afraid to say it absolutely does contradict empirical knowledge about life. The form of the acorn itself has no potential whatsoever towards the tree. There's no tree homunculus being nurtured within. At the moment of acorn, there is no tree form to be found anywhere within, so there can be no potential towardsit. Tree form cannot happen following the instructions inside. Instead, a series of triggers - both internally and externally - will cause particular types of development to happen in very constrained ways. For example, sunlight and gravity have to be reacted to, else tree form never could occur, so there's an absolutely fundamental reaction to external stimuli as the shoot the acorn forms quests towards the sunlight. This, in turn, will trigger the production of new chemical instructions, not directly from the DNA, but from RNA reacting to the resulting chemical environment so triggered. First leaves open, new trigger, new environment, new instructions, and so on. And of course, this doesn't even consider the dramatic changes the external environment will have on the final tree's form.

But, as I say, you're not talking about real trees, you're talking about an idealized tree. Have you ever heard the joke pointed at physicists?

Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, "I have the solution, but it works only in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum".

Perhaps the model you've manufactured in your mind confers a particular start point, and a process culminating in a tree which you can then perceive as a fulfillment of that process. But your model very poorly reflects or coincides with what really happens in the life-cycle of trees.

So with regard to the human life cycle, our highest potential is in fact when we are in young adulthood, but 20 is a bit to immature. This does not mean we cannot develop other potentials in our life of course, nor does it mean that the process of aging is not gradual. None of that is in contradiction.

Not in contradiction, I couldn't say, because bad ideas often do seem coherent to those bearing them.

But honestly, for me, it's pure wool. I cannot even begin to fathom what utility it would offer even were I to entertain all your statements. In all honesty, I think I would be confident to say that a scientific approach here is vastly more fertile, and offers much greater understanding that this Aristotelian take on life.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Yeah that all sounds like nonsense to me. Why isn't the acorn the apex, the "highest development of its potential" to which the tree naturally develops? Or the sapling? Or the rotting detritus a dead tree leaves behind? It's just some arbitrary subjective interpretation of the cycle of life you're offering. Every molecule that makes up the tree (or any other stage in the development of the organism) can be consumed by another organism, and thus has the potentiality to become some other organism at whatever arbitrary stage in it's development. From that perspective, the highest actuality of trees is to become part of the body and excrement of snails and woodlice, and the atmospheric carbon dioxide they and their gut bacteria exhale.
It can also reenter the Earth's mantle and become part of the rocky substrate that make up the planet itself. So now that is the apex of life, to reenter the mantle convection and eventually become continental crust? Why not? What makes your story any more true than mine?

I had not yet read ahead to your comment when I posted, but I don't think it's coincidence we make the same point!

 

[Sparhafoc]

There is no objective purpose to anything other than in the sense that sentient beings such as ourselves have intentions in our minds. In no other way does it make sense to speak of anything having meaning or purpose, than as something we sentient beings strive to achieve for things/ourselves.

Take the remote control to your television. Does it have a purpose? Only in the sense that whoever created it intended for it to achieve something: the remote control of your television. Does that purpose exist as part of the thing itself? Can we take it apart and find the purpose inside it? No, it is just an idea in the mind of it's creator.

It isn't objectively binding in some way that prevents the tv remote from doing, or be use for something else. Some people will use it as a sex toy. Or a weapon. Or a musical instrument. Does it now have a new purpose? Well yes, but in the same sense that it is only in the mind of the person using it in some other way. It has a purpose in that person's mind. It is still not somewhere in the remote, or floating around in some nebulous platonic ether. This is no more true or false a purpose than the one in the mind of the person who created it in the first place. I suppose that means it can have multiple incompatible purposes as it is being used and intended for different things in the minds of different individuals.

Even if a God exists and created humans(which we know beyond all rational doubt he didn't do even if he exists), there is no "objective" purpose to human life in any sense different from the one of the human engineer who makes a tv remote. Or the person who stuffs it in their vagina/butt.

But that also means that if God's intentions for humanity (whether collectively or as individuals) are "objective" purposes, then so are the purposes and meanings people make in their own lives. Whether in the mind of God or in the mind of a human being, they are just ideas in a mind. If that's an objective meaning when God does it, then we can have objective meaning too even without God. God-belief is entirely superflous to meaning and purpose and there is no more of it, and it is no more "objective" even if a creator God exists.

From your parable the definition of Free Will would be - God gave us the freedom to choose but never for a moment imagined we'd then use it as a sex toy! :lol:

 

[Sparhafoc]

The acorn 'tree' is the highest potential of the acorn because it's DNA does not allow it to be any form which would be greater in terms of development than the tree.

Define 'greater' in a way that doesn't contain pure cashmere wool.

If you mean in terms of succeeding previous forms, then you're in a bigger quandary than chicken and egg because you need to explain why the acorn form doesn't succeed the tree form.

 

[Exogen]

Define 'greater' in a way that doesn't contain pure cashmere wool.

If you mean in terms of succeeding previous forms, then you're in a bigger quandary than chicken and egg because you need to explain why the acorn form doesn't succeed the tree form.

I don't follow what it is you are asking or saying here, so I'll respond to what I think you 'might' mean. So apologies in advance if I miss the intent of your response.

When I said 'greater development of form' in reference to the DNA, I'm talking about how the DNA, as an aspect of the fledgling organisms, say the acorn, is a 'potential' towards the actuality of the tree, which is the form of the organism. This actualization is the 'end' or 'purpose' of the acorn, in that it is what the potential leads to. In time, that relationship means that the acorn exists 'for' (as in future tense) the end of the tree, meaning that the acorn is a potential and the tree an actualization of that potential. It doesn't get any deeper than that.

And as I said, focusing on what happens, say after the tree does for instance, and is recycled, while related to the cycle of life, does not have anything whatsoever to do with the tree in particular's purpose, as it is dead by that point. And for something to have a purpose, it must exist, at least as a potential i.e. the fledgling organism which aims at, via its developmental pathway, to its most developed and highest actualization i.e. the tree at the apex of development. If the tree no longer exists, say because it has been recycled back into nature, then 'that particular tree' no longer has a purpose as it no longer exists. Its matter may have 'become part of' the potential of another organism or some other natural process, but it, is dead, so it, has no purpose, any longer.

Thus, an acorn tree reaches its purpose, in so doing, makes more acorns. These acorns are new organisms and they have their own purpose, similar to their parent organism because they are born from them. So you need to understand that this teleology is of the 'individual' organisms, not the processes as a whole per se. But even if you can make a case for nested purpose within purpose, layer by layer, context by context, in regard to the natural order, it would not contradict any point I have made, but merely 'harmonize' with it. And on the other hand, if there is no such greater layers of purpose to the natural order as a whole, it wouldn't make a difference to anything I've said thus far.

Edit: I just saw your long response to me late. I think the above addresses most of the thrust of your objections, but if not then let's see if we can narrow down exactly where you disagree, as again, it still seems like you aren't quite getting what I'm driving at. I will respond to this however.

I am afraid to say it absolutely does contradict empirical knowledge about life. The form of the acorn itself has no potential whatsoever towards the tree. There's no tree homunculus being nurtured within. At the moment of acorn, there is no tree form to be found anywhere within, so there can be no potential towardsit. Tree form cannot happen following the instructions inside. Instead, a series of triggers - both internally and externally - will cause particular types of development to happen in very constrained ways. For example, sunlight and gravity have to be reacted to, else tree form never could occur, so there's an absolutely fundamental reaction to external stimuli as the shoot the acorn forms quests towards the sunlight. This, in turn, will trigger the production of new chemical instructions, not directly from the DNA, but from RNA reacting to the resulting chemical environment so triggered. First leaves open, new trigger, new environment, new instructions, and so on. And of course, this doesn't even consider the dramatic changes the external environment will have on the final tree's form. .

Saying the acorn has a potential towards the tree doesn't mean there is some tree in the acorn. This paragraph here makes me think you are thinking of something entirely different from what I am saying. I'm also not ignorant of biology. I understand the difference between genotype and phenotypes, DNA and RNA, etc. I understand that DNA is not a 'blueprint' except perhaps in some analogous sense, but rather a 'series of triggers' as you say. But that simply is irrelevant to my point. What you are describing is a 'series' of causal steps. If you recall from my initial post on this topic, I differentiated between the efficient causality and the teleology. The two are not incompatible. I am fully aware, and have already stated that there is a process, this would be your series of triggers and the stages of the development of the organism. That simply doesnt change my point that the acorn is the potential for the tree.

 

[Exogen]

For anyone following this discussion, let me add this for clarification, as I see many of the objections I am seeing seem to misunderstand what I'm saying, perhaps due to terminological and semantic differences.

i took this from google which sums up the idea of what "potential" means.

"Potential: having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future."

The actuality is the result of that potential, that future 'end' result.

So with respect to an organism, in particular, say an oak tree, the acorn comes into existence, which is the first stage of the lifecycle of the tree. This seed eventually develops the potential through the many series of stages to become the oak tree, which is the actualization of the potential that was the acorn seed. The acorn then is what which exists 'for' the end of the tree, insofar as it is the prior potential for the later actuality that is the tree. Efficient causality i.e. A causes B, which causes C, facilitate this in the process, but it is the temporal relations, as in the ORDER, of these various stages that 'define' what we mean by 'purpose' in time.

Edit: It should also be noted that the purpose/telos should not be confused with a psychological intent. Someone may intend to bring about some end, which is a kind of end, a kind of purpose, but it shouldn't be confused with the material or objective sense of an end.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Define 'greater' in a way that doesn't contain pure cashmere wool.

If you mean in terms of succeeding previous forms, then you're in a bigger quandary than chicken and egg because you need to explain why the acorn form doesn't succeed the tree form.

I don't follow what it is you are asking or saying here, so I'll respond to what I think you 'might' mean. So apologies in advance if I miss the intent of your response.

When I said 'greater development of form' in reference to the DNA, I'm talking about how the DNA, as an aspect of the fledgling organisms, say the acorn, is a 'potential' towards the actuality of the tree, which is the form of the organism. This actualization is the 'end' or 'purpose' of the acorn, in that it is what the potential leads to. In time, that relationship means that the acorn exists 'for' (as in future tense) the end of the tree, meaning that the acorn is a potential and the tree an actualization of that potential. It doesn't get any deeper than that.

And as I said, focusing on what happens, say after the tree does for instance, and is recycled, while related to the cycle of life, does not have anything whatsoever to do with the tree in particular's purpose, as it is dead by that point. And for something to have a purpose, it must exist, at least as a potential i.e. the fledgling organism which aims at, via its developmental pathway, to its most developed and highest actualization i.e. the tree at the apex of development. If the tree no longer exists, say because it has been recycled back into nature, then 'that particular tree' no longer has a purpose as it no longer exists. Its matter may have 'become part of' the potential of another organism or some other natural process, but it, is dead, so it, has no purpose, any longer.

Thus, an acorn tree reaches its purpose, in so doing, makes more acorns. These acorns are new organisms and they have their own purpose, similar to their parent organism because they are born from them. So you need to understand that this teleology is of the 'individual' organisms, not the processes as a whole per se. But even if you can make a case for nested purpose within purpose, layer by layer, context by context, in regard to the natural order, it would not contradict any point I have made, but merely 'harmonize' with it. And on the other hand, if there is no such greater layers of purpose to the natural order as a whole, it wouldn't make a difference to anything I've said thus far.

Edit: I just saw your long response to me late. I think the above addresses most of the thrust of your objections, but if not then let's see if we can narrow down exactly where you disagree, as again, it still seems like you aren't quite getting what I'm driving at. I will respond to this however.

Let me be even more frank, Exogen. The bits I am 'confused' by are the scientifically illiterate bits.

You think, for example, even after I already explained otherwise, that the DNA present in the acorn contains instructions on building the tree, so once the tree is 'complete' then the instructions are 'complete'.

This is just completely wrong - there's no other way to say it.

I am afraid to say it absolutely does contradict empirical knowledge about life. The form of the acorn itself has no potential whatsoever towards the tree. There's no tree homunculus being nurtured within. At the moment of acorn, there is no tree form to be found anywhere within, so there can be no potential towardsit. Tree form cannot happen following the instructions inside. Instead, a series of triggers - both internally and externally - will cause particular types of development to happen in very constrained ways. For example, sunlight and gravity have to be reacted to, else tree form never could occur, so there's an absolutely fundamental reaction to external stimuli as the shoot the acorn forms quests towards the sunlight. This, in turn, will trigger the production of new chemical instructions, not directly from the DNA, but from RNA reacting to the resulting chemical environment so triggered. First leaves open, new trigger, new environment, new instructions, and so on. And of course, this doesn't even consider the dramatic changes the external environment will have on the final tree's form. .

Saying the acorn has a potential towards the tree doesn't mean there is some tree in the acorn. This paragraph here makes me think you are thinking of something entirely different from what I am saying. I'm also not ignorant of biology. I understand the difference between genotype and phenotypes, DNA and RNA, etc. I understand that DNA is not a 'blueprint' except perhaps in some analogous sense, but rather a 'series of triggers' as you say. But that simply is irrelevant to my point. What you are describing is a 'series' of causal steps. If you recall from my initial post on this topic, I differentiated between the efficient causality and the teleology. The two are not incompatible. I am fully aware, and have already stated that there is a process, this would be your series of triggers and the stages of the development of the organism. That simply doesnt change my point that the acorn is the potential for the tree.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. If you actually understood the process, then you'd know that talking about the 'potentiality' of a tree is total nonsense.

 

[Sparhafoc]

So with respect to an organism, in particular, say an oak tree, the acorn comes into existence, which is the first stage of the lifecycle of the tree. This seed eventually develops the potential through the many series of stages to become the oak tree, which is the actualization of the potential that was the acorn seed. The acorn then is what which exists 'for' the end of the tree, insofar as it is the prior potential for the later actuality that is the tree. Efficient causality i.e. A causes B, which causes C, facilitate this in the process, but it is the temporal relations, as in the ORDER, of these various stages that 'define' what we mean by 'purpose' in time.

For clarity, everyone so far here thinks that's complete bunk.

We're not 'confused' by it, and it's not that we don't understand what you are saying. I completely, absolutely, 100% grasp what you are saying, and I repeat, it's wrong, it's woolly, it's rubbish. That's not confusion talking, it's drawing on my knowledge of Biology. Your statements do not fit the facts; they do not correspond to what empirically is occurring.

Further, as I already said, I cannot fathom what possible utility your statements would contain even if I were to entertain them as valid. What knowledge can you glean from the perspective you're arguing for? I would submit that, rather than adding anything, engaging in analysis or discussion of the biological world with your conception would hamper knowledge. I would also argue that this is historically evident.

Edit: It should also be noted that the purpose/telos should not be confused with a psychological intent. Someone may intend to bring about some end, which is a kind of end, a kind of purpose, but it shouldn't be confused with the material or objective sense of an end.

I imagine everyone's aware of the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic telos, but the notion of a final cause, an ultimate reason, or a guided purpose is not useful in the sciences.

You appear to be as insistent that there's some value to your notion of purpose in nature as I am that there's not, so I think we're at an impasse. All I can do is inform you from the perspective of Biology why your approach is not useful and holds no purchase.

 

[Sparhafoc]

If a lifeform fails to reproduce then indeed it has failed its purpose. Mind you though, in the case of social organisms, this may not always be the case. For instance, an ant drone obviously don't reproduce but works as part of a collective of ants towards the survival of the colony. So the individual ant's purpose is whatever its adult 'function' is in terms of the actuality of that form i.e. what the adult ant actually does. That contributes to the purpose of the colony.

This just feels so 18th century to me.

Plus it reads that whatever something does is its actuality. Seems redundant then, no?

 

[Exogen]

Let me be even more frank, Exogen. The bits I am 'confused' by are the scientifically illiterate bits.

You think, for example, even after I already explained otherwise, that the DNA present in the acorn contains instructions on building the tree, so once the tree is 'complete' then the instructions are 'complete'.

This is just completely wrong - there's no other way to say it.

Well, it's a good thing then that I don't actually think the DNA literally contains instructions of some kind. For your information, I do know what a double helix is.

Again, I have said that the acorn (which includes more than just DNA within its cell's nucleus, 'as the potential' of the actuality which is the tree. So you're attacking a 'scientifically illiterate claim' that I haven't actually made.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. If you actually understood the process, then you'd know that talking about the 'potentiality' of a tree is total nonsense.

So are you taking the proposition that the acorn does 'not' have a capacity to become a tree via the various stages of development of life we can describe biologically? Are you taking that proposition to be false that the acorn does have such a capacity for development? So then it is always 'false' that when a baby is born is has a capacity to develop into an adult, is that too a false proposition? Please be clear.

This just feels so 18th century to me.

Feels....

Plus it reads that whatever something does is its actuality. Seems redundant then, no?

False, as things are more than what they do. The tree may be 'doing various things' in some sense, but these do not constitute its existence given that they are not the sum of its composition, but rather a prerequisite for it.