Hi Lawry:
> No, I am not asserting that people who work on evolution think that
there
> is a divine purpose to it; I was asserting that they don't.
> What lies behind the puzzle is not teleological, but physical; the reason
> that I termed it behind the puzzle pieces, is that there are generalizable
> principles of physical or biological conduct, and that it is an
> understanding of these generalizable principles that lets us understand the
> really important stuff about our world.
I guess restricting yourself to the physical and biological levels of
explanation depends on what you consider the really important stuff
about the world. I would suggest that if you try to explain the emergence
of "really important" stuff like freedom, free will, creativity and beauty,
Darwinian evolution, as Wilber says "just won't work." Pirsig agrees.
> So, gravity pulls things toward to
> center of a mass, but this does not mean that gravity has such a 'purpose'
> - it is simply want it does. Understanding that gravity is a general
> phenomenon and can be described quite specifically (e.g. at the surface of
> the earth, gravity provides for a specific acceleration) then enables us to
> understand lots of different things. We do fall into the linguistic trap of
> using language that implies purpose, e.g. gravity 'wants' to pull things -
> but easy as it is, this is, linguistically, a serious mischaracterization,
> and one that leads people into a teleological PoV.
Some people, maybe. But clearly not all.
> So, students evolution are intensely interested in what lies behind the
> puzzle pieces....and in the process of pursuing this interest have found no
> reason to adopt a teleological PoV.
Probably because those "students" are blocked (and blinded) by the "no
infidels allowed effect" imposed by their science teachers.
> Now, memes. Of course memes can't be seen under a microscope and never
> will. Memes are linguistic constructs - expressed ideas - that people use
> and pass on to each other. That they are not physical things (though some
> memeticians do assert that the meme lies in its carrier artifact - I am not
> one of them) is no diminishment of the utility of the concept, or its
> reality. You will never examine a tone under a microscope (though you might
> the traces of its sound wave captured in some medium), but you would surely
> not argue that tones do not exist.
Tones can be seen on an oscilloscope and precisely measured. When
you can detect a meme (or trace thereof) on any instrument other than
the fertile imagination of Dawkins and his acolytes, please let me know.
Platt
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