If this were true, the conclusion is essentially the same. The teleological mechanism creates more beings.

But there might be a reason for it, other than it just being the meaningless process that it is often said to be. Part of the game might be finding that reason out. ;-)

You mean like a China brain?

I have no idea of what that allusion means - I guess I could google it, but won't bother at this moment.

OK, here's another way of picturing it - you might know Star Wars drew heavily on mythological themes of 'the hero's journey', which was the subject of a famous book, Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. That book was in turn based on the cultural archetype of the hero who leaves his home, is challenged and threatened by alien or evil forces, before finally realising his 'true identity' and returning to his real home. Heck, you even see it in Lion King.

Many cultural archetypes and myths encode such stories into their folklore and religion - think of epic poems, the Ramayana, and so on. It's a big part of what culture is.

Now look at 20th C Western cultural history. One of the over-arching themes is the Death of God and the denial of purpose. Look at Russell's Free Man's Worship and then existentialism. It's all about being 'exiled', feeling that we're the random products of a meaningless process. 'Accidental tourists', I often think.

The OP speaks in terms of 'memes' which is one of Dawkins ideas, but Dawkins is very much associated with that notion of the meaninglessness of the Cosmos.

Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

That attitude is writ large in 'secular culture'. But the new consciousness that is emerging, the 'greening' of the West, is totally different - not a return to the mythical religious past, but in terms of Gaia, environmental awareness, and new-age tropes of planetary consciousness and higher awareness. They re-imagine evolution as 'evolutionary consciousness'. Spaceship Earth, stewards of the planet, here to find a harmonious way of co-existing through saving resources and getting off the mindless consumerist treadmill.

If the cosmos began without meaning, it would still have no meaning UNLESS something happened to create meaning.

Genes and memes are not meaning creators. Neither are physical forces, biological processes, evolution, earthquakes, and so on. They are real, but they don't make meaning. There can not be pawns in a meaningless world. The pieces for which pawns are stand-ins have meaning.

Something happened.

Meaning makers came into existence. Meaning makers, of necessity, have the capacity to impose meaning on a meaningless world. We meaning makers can create and destroy pawns; we can generate ideas that "trend" mightily. If we were to disappear, the cosmos would return to meaninglessness.

Meaning makers, of necessity, have the capacity to impose meaning on a meaningless world. — Bitter Crank

Subjective meaning, that is.

How I'm I implying it's using us? You don't think you can be a pawn in an unthinking mechanism? — schopenhauer1

No I don't. I think it's a muddle. One can be a pawn in someone else's game, if someone else is using one for some purpose not one's own. But an unthinking mechanism can have no purpose of its own. It is as if a driver complained that he had to go wherever the car took him. A passenger might reasonably complain, but not the driver. You can refuse to drive and then complain that the car is not going anywhere, but I'm afraid I have little sympathy.

From the (true) gene-centred perspective, an individual is a conjecture, one of a population of variants, that is tested against reality. — tom

This doesn't seem to me to be an answer as to why or how the word 'purpose' can have an adequate substitute of one's own choosing. It's an answer to another question.

I'm suspicious of the use of the passive voice. '...is tested against reality' does not name the tester. '...an individual is a conjecture..' by what or whom? The implication is that there is an agent. Well, who or what is the agent? Life tends to beget life. But is that 'purpose'?

Neo-Darwinism is true — tom

I don't understand the value of such a remark. Who could usefully argue for or refute it? I'm a great advocate of neo-Darwinism in (as neo-Darwinists might say) its niche. But to think of it as a guide to say political discourse, or aesthetics, or ethics, would be, in my view, an error.

If I change the title to "impersonal mechanism" would that convey the point for you and change the debate from semantics to the implications of this? — schopenhauer1

Well, obviously the title is as it is now, I accept that.

And yes, I think 'impersonal mechanism' would be an interesting replacement. Then my answer would be straightforward, that 'mechanism' is an illuminating metaphor but nothing more, and that I don't think people are here 'for' anything, other than for what they commit themselves to, when they find themselves here as we do.

It is as if a driver complained that he had to go wherever the car took him. A passenger might reasonably complain, but not the driver. You can refuse to drive and then complain that the car is not going anywhere, but I'm afraid I have little sympathy. — unenlightened

This is a good analogy. We can ask, why are there passengers and drivers. The passengers are very often complaining, you're driving too fast, you're driving too slow, you should go this way, you should go that way. We call them backseat drivers. Draw this analogy out to human life in general, and there are leaders and followers. Why are the followers so often complainers? I'm just a pawn in your game. Why do we even start to think that it is someone else's goal that we're working toward, not our own?

I think that this type of thinking is unhealthy. It completely misunderstands intentionality, assuming that there are individuals, (or in the case of the op, possibly some entities), with their own secret goals, directing people around, as pawns, without disclosing their goals, what they are using the people for. However, we know from thousands of years of experience that this is not how intentionality works. Intentionality works by having intentions clearly disclosed, through concise, well formulated language, so that individuals clearly understand each other's intentions, and work together toward common goals. There is no such thing as "I am your pawn", when goals are common goals.

This doesn't seem to me to be an answer as to why or how the word 'purpose' can have an adequate substitute of one's own choosing. It's an answer to another question. — mcdoodle

There is no substitute for the word "purpose" in neo-Darwinism, because purpose is explicitly absent. Teleology is anathema!

I'm suspicious of the use of the passive voice. '...is tested against reality' does not name the tester. '...an individual is a conjecture..' by what or whom? The implication is that there is an agent. Well, who or what is the agent? Life tends to beget life. But is that 'purpose'? — mcdoodle

The test is comparative breeding success. Genetic variants better adapted to their niche become more prevalent over time. There is no designer or agent.

I don't understand the value of such a remark. Who could usefully argue for or refute it? I'm a great advocate of neo-Darwinism in (as neo-Darwinists might say) its niche. But to think of it as a guide to say political discourse, or aesthetics, or ethics, would be, in my view, an error. — mcdoodle

It explains how religions survive though. Which is useful knowledge.

No I don't. I think it's a muddle. One can be a pawn in someone else's game, if someone else is using one for some purpose not one's own. But an unthinking mechanism can have no purpose of its own. It is as if a driver complained that he had to go wherever the car took him. A passenger might reasonably complain, but not the driver. You can refuse to drive and then complain that the car is not going anywhere, but I'm afraid I have little sympathy. — unenlightened

But the unthinking mechanism has a teleology of sorts, and that is to continue the project of life. It may not be designed with purpose, but it is there nonetheless. Notice, my examples are both ones whereby the outcome is whatever is optimal for continuing to live (both culturally surviving or genetically surviving). Natural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for life to continue via adaptation. Cultural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for culture to continue into the future. We are here due to these type of processes- they are not due to any decision made by us, but the unthinking mechanics of a process whose outcome is more life. You, the individual's preferences, ideals, and personal whatever, is not factored into this other than the general ability to optimize this process as the process would lose momentum otherwise. However, I think instead of understanding this implication, you are getting caught up with the title's wording.

Meaning makers came into existence. Meaning makers, of necessity, have the capacity to impose meaning on a meaningless world. We meaning makers can create and destroy pawns; we can generate ideas that "trend" mightily. If we were to disappear, the cosmos would return to meaninglessness. — Bitter Crank

I guess my answer would be similar to what I said to unenlightened's response. I'll just copy and paste it:

But the unthinking mechanism has a teleology of sorts, and that is to continue the project of life. It may not be designed with purpose, but it is there nonetheless. Notice, my examples are both ones whereby the outcome is whatever is optimal for continuing to live (both culturally surviving or genetically surviving). Natural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for life to continue via adaptation. Cultural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for culture to continue into the future. We are here due to these type of processes- they are not due to any decision made by us, but the unthinking mechanics of a process whose outcome is more life. You, the individual's preferences, ideals, and personal whatever, is not factored into this other than the general ability to optimize this process as the process would lose momentum otherwise. However, I think instead of understanding this implication, you are getting caught up with the title's wording.

Well, obviously the title is as it is now, I accept that.

And yes, I think 'impersonal mechanism' would be an interesting replacement. Then my answer would be straightforward, that 'mechanism' is an illuminating metaphor but nothing more, and that I don't think people are here 'for' anything, other than for what they commit themselves to, when they find themselves here as we do. — mcdoodle

I think my answer would be similar to what I said to unenlightened's response. I'll just copy and paste it:

But the unthinking mechanism has a teleology of sorts, and that is to continue the project of life. It may not be designed with purpose, but it is there nonetheless. Notice, my examples are both ones whereby the outcome is whatever is optimal for continuing to live (both culturally surviving or genetically surviving). Natural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for life to continue via adaptation. Cultural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for culture to continue into the future. We are here due to these type of processes- they are not due to any decision made by us, but the unthinking mechanics of a process whose outcome is more life. You, the individual's preferences, ideals, and personal whatever, is not factored into this other than the general ability to optimize this process as the process would lose momentum otherwise. However, I think instead of understanding this implication, you are getting caught up with the title's wording.

But the unthinking mechanism has a teleology of sorts, and that is to continue the project of life. It may not be designed with purpose, but it is there nonetheless. Notice, my examples are both ones whereby the outcome is whatever is optimal for continuing to live (both culturally surviving or genetically surviving). Natural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for life to continue via adaptation. — schopenhauer1

No, you have the teleology backwards. The aim of genes is to go extinct, and most of them achieve this eventually. Natural selection provides the optimal situation for extinction to occur to all but the unfortunate minority.

I hope this makes as little sense to you as your teleology does to me, and you can see in the reflection that both are equally senseless.

Genes don't want to survive any more than they want to go extinct. It is humans that want things, and then project their own teleology onto nature.

But the unthinking mechanism has a teleology of sorts, and that is to continue the project of life. — schopenhauer1

I don't agree with this. I think that teleology is bunk outside of sentient creatures thinking about things in terms of goals/aims/purposes. Re evolution, it's not that there are non-sentient goals of survival or anything like that. It's just that (a) offspring aren't identically/exactly replicated, and (b) it's simply a contingent fact that things that are (better) able to survive to procreate will pass their genes on. There's no teleology in that.

No, you have the teleology backwards. The aim of genes is to go extinct, and most of them achieve this eventually. Natural selection provides the optimal situation for extinction to occur to all but the unfortunate minority. — unenlightened

No, when genes start optimizing reproduction (more people surviving and reproducing, etc.) it tends to retain the optimization strategies or adapt accordingly to the circumstances as time moves forward (until or unless a catastrophic event occurs). Add in the idea of memes and this too tends to optimizes "its own" and the species survival.

I don't agree with this. I think that teleology is bunk outside of sentient creatures thinking about things in terms of goals/aims/purposes. Re evolution, it's not that there are non-sentient goals of survival or anything like that. It's just that (a) offspring aren't identically/exactly replicated, and (b) it's simply a contingent fact that things that are (better) able to survive to procreate will pass their genes on. There's no teleology in that. — Terrapin Station

There is no aim, I agree, but there is an outcome of natural selection that optimizes survival and once at a level of stable reproductive rates, continues to survive accordingly due to surviving in the suitable environment.

Let me be clear, its not a debate on the mechanics of natural selection- which I would characterize as random genetic mutations that may lead to features/behaviors of an organism being suitable for survival and reproduction at differential rates in a certain environment and in turn be able to reproduce a next generation and so on such that the traits that are more suitable continue to be carried on.

If you want teleology and purpose, why don't you just take up with the God of Abraham, who will give you both? You don't have to give up genes to do it, either. Just assign evolution and its mechanisms to the methods which God employs to carry out his teleological, purposeful will.

It seems like you are trying to find meaning by smuggling it across the border inside a package of evolution.

Don't like Jehovah? Zeus maybe? Amazon.com has other god-models you can order and have delivered by lightning bolt.

That's just your pro-life bias talking - as if the universe really wanted you. This is the odd thing, that this view is so primitive and antiscientific. It reanimates matter by way of de-animating itself, reintroduces the gods that it sought to displace, and gives exactly the central importance to life that it wants to remove.

To be honest, I'm at a loss to find the right place to cut through this circularity, so I'll have to bow out.

That's just your pro-life bias talking - as if the universe really wanted you. This is the odd thing, that this view is so primitive and antiscientific. It reanimates matter by way of de-animating itself, reintroduces the gods that it sought to displace, and gives exactly the central importance to life that it wants to remove.

To be honest, I'm at a loss to find the right place to cut through this circularity, so I'll have to bow out. — unenlightened

Once organisms stabilize their populations in a new environment based on advantageous selection, often they will optimize for stable selection. Thus, anything that greatly deviates from this causes adverse effects and thus will cause that generation (or perhaps a bit later in the next few generations down the road) to die out. Therefore, once stabilization occurs, your idea about genes tending towards extinction does not apply.

If you want teleology and purpose, why don't you just take up with the God of Abraham, who will give you both? You don't have to give up genes to do it, either. Just assign evolution and its mechanisms to the methods which God employs to carry out his teleological, purposeful will.

It seems like you are trying to find meaning by smuggling it across the border inside a package of evolution.

Don't like Jehovah? Zeus maybe? Amazon.com has other god-models you can order and have delivered by lightning bolt. — Bitter Crank

I am not advocating for an intentional teleology. Perhaps an inadvertent tendency towards maintaining stabilization in an environment while, with each generation, there is less tendency for genes that lead to extinction. Besides, I the discussion was not really about the mechanisms of evolution, which would have been a separate thread in a science forum. Rather, it is the implication that the individual does not matter here except as a vehicle in a broader process.

There can be no selection without rejection. Try calling it 'natural rejection' for a while. It should make no difference to the theory...

There can be no selection without rejection. Try calling it 'natural rejection' for a while. It should make no difference to the theory... — unenlightened

Yes, I do not disagree with you here. You need to have differential reproduction in a given population at some point in the process. However, once organisms stabilize their populations in a new environment based on advantageous selection, often they will optimize for stable selection. Thus, anything that greatly deviates from this causes adverse effects and thus will cause that generation (or perhaps a bit later in the next few generations down the road) to die out. Therefore, once stabilization occurs, your idea about genes tending towards extinction does not apply. Or I should say, does not apply until some environmental change occurs.

Also, given that orgnanisms share many of the same genes that optimizes survival, in an overall level (looking at all species), once organisms survived in general, the genes that were passed on were still viable for survival and thus, genes with a tendency for survival are conserved (e.g. hox gene).

Rather, it is the implication that the individual does not matter here except as a vehicle in a broader process. — schopenhauer1

In one way this is true, and in another way it is not true. In the grand, multi-galactic scheme of things, one squirrel getting run over, one human at work, doesn't matter. But in the same big scheme of things--from a different perspective--individuals are all that matter--life is present only in individual creatures, not as an over-arching abstraction. Humans matter on an individual basis. Just try to not matter to yourself.

But in the same big scheme of things--from a different perspective--individuals are all that matter--life is present only in individual creatures, not as an over-arching abstraction. Humans matter on an individual basis. Just try to not matter to yourself. — Bitter Crank

I guess this is what I am questioning. Individuals can never choose to be here, we are never fully satisfied, and all the other tropes I usually bring up via antinatalism. People's tendency for pair bonding with a mate to raise a little version of themselves seems to override the individual's state in the world. Humanity wanted you here- not just the direct last generation of your parents..Via genetic stabilization tendencies, via cultural stabilization tendencies, you are here, for good or bad.

To simply reduce the decisions of a parental process may diminish the role of genes and cultural conservation to stabilize the species, reproduce individuals who have a tendency to reproduce, overriding any individual experience or say in the matter.

Rather, it is the implication that the individual does not matter here except as a vehicle in a broader process. — schopenhauer1

Mattering is subjective, though.--it's a subjective measure of how important something is to someone, how much significance they put on whatever it is.

But the unthinking mechanism has a teleology of sorts, and that is to continue the project of life. It may not be designed with purpose, but it is there nonetheless. Notice, my examples are both ones whereby the outcome is whatever is optimal for continuing to live (both culturally surviving or genetically surviving). Natural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for life to continue via adaptation. Cultural selection just so happens to create the optimal situation for culture to continue into the future. We are here due to these type of processes- they are not due to any decision made by us, but the unthinking mechanics of a process whose outcome is more life. You, the individual's preferences, ideals, and personal whatever, is not factored into this other than the general ability to optimize this process as the process would lose momentum otherwise. However, I think instead of understanding this implication, you are getting caught up with the title's wording. — schopenhauer1

Well 'unthinking mechanism' is a metaphor. It doesn't have a telology.

Cultural selection is a secondary metaphor derived from 'natural selection', which itself has the implication from 'selection' of teleology which again, is unwarranted.

I don't deny any of the likely causal stuff. But the language one uses about the likely causal stuff is suffused with implications of intention. Life continues via selection to reproduce: it's a marvellous thing, but does not diminish or enhance or enpurpose me, the individual human. Actually I feel enhanced, as a human, that humans have divined (sic) so much of its apparent workings. I know I am small and un important, but that's the deal.

I know I am small and un important, but that's the deal. — mcdoodle

That is the deal. Your preferences, happiness, ideal set-up and outcomes, or whether you even want to be a part of it in the first place, don't mean much. Whether you die out or suffer does not mean much. What does happen though, is the chain will keep being linked to the future via procreation- as the stability of the species is wrapped up in this, and it does not diminish from any individual's protest. Via genetics and cultural memes, the species continues.