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What's up with teleology? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I understand that it's a method that ascribes purposes to things. I have heard people speak very highly and lowly of it. On the one hand people say it has greater explanatory power than cause and effect. On the other, it assumes purpose in a meaningless universe. So which is it? Is it a good framework?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

If it ascribes purpose to things, then who is the agent bestowing purpose?

Even many (most, I think) people who think they understand evolution/natural selection mistakenly believe that it is working toward a goal, when it is in fact essentially random, and the “selection” is simply those which happen to be able to live long enough to reproduce.

Edit to add:

I’ll often talk about systems as if they have intent because it’s very useful rhetorically, metaphorically, but they don’t have intent literally.

Even with a system that did/does have a maker, their intent won’t necessarily materialize, while unintended consequences almost surely will. The purpose of a system is what it does.