Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

   Post 113.  January 8, 2021 continued  . . . .

  Aristotle and Einstein

   Creation by Evolutionary Programming

 Aristotle knew nothing of the modern concept of biological evolution, but he was likely familiar with Heraclitus’ assertion that “nothing is permanent except change”. So, although he postulated three different forms of living substance : vegetative (plants), sensory (animals), and rational (humans); he didn’t speculate on how that hierarchy came to be. Feser focuses mainly on the third stage, and quotes Thomas Nagel : “If one asks, ‘why is the natural order such as to make the appearance of rational beings likely?’ It is very difficult to imagine any answer to the question that is not teleological”. Since natural evolution is inherently hierarchical33, in the sense of rising com-plexity, and increasing organization, Science has attempted to explain how mere replication could produce anything more than Xerox copies34. But most evolutionists try to avoid any teleo-logical implications. And yet, the modern theory of Autopoiesis (a process of self-organization) makes no sense apart from some notion of development toward a higher-level future state.

Another term for “development toward” is Disposition, referring to innate qualities that influence the organism to move in a certain direction. “What the Aristotelian essentialist is committed to is the reality of dispositions that follow from an organism’s essence.” Most scientists find Essentialism35 to be too vague for their Reductive purposes. But for philosophical intentions, the term is useful for Holistic systems, which have properties (essences) that differ from their parts. And those unique attributes of the system interact with the external environment to produce novel features or behaviors that were not observed in its components. Yet, like Energy, Essence is invisible & intangible, hence knowable only by rational inference. That’s why some scientists treat living organisms as a Black Box, avoiding any speculation on what hidden essences may convert energy inputs into unprecedented behaviors, even personalities. That kind of treatment has the effect of ignoring any teleological indications in Natural Selection of new species, with distinctive characteristics.

However, Darwinists insist that the selection is not “for” a particular trait, but “against” traits that are not suitable for the available natural niche. That’s why Feser reasons that simply allowing a trait to pass-on to the next generation is in-effect, a choice in-favor-of that particular attribute. Semantics! Thus, he sets the stage for introduction of “Aristotle’s teleological realism”. Feser applies that concept of directed-evolution to the Catholic model of the Christian God. But that’s not the only way to explain the appearance of purpose in natural develop-ment toward complexity & organization. Consequently, he felt the need to rule-out the Deist god-model. Which he describes as “the deist view that efficient causes in nature operate entirely independently of God”. But Deists only assert that, due to the absence of objective evidence for divine miracles, the deity does not intervene directly in the natural evolution of the world. So, another interpretation of the evidence is that the universe un-folds over time in a manner similar to a computer program36, which runs independently of intervention by the Programmer. Also, Deists deny the authority of any scriptural or gnostic revelations from the creator of the world system, which after millions of cycles, continues to run as-if automatically guided toward some ultimate output.                 

                        Post 113 continued . . . click Next

Survival of the fittest Algorithm

36. Evolution Program :
   Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution – limited only by local restraints – to the original programmer’s goal or purpose. In Enform-ationism theory the Prime Programmer is portrayed as a creative deity, who uses bottom-up mechanisms, rather than top-down miracles, to produce a world with both freedom & determinism, order & meaning.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

Click here for images :

1. Natural Hierarchy Pyramid

2. Social Hierarchy Pyramid

33. Hierarchical :
   A hierarchy (Greek: hierarkhia, 'rule of a high priest') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) in which the items are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another.
[Also implies a pyramidal structure].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy

34. Theories of goal-       directed evolution :
    Throughout history, philosophers and scientists have attempted to understand how simple inorganic objects could evolve into complex living organisms. Here’s a sampler : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page60.html

35. Essentialism :
   Aristotelian essentialism is the doctrine that some of the attributes of a thing  . . . may be essential to the thing and others accidental. . . . an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2108042?seq=1

Aristotle’s Revenge
The Metaphysical Foundations  of Physical and Biological Science

Edward Feser
Philosopher of
Metaphysics & Natural Theology

“Aristotelian metaphysics is not only compatible with modern science, but is implicitly presupposed by modern science.”

All things flow, nothing abides. You cannot step into the same river twice, for the waters are continually flowing on. Nothing is permanent except change.

____Heraclitus

Note :
John Locke denied that social hierarchies are natural phenomena. So, they can be changed via political or revolutionary means.