Posted: Jun 13, 2014 4:51 am
Thommo wrote:I wholly disagree, it is myopic to believe that evolution explaining the diversity of extant life is the same as evolution explaining all behaviour. Evolution inherently involves random variables (and a lot of them) and those random variables denote things for which there is not a full explanation. Misunderstanding the scope of what is explained by TOE is quite obviously going to lead to a lot of very silly conclusions. In short my preference for The Offspring to Nirvana is predicated upon evolution, it is not explained by it.
If I understand you correctly, you are drawing the distinction between adaptive behaviour, where a specific behaviour confers a utility and spandrels where the behaviour is an incidental byproduct of the process? Despite the fact that an effect might be created by a preceding cause through TOE if it confers no adaptive advantage, as you say it can be predicated by the process but not explained in any meaningful way.
If you do agree with the spandrel/adaptive split, the challenge is trying to tell these apart. The same should apply to my suggestion that a need to control sits as a cause preceding evolution by natural selection. I would need to define what makes something ‘adaptive’ and a ‘spandrel in the same sense as they work in TOE. It also looks like the ability to predict behaviour using TOE and my proposal is far harder and more limited than I initially suggested, however the ability to explain as long as there is sufficient rigour done, I still believe will work. Also note that regardless of the prediction or explanatory power of something like TOE, it is still possible that it provides the focal reduction of how life has evolved (in the case of TOE) and as a single cause for entities try and control outcomes in their favour.
Thommo wrote:
The same error could be observed if one were to ask "Why is Clifton Suspension Bridge structurally sound?" and receive the answer "physics".
This analogy looks flawed, however I cannot clearly articulate my criticism at this point, so I will get back on this when I can.