Abstract question(s) about evolution

[John21]

This is kind of a two-part question:

1) Was the discovery of evolution a process of evolution?

2) And tying into another post I made on consciousness and evolution: In a metaphysical sense, through the consciousness of each one of us, has evolution become conscious of itself?

(I realize from a materialist's standpoint, evolution is not so much a process as simply a way of describing what happened. But not knowing the end result, or if there is an end result, I'm not quite ready to cede that it isn't a process or at least couldn't be a process.)

[drzen]

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This is kind of a two-part question:

1) Was the discovery of evolution a process of evolution?

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No.

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2) And tying into another post I made on consciousness and evolution: In a metaphysical sense, through the consciousness of each one of us, has evolution become conscious of itself?

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This question doesn't make any sense.

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(I realize from a materialist's standpoint, evolution is not so much a process as simply a way of describing what happened. But not knowing the end result, or if there is an end result

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If you understood evolution in even the most rudimentary way, you'd be clear that there is no "end result".

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I'm not quite ready to cede that it isn't a process or at least couldn't be a process.)

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What would it mean for it to be a process or not a process?

[Matt R.]

1) I think I may know what you're getting at. Our knowledge evolves as we select for the better scientific models. Evolution was clearly selected for by... "us" to better explain biology. Therefore the theory of evolution was part of the evolution of scientific understanding. Is this what you meant? I could be way off (sorry if I am /images/graemlins/grin.gif).

2) I haven't read your other thread yet and I don't understand what this means. I will look at it later. I think a lot of the answer will stem from what you define as conscious.

[John21]

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This is kind of a two-part question:

1) Was the discovery of evolution a process of evolution?

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No. <font color="brown"> OK </font>

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2) And tying into another post I made on consciousness and evolution: In a metaphysical sense, through the consciousness of each one of us, has evolution become conscious of itself?

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This question doesn't make any sense. <font color="brown"> I agree 100% that from a scientific standpoint the question is not valid (makes no sense). But I went out of my way to qualify the statement and place it in a metaphysical context in which it makes 100% sense. But seeing how you discounted my initial proposition, I can accept your conclusion. </font>

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(I realize from a materialist's standpoint, evolution is not so much a process as simply a way of describing what happened. But not knowing the end result, or if there is an end result

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If you understood evolution in even the most rudimentary way, you'd be clear that there is no "end result". <font color="brown"> Granted, my understanding of evolution is rudimentary. I'm just looking at raw data, and I assuming that the data can be interpreted in more than one way, and was just acknowledging that. But if you are saying that data can only be interpreted by your rules, that's fine. </font>

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I'm not quite ready to cede that it isn't a process or at least couldn't be a process.)

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What would it mean for it to be a process or not a process?<font color="brown"> Everything. </font>

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[drzen]

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This is kind of a two-part question:

1) Was the discovery of evolution a process of evolution?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. <font color="brown"> OK </font>

[ QUOTE ]
2) And tying into another post I made on consciousness and evolution: In a metaphysical sense, through the consciousness of each one of us, has evolution become conscious of itself?

[/ QUOTE ]

This question doesn't make any sense. <font color="brown"> I agree 100% that from a scientific standpoint the question is not valid (makes no sense). But I went out of my way to qualify the statement and place it in a metaphysical context in which it makes 100% sense. But seeing how you discounted my initial proposition, I can accept your conclusion. </font>

[ QUOTE ]
(I realize from a materialist's standpoint, evolution is not so much a process as simply a way of describing what happened. But not knowing the end result, or if there is an end result

[/ QUOTE ]

If you understood evolution in even the most rudimentary way, you'd be clear that there is no "end result". <font color="brown"> Granted, my understanding of evolution is rudimentary. I'm just looking at raw data, and I assuming that the data can be interpreted in more than one way, and was just acknowledging that. But if you are saying that data can only be interpreted by your rules, that's fine. </font>

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I'm saying the data don't even begin to bear out the notion that there can be an "end result". If you threw a die 100 billion times, would you consider it was "trying" to land on heads 50 billion times?[ QUOTE ]
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I'm not quite ready to cede that it isn't a process or at least couldn't be a process.)

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What would it mean for it to be a process or not a process?<font color="brown"> Everything. </font>

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Would you mind explaining why?

[John21]

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What would it mean for it to be a process or not a process? Everything.

Would you mind explaining why?

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In the context I was using 'process' I was defining it as activity that leads to a result.

So granting evolution occurred, in my mind it comes down to a question of whether or not evolution is directed. Or whether life is going anywhere.

I'm aware that we can say that the process of life is to survive, but when I ask a biologist "why life is trying to survive," the answer seems to be "it just is". I'm okay with that answer from a scientific perspective, but I was trying to get after the philosophical answer as to the meaning: why?

It's just that old question: what is the meaning of life? Or is there one? And I feel that science can go along way towards telling us 'what' life is, but we need philosophy to answer the question of 'why'. And the reason I say this is because science is objective, i.e. it looks at things from a distance. But in all honesty, I'm not quite sure we can completely get out of the stream we're looking at.

At some point in the process of understanding it all, we have to place ourselves in the picture, and conclude that - we are not simply alive, we are life.

[amplifiedsilence]

""If you threw a die 100 billion times, would you consider it was "trying" to land on heads 50 billion times?""

Oh yea, great, the subjective human experience with all of its myriad of purposes is equated to a "die" landing "heads" 50 % of the time... wow... i wonder if you meant a coin? Its a bad analogy anyway... Human subjectivity is purposeful. Human subjectivity discovered the mechanical history of evolution. Human subjectivity observes itself to be unique within that history. Why shouldn't human subjectivity conjecture that its uniqueness within what is observable be a result of a process rather than a condition of a mechanical randomness?