[vhawk01]

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Just as there is an evolutionary advantage to fawns being born in running form, so there is a huge evolutionary advantage to be born with a perspective of 'agency' in entities in our environment. Iow, the innate assumption that there is an intent behind an action is an effective method of framing our environment. The fact there is no intent still allows that perspective to do less overall harm than not having it.
It doesn't cause too many problems if we believe that water 'wants' to run downhill since that also allows us to believe the lion 'wants' to eat us or George wants my carrots.

People born without this perspective are severely handicapped in their ability to survive. The fact that we imbue situations with 'intent' and it helps us make usually good decisions does not mean there is intent everywhere ( some would say 'anywhere').

The many optical illusions we experience because of the assumptions our visual system make about the environment are a good example of how false assumptions 'usually' are effective even though they are wrong.

The claim that there must be intent because it seems there is intent is like claiming everything has an orange tinge and not taking into account the orange light you're shining on it. If it wasn't so sad, claims that are based on "well, is sure 'seems' like ...." would be frustrating beyond endurance.
/end rant
ahhhhhhhhhhh, luckyme

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Excellent post. Its a very common illusion that pervades just about everything. Try reading a book ABOUT THE TOPIC of falsely assigning agency to things and count the number of metaphors or idioms or phrases that the author unintentionally uses that convey agency to inanimate things. Just TRY and find a book on evolution that doesn't subconsciously depict evolution as an evil mad genius in some great big laboratory or something similar.