🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <0Z2PsB2w165w@netlink.cts.com> snodgras@netlink.cts.com (John Snodgrass) writes:
>frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>> I see no reason to believe that "purpose" is such a fundamental concept.  I
>> see it as an emergent concept in complex systems.
>
>      Do you see it as an emergent phenomena in yourself? Do you 
>observe that you won a tennis match, and then say: "That must have
>been my purpose"? Do you get a college degree, then look back and
>say "Gee, now I understand why I took all those classes"?

"Emergent" here is not intended in such a crude chronological sense.
Rather, the claim is that certain complex systems have purposes, although no
part of those systems has a purpose.

In fact, to tie in with another thread, I think "purpose" is inextricably
tied in with "consciousness", "qualia", "belief", and "intelligence" -- that
a system cannot really have any one of these without having all of them.

>      Even though living systems fall mostly outside the purview of
>exact sciences, these are the systems we would most dearly like to
>understand well. A systems approach which assumes purposeful behavior
>will yeild a better analysis, more cogent and useful, when dealing 
>with living systems, IMO.

Lamarck built an evolutionary theory on that premise.  It failed.