From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 21:18:25 MST
At 09:02 AM 1/29/02 -0800, Lee wrote:
>I think part of the basic
>idea of "purpose", at least as I understand the word, implies a
>conscious telos, not merely the post-hoc appearance of one.
Dan Dennett deals quite satisfactorily with this in DARWIN'S DANGEROUS
IDEA, and I think I'll leave it with a recommendation to re-read his
opening chapters. E.g.:
< [Darwin argues:] Let me start with regularity--the mere purposeless,
mindless, pointless regularity of physics--and I will show you a process
that eventually will yield products that exhibit not just regularity but
purposive design. [p. 65] >
He *didn't* just mean *people who exhibit via their intentionality*, either.
>there are genuine differences between purposefully designed things
>and evolved things; evolved things, for example, do not have neatly
>organized and compartmented functions.
You can't think with your kidney, or skate on it, or see colors with it, or
type very well with it; it doesn't grow hair or tan in the sun. Specialized
enough for my, uh, purposes.
Damien Broderick
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