Teleology
How did I manage to avoid teleology for this long? Just a minor pedagogical oversight.
What is thirst if it is not teleological? Biologists have eliminated vitalism if they can eliminate thirst. I'm not really thirsty, it's just that my molecules are screaming about their hydro-deficiency, as a result of which my muscles act to decrease my hydro-abstentia. Fair enough? Like all is fair in love and war? The only way I know how to eliminate thirst is to provide water. This is especially true with regard to the spirit.
If abstractions are causal, they act as final causes. Consider numbers. Are number causal? Ask a mathematical physicist. Numbers participate in every causal process upon which she may place her slide-rule. The physical sciences are not science if they are not quantitative.
Causality does not function outside the framework of events. Events cannot exist outside of a functional, i.e. teleological, matrix. And, by the way, when was the last time you saw a quantitative event?
Aristotle realized that the cosmos must be pan-tellic. Why else would we or could we get up in the morning?
Ah, but universals are mere family resemblances. Does this explain a Peacock's tail? Would not the Mr. Peacocks be the laughing stock of evolution were it not for all those potential Mrs. Peacocks? What do the Peacocks know of universals? Perhaps nothing more than Marilyn Monroe. But if Marilyn is not an exemplar universal then who is? Is Marilyn a family resemblance? Well, if truth be known, She does not particularly resemble anyone in my family, but maybe we should ask 'Jumping' Joe.
[Later: Is 'electron' a family resemblance? How do we account for the fact that electrons don't merely resemble each other, but are numerically, physically identical? The lowly electron is the ultimate exemplar of an absolute universality. It only requires a few years of mathematical physics to understand why electrons must obey fermi statistics and thus ensure the stability of material objects. Without this underlying mathematical universality there would exist nothing that could be called matter. And yet we are daily confronted with the spectacle of otherwise intelligent humans touting the unreality of universals. What sort of a joke is this?]
My job is not to defeat analysis. It is to motivate those who will. When I mention Marilyn, it is only in the time honored tradition of the bait and switch, and if sex is not the mother of baiting and switching then who is?
What is the purpose of life if not to discover and/or invent the universal Telos. The problem with the Telos is that it is not a bait and switch. It is the Mother of all mothers. It is not a game. It is Finality.
Well, our little teapot of water is heating up. When will we decide to jump out? When will we decide to stop playing games?
[Later....]
The astronomers look through their telescopes and cannot see God. The biologists look through their microscopes and cannot see Life. Perhaps we need a new Spectacle, or perhaps we just need to stop and think, for a change.
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8/4/02