Does evolution have a purpose?

[Clara Tea]

,
Mutation, the means to natural selection, I assume, is an accidental process that drives evolution. If the mutation provides an advantage to a life form to survive nature, evolution takes place.

Not so accidental.

Consider what happened when the Chicxulub impact occurred. Many species were decreased in number. This mean a smaller breeding pool (close cousins breeding). This made more mutations. It is observed in the fossil record that after the impact, many species died, and many new species were created.

Thus, there are two factors at work in species changing. One is natural selection, and the other is any factor that limits a population will create more mutations.

 

[Clara Tea]

In life humans state and believe by behaviour they have dominion over all things.

Even name any state they observe in space just as a Human.

So we know evolution is fake. As a law.

We know DNA of human genetics is mutated. We also are aware we would like it to heal.

Hence awareness of human consciousness knows self advice stated one condition earths atmosphere gas not been allowed to evolve.

Evolve we quote is to add on.

For bio life it is water mass oxygenation at the ground. For our heavens it is returned amassing gas from a saviour....wandering star. Asteroids.

Pressure status is what we wait for.

So we said holy mother womb. Space conditions.

It doesn't follow that evolution is fake because humans have dominion over all things and because human DNA is mutated.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Just a fluke.
Why would there any more purpose to evolving consciousness than there is to evolving livers or sweat glands?

The liver is certainly a miraculous organ, the purpose of which is quite clear and requires little in the way of metaphysical rumination to explain it. Indeed I was about to say that this most robust of body parts has inspired little in the way of artistic or philosophical achievement, but then I remembered 'Liver' by Will Self, a mesmerising fictional treatise in four parts, which I thoroughly recommend.

Where to start with consciousness though? The Upanishads perhaps? Blake, Keats, Shelley? Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung? Many great minds have had their imaginations fired up, simply bycontemplating the miracle of their own awareness.

So rather than try to answer your question myself, I'm inclined to direct you to any of the great minds listed above. But I will leave you with this quote from the Indian academic Eknath Easwaren - this is from his introduction to his English translation of the Upanishads;

"There is a Reality underlying life, next to which the things we see and touch in everyday life are but shadows. This Reality is the essence of every created thing, and the same Reality is our real Self, so that each of us are one with the power that created and sustains the Universe. This oneness can be realised directly...not after death but in this life, and this is the purpose for which each of us has been born and the goal towards which evolution moves."

 

[RestlessSoul]

No.

Evolution just happens. It's an inevitable process that occurs whenever you have systems that reproduce with variation and which in competition over limited resources.

There's no "purpose" to it. It's just what inevitably happens in such a setting.

Inevitable by what criteria? Which variables determine inevitability, and to what extent?

 

[Colt]

Does evolution have a purpose?
-If yes what is it?
-If no, why not?

Yes, the unfolding of the purposive mandates of Deity.

 

[ratiocinator]

Inevitable by what criteria?

Simple logic. Once you have replicating entities with inheritance and variation, in an environment with limited resources so not every individual can survive, then natural selection (hence evolution) is going to happen as a simple logical consequence of those conditions.

 

[Polymath257]

Yet it changes the species before the environment changes.
So is that chance or luck for said species?

Huh? No, mutations happen all the time. Some of those are adapted to the new environment. Those are selected for the next generation. The changes happen *after* the environment changes.

 

[viole]

Does evolution have a purpose?
-If yes what is it?
-If no, why not?

I would say no. In the same way plaque tectonics, planets motion, and all other mechanisms involving nothing more than naturalistic processes, have no purpose.

The more the universe seems understandable, the more it also seems to be pointless (S. Weinberg).

Ciao

- viole

 

[RestlessSoul]

Simple logic. Once you have replicating entities with inheritance and variation, in an environment with limited resources so not every individual can survive, then natural selection (hence evolution) is going to happen as a simple logical consequence of those conditions.

You think logic and reason are the fundamental principles that drive the process of evolution?
But logic and reason are functions of human consciousness. In which case human consciousness give birth to the principles from which that consciousness, and all
other qualities of all living beings, evolved. Such a picture seems incomplete to me, inadequate even.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Does evolution have a purpose?
-If yes what is it?
-If no, why not?

Yes. I got tired of being reborn as a prokaryote.

 

[ratiocinator]

You think logic and reason are the fundamental principles that drive the process of evolution?
But logic and reason are functions of human consciousness. In which case human consciousness give birth to the principles from which that consciousness, and all
other qualities of all living beings, evolved. Such a picture seems incomplete to me, inadequate even.

Wow, you obviously like to make simple things complicated. Logic as a function of human consciousness allows us to analyse and (to an extent) predict systems that behave in a logical (self-consistent and predictable) way. Two senses of the word 'logical'. Not rocket science.

 

[Altfish]

Does evolution have a purpose?
-If yes what is it?
-If no, why not?

Evolution 'serves a purpose' in that it enables organisms to change to meet a changing environment.

 

[ratiocinator]

Does evolution have a purpose?
-If yes what is it?
-If no, why not?

No, evolution is the origin of purpose. Random variations that aid survival and reproduction are the ones that spread through populations (that's obviously just what will happen) but there is, equally obviously, a reason why the change aids survival and reproduction. In other words, it serves some purpose in the context of the environment, for example, better camouflage to evade predators, better eyesight to spot prey, thicker fur to survive better in the cold. No mind needs to understand these purposes but as soon as a mind capable of doing so exists, they will understand them. Purpose pre-dates mind and is produced by evolution.

Much more here (for those interested enough to watch an hour long video)

 

[RestlessSoul]

Wow, you obviously like to make simple things complicated. Logic as a function of human consciousness allows us to analyse and (to an extent) predict systems that behave in a logical (self-consistent and predictable) way. Two senses of the word 'logical'. Not rocket science.

It’s the degree of inevitability I was querying, the consequent implication of determinism, and the assumption that predictability somehow disavowed purpose.

Rocket science is an excellent example of what evolved consciousness can achieve; but it doesn’t tell us anything about how or why - if there is a why - that consciousness evolved. The how or why of which, being the stated purpose of this thread.

 

[ratiocinator]

It’s the degree of inevitability I was querying, the consequent implication of determinism, and the assumption that predictability somehow disavowed purpose.

It's inevitable, given the right conditions. Just as inevitable as the idea that if you release a small rock in the Earth's gravitational field, it will fall to the ground.

One can imagine that the conditions were set up for some purpose by some agency but it is certainly not required and there is no evidence (that I'm ware of) that this was actually the case. In fact, as I pointed out in my last post above, evolution is something that produces purpose.

 

[RestlessSoul]

It's inevitable, given the right conditions. Just as inevitable as the idea that if you release a small rock in the Earth's gravitational field, it will fall to the ground.

One can imagine that the conditions were set up for some purpose by some agency but it is certainly not required and there is no evidence (that I'm ware of) that this was actually the case. In fact, as I pointed out in my last post above, evolution is something that produces purpose.

Yes, I saw your post above (not sure I’ll be watching the video though). You appear to be saying that purpose is a function of the consciousness that assigns it to this or that phenomena; that’s a logical precept I am happy to acknowledge. I don’t consider logic or reason infallible, but I do respect them.

Back to inevitability, and conditions. There seems no escaping the obvious question, whether the evolution of those conditions in the exact manner that they can about, was itself inevitable, and from what point? The Big Bang perhaps, or shortly after?
And were the factors leading to life on Earth, and it’s subsequent evolution, random or determined? Perhaps it doesn’t matter, but then perhaps nothing does.

 

[ratiocinator]

Yes, I saw your post above (not sure I’ll be watching the video though). You appear to be saying that purpose is a function of the consciousness that assigns it to this or that phenomena; that’s a logical precept I am happy to acknowledge.

Not really. I'm saying (well, the idea came from Daniel Dennett) that purpose (things existing because they are of some utility) is something that arises from evolution without the need for minds (Dennett calls these "free-floating rationales"). Minds can appreciate it after the fact.

There seems no escaping the obvious question, whether the evolution of those conditions in the exact manner that they can about, was itself inevitable, and from what point? The Big Bang perhaps, or shortly after?

No idea.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Does evolution have a purpose?
-If yes what is it?
-If no, why not?

No but there's a defacto 'purpose' which is the ability for an organism to adapt to its surroundings.

 

[Revoltingest]

Evolution is a stochastic process.
In layman's terms....
**** happens.

 

[sayak83]

What if the adapting happens before the
environment changes.
Is it wasteful or planning ahead.

It never happens in evolution as far as I know. What happens is an adaptation changes the structure or function, which opens opportunities of other adaptations to bootstrap themselves onto the original one. For example bipedalism is an adaptation that makes it possible to create specialized adaptive functions for the forelimbs through later evolution(flying for birds, tool use for humans).