What is Evolution For?

Author's preface: This story was originally spiked by Vocal's censors and not approved for publication due to "religious content" As I have pointed out over and over again Vocal's censorship policies are absurd, unjust, and unsustainable and they must end eventually. However, until that day, if one wants to continue publishing here, one must abide by the will of the censor. I have "adjusted" the original article to remove any "religious content", or at least, I think I have. It is impossible to know for certain as what exactly qualifies as "religious content" is wildly debatable which is an example of just one of the reasons Vocal's censorship policies are unjust. In any event, read on and see if you can spot the altered content.

Author's note: Presented below are two pieces I published back in 2017 on the purpose of evolution. Strange and meandering though they may be I actually think they make a few interesting points. I will let you judge for yourself if you agree.

As I have been thinking and writing about evolution a good bit recently, I have been extra sensitive to encounters with the concept in other publications that I typically read. Yesterday I came across and article (linked below) that touched on evolution as a way to make a point about a seemingly unrelated topic, human consciousness and how to talk about it with others. Specifically the author, Dr. Karl Fiston, a psychiatrist and physicist at University College London argues that by accepting the mind as a thing cognitive scientists and philosophers fundamentally misunderstand its nature and are led astray. In other words, when we consider consciousness as a thing we are tempted to ask questions that presuppose it’s existence can be explained by the “attributes it has or the purpose it fulfills”.

Consciousness is not a thing, but a process of inference - Karl Friston | Aeon Essays

He suggests that a better alternative is to ask what sort of processes give rise to the notion (or the illusion) that things exist at all. He then clarifies and distills his position which goes on to become, consciousness is best thought of as a “process to be understood, not as a thing to be defined.” This can be reworded to say “consciousness is nothing more and nothing less than a natural process such as evolution or the weather.”

Did you catch that? Maybe you were skimming, looking for the good parts and missed it, he said “……..evolution and the weather.” Incidentally a heads up, this is the good part. He continues with the evolution theme by saying, “…….. to illustrate the notion of consciousness as a process…replace the word ‘consciousness’ with ‘evolution’ — and see if the question still makes sense. For example, the question What is consciousness for? becomes What is evolution for? (Pretty sweet how I worked the title of the post in right there wasn’t it? I’m good like that) Scientifically speaking, of course, we know that evolution is not for anything. It doesn’t perform a function or have reasons for doing what it does — it’s an unfolding process that can be understood only on its own terms. Since we are all the product of evolution, the same would seem to hold for consciousness and the self.”

With respect to Dr. Fiston it is always a bad idea to presume to speak for science.

Whenever you see a sentence that begins with the words scientifically speaking brace yourself for something that is most likely the writer’s opinion.

Usually it is an opinion for which the author has little actual evidence. It is sort of like the intellectual version of the bait and switch. Suggest to the unsuspecting reader that your opinion is ‘scientifically’ proven (the bait), and then only slowly reveal over the course of the piece that what you originally posit as science is really only educated guess or intellectually appealing opinion (the switch).

I will leave my criticisms of the work at that as I am not interested in writing a critique of a well intentioned though poorly conceived and executed article. Rather instead I want to more closely examine the question posed in the article and repeated in my chosen title, what is evolution for? In other words, what is the purpose of evolution? More to the point, is there a purpose, and if the answer is no or if it is yes, what does that mean? Dr. Fiston quickly dismisses the question with a sweep of his “scientifically speaking” wand. Of course it is a silly question to ask that question because “scientifically speaking” “of course” (of course he would have to also say of course) evolution is not for anything, it has no purpose. Dr. Fiston would most likely say it does not have a purpose because, as a natural process, it cannot have a purpose, if one were to suggest it does have a purpose then one is on a fast track down the slippery slope to the Good Guy. As much as it pains me to admit, in this at least, Fisty McFist and I are in agreement, more often than not the big questions of purpose (e.g. us being here, of the universe existing, of suffering, etc.) end up with the ultimate purposer, I’m talking about the big man, the top dog, captain king of the universe, G-o-o-d G-u-y. It really sucks when that happens because the conversation typically ends with your Good guysters on one side of the argument and your evil worshipers (I kid) on the other. Once the two sides have formed it’s all over from a reasonable, rationale conversation point of view. Out come the raised voices, then the stones, then the knives, then the guns, and I run full speed for the exit.

What if there were another way, another option for an answer to the question of purpose? The answer would leave both the Good guysters and the evilistas unhappy but not with each other for once. There is only one way out of this seeming butt ass morass, bring in the Simulators. Our good friends, the most powerful and wise, but not yet Good guy beings who created the universe and everything in it, including ourselves. In fact, at this very moment, they are monitoring everything that each of us says and does, or they don’t never or no longer gave/give a shit and abandoned us to the simulation aeons ago. For the Good guy people it is a bit of a let down to think that they were created by someone/thing other than Good guy and the Atheistic are kicking themselves because they wonder if science is really just a load of crap since all it is doing is “discovering” or “proving” things that ultimately are not real, or at least not “really” real. However, the people who believe in the Good guy can find comfort in the thought that it was Good guy (it must have been) that created the simulators who then created us. So, in a sense, we were still created by Good guy. The atheists get to feel superior because they can reasonably argue that it was science and the rational that allowed these simulators to gain the intellectual chops and the power to create us and our simulation. It could be viewed as the ultimate vindication of the scientific method.

What happened to evolution you ask? Damn good question, I got massively sidetracked. Fuck the simulation hypothesis. I am sick of talking about it and thinking about it. I’m gonna post this POS and tackle this question again in a better way, a way that doesn’t suck, at another time. I need to change the title now, dammit. Oh well. Enjoy!

What is Evolution For Revisited

I attempted to tackle this topic in a previous post and got seriously sidetracked. The turn sent me in very much the wrong direction and though where I ended up was a good enough place to be, it was not where I had originally intended. Normally I would be fine with that. Typically when I sit down to write about a topic as complex and fraught with pitfalls as this one I am happy just to get anywhere, however in this case I felt as if I had let myself and my reader down. Basically it felt like I saw an easy out and I took it. This is my attempt to fix that mistake and try to put together a more coherent answer to the question without ducking for cover under some far out hypothesis or changing the subject.

If you read my last post (above) you may remember that I began by highlighting an article on a seemingly unrelated topic, human consciousness and how to talk about it with others, by a Dr. Karl Fiston. Karl is a psychiatrist and physicist (quite an interesting degree combination) at University College London. In the article he argued that cognitive scientists and philosophers had fundamentally misunderstood the nature of mind by accepting it as a thing. Thus they tended to ask questions that presupposed the mind’s existence could be explained by its’ attributes or its purpose. Much better, according to him, to instead ask what “……sort of processes gave rise to the notion (or the illusion) that things exist at all.” After some long winded rigmarole he eventually summarized by saying consciousness was best thought of as a “process to be understood, not as a thing to be defined.” Finally he reworded slightly and put it like this “consciousness is nothing more and nothing less than a natural process such as evolution or the weather.”

Next he gave an example of a way to better understand what he meant. He suggested that one simply “…replace the word ‘consciousness’ with ‘evolution’ — and see if the question still made sense. For example, the question What is consciousness for? becomes What is evolution for?” He went on to dismiss the question as silly since “scientifically speaking” evolution has no purpose. At this point I went off on my tangent, first criticizing the use of the term “scientifically speaking” then attempting to show how one might address the problem of purpose in a way satisfactory to both the Good guy fearing and evil loving (atheists) crowds. I began that digression after first agreeing with Dr. Fiston’s contention that evolution has no purpose, that it cannot, unless one is to accept that a creator (Good guy or simulator) endowed it with such.

Whenever I find myself agreeing with anything so quickly I worry. This is typically a sign of laziness, bias, or judgmental thinking. It is always a good idea to challenge oneself in cases like this. Attack your current belief as hard as you can, try every possible route to defeat it, prove why it is incorrect, or at the very least knock it down a few pegs. Why is it so obviously correct to say that evolution has no purpose and why must the only alternative be that if it does have a purpose that purpose was instilled by a creator entity (i.e. Good guy). I have taken a personal vow to not appeal to the simulation hypothesis, or discuss it in any way, for at least a month so that option is not available though of course it is an obvious and attractive one for the reasons I described in my previous post. Let us take a step back and ask the question a different way. If evolution did have a purpose what might that purpose be? Perhaps if we can come to some sort of consensus on a likely purpose(s) for evolution it will be easier to determine if it need be bestowed by Good guy or could arise naturally in our universe or on our planet.

One could argue that the purpose of evolution is to give rise to the best adapted, fittest, most well suited to survival beings for the physical environment at hand. Why should evolution “care” what beings are best suited to survive and thrive in any given environment? and why should it care even about survival, about life itself? Why not favor the least fit and so drive a planets living creatures to extinction as quickly as possible. Evolution seems to favor life and the living, in fact it favors it so much that it drives the living to become better, stronger, for the sole purpose of living longer, being alive more, and thus reproducing more, generating even more life.

Contrary to many fundamentalist Good guy doctrines which posit evolution as an ultimate evil, on my reading it is the strongest positive force for life in the universe we have yet characterized and described. It drives all life on earth to become better and thus live longer and create more life and presumably it does the same on every other planet in our galaxy and in our universe.

I still have not answered my question though about why. Why should evolution favor life? What is it about life that makes evolution work so hard to preserve and strengthen it? What precisely is evolution? In many ways this parallels a question in physics, What is gravity? In astronomy and physics it is believed by most that gravity is a force transmitted via still undiscovered theoretical particles known a gravitons. It is interactions of these gravitons with each other and the other fundamental particles that generates the force of gravity with which we are so familiar. Is evolution a force? Is evolution transmitted by subatomic particles between living beings and the animate and inanimate inhabitants that make up the rest of the world? Is it the interaction of these evolutons ©®™ with each other and the rest of the world that give rise to the observed phenomenon of evolution. I have yet to read or hear of anyone making such a seemingly strange hypothesis. If not a force transmitted via particles what then is it? I do not wish to explore that hard question any further in this piece but instead want to return to my original question. Why should evolution favor life?

The easiest answer is a simple one and that is, if it did not, we would not be here to be ask the question. While that is certainly a true statement it feels more like an avoidance of the question than a real answer. The only way I can see to answer this question is to bring values into the equation. Evolution favors life because life is valuable for some reason. Life is worth all the trouble that evolution goes through to propagate it because life is good. Life is something worth propagating and continuing. Of course, being a living being myself, I am massively biased on this point. However, I truly do not see any other possible answer to the question other than it is simply a fluke. Evolution could have favored the weak just as easily but the decay of a single quantum particle at just the correct particular instant in time “flipped the coin” in favor of life. If we rule out the flip of a coin answer, and I freely admit I have not coherent reason why we must, we are left with the values answer.

In a roundabout fashion we have arrived at one possible answer. Evolution’s purpose is to propagate life and it does this simply because life is good and deserves to be propagated. No creator entity is needed to endow evolution with this purpose though a value judgment as to the worth of life is required. Somehow I find this answer very unsatisfying but it is the best I can come up with for now.

Author's postscript: Suppose we accept that evolution does have a purpose then why is it a requirement that some being/thing gave it said purpose? Does anything have a purpose that was not instilled in it, or given to it, by some creator or other entity? Let’s start with some basic things. How about a wristwatch? Does a wristwatch have a purpose? Yes, I would say it does, at its most basic level the purpose of a wristwatch is to tell time. Did the creator of the watch give it that purpose. I suppose again I would have to say yes. Let’s try again with something a bit more complex. Does my computer have a purpose? Again I would say yes, its purpose is to compute. Did a creator endow it with that purpose? The short and simple answer is yes. Let’s try some non man made things now, how about air? does air have a purpose? Leaving aside the complexity of the composition of air, we will take it at face value in its most common every day meaning as used by the vast majority of people. Does air have a purpose? If you are a particularly anthropocentric type person you might say yes, its purpose is to provide the oxygen for people to breathe.....