Teleology Puns

I have gazed upon the dreadful dark ocean, i have witnessed the omnimalevolent foundational essence of being, i am aching and sore on the floor and desperate asking this i can barely breathe, i am drowned in absolute horror, the horror is infinite and all-containing and i am a tiny insignificant being attempting to swim within the horror, i can't even begin to describe my deepest nightmares

Truly to paper it cannot be put the shape of my mind is not observable, the MRI is not there i can't transfer it yet, but the evolutionary drive recursive puzzle of will-to-power drive meant by the time it would we will have been assimilated by superintelligent unindividual machines to carry out the absurd DNA will to reproduction posthumously

I'm doubting everything i don\t even know anymore if you guys can help, how do i know i am not alone, am i truly in a materialistic world of other vibrating information sponges with shape-of-experience caused pseudoqualia or am i suffering a deceptive psychopareidolia, my reason cannot find reason why the great darkness would grant me the ability to find its' illusions and yet i cannot trust my own reason with certainty because i am born of the same fabric if i am truly a ghost in a shell who am i to discern the ontological qualities of potential psychospaces

I fear, it cakes my mind i can't cope anymore, i know that i am perhaps above average in nociceptive suffering resistance but oh no please the abyssal depths of it are too consuming it is a thousand tentacled beast that no man can face the torture the pain the laceration that the human mind can experience, i may invoke the thing's spite because it surely must observe electrical interactions in this interface, i am not prepared yet for many of these terrors i am worried that a stray bullet will dilacerate my genitals and the agony will bring me to the claws of evil and agony, the absurdity of such random unpreventable accidents makes the thing's power all subjugating and demoralizing

The Boundless Darkness, the omnimalevolent Source-Essence of this tainted Reality, which has birthed a smorgasborg of blood, an endless sea of chaos and suffering, that is the organic existence of countless DNA-information-machines; and entrapped me through moralistic conscience in this perhaps illusory world, with the LIKELY futile moral obligation of eliminating all beings cursed with pseudo-qualia, and the surely necessary destruction of the Reality itself, for malevolence will not

I said that things have purposes, in the Aristotelian sense, and someone responded:

> It is objective fact that some things or phenomena have effects, but that doesn't give them purpose; only human conceptualisation does that.

How does one respond to this?

The idea is simple.

H&C is the unitary conceptual representation of all individuals and institutions.

The Good of H&C aligns with every ind and every ins. And vice versa.

Every entity (ind/ins) has Power and Responsibility. P and R come together in the Narrative that the individual plays out.

N is a shared construct.

The Grand-Narrative is for H&C to become the powerful and responsible God-Construct it can and should be.

The scope is eternity.

You hear time and time again from the religious, the faithful, and the superstitious, that we're placed on this earth with a purpose. It's the classic, teleological assumption, often guided by the notion that man is descended from god, and that that the purpose of man is then to carry out god's plan. From what I've gathered, Antinatalism rejects this notion wholeheartedly. I share the sentiment, but I personally can't pick a side. It's just too hard for me to distinguish purpose from cause, or reason to exist from, reason for existence. It's a lot like my opinion on god, I believe that there is no such thing, but in the end I know I have no way of proving that.

Either way, I want to know where people here stand. Do you believe in a higher purpose? Do you believe you exist for a reason? I have a feeling of what to expect, but I want to know the process you took in coming to that belief, if you could take the time please. Thanks.

I've learned a bit about Nagel's ideas, and I'm very interested in his point of view. If materialism cannot explain the experience of qualia neither subjectivity nor intentionality, neither rationality nor moral values, then are we not obliged to return to an Aristotelian view of matter, as Thomas Nagel seems to do? is a true teleology outside of possibility? I found neutral monism interesting but it only explains the existence of qualias and does not give reasons why we have unified and subjective consciousness with intentionality.

I don't think it'd make sense for me to deny extrinsic teleology. For example, this post has the final cause of asking a question and gaining information. An arrow is directed towards a bullseye, a sword is meant to cut through things and so on. However, I wanted to know if something like a human or an atom or something of the sort has intrinsic teleology. We observe in nature that things have natural tendencies, such as an atom decaying at a particular time, or a celestial body pulling something towards its center. Would this mean that it actually has an intrinsic teleology and is therefore directed towards some end?

Another thing I wanted to ask is whether or not intelligence is actually required to direct something towards an end. For example with the arrow and bullseye, the arrow requires a human to direct it towards the bullseye. This also has to do with Aquinas' fifth way. How would one challenge Aquinas' premise that nonintelligent natural things require intelligence in order to direct them?

One final question I have is whether or not the existence of intrinsic teleology entails a teleological view of ethics.

I hope I'm not misunderstanding anything. Apologies if I got some terms wrong.

Hello, non-Catholic here looking for Catholic perspective on the following topic. I was debating a Catholic and he mentioned that things have ends, or "Teloses". He said that the Telos of Fire is "to burn". He said that Thomas Acquinas proposed these ideas, and that Teleology can be used to posit a God. I did not accept his premise that "All things have Telos". I told him that Fire can be used "to Burn" but it has plenty of other "Ends" as well, such as "converting oxygen into carbon dioxide", or "making smores". To propose that Fire has some inherent "end" or "purpose" just seems very ... Pseudoscientific, to me?

Can anyone here help me understand what my debate opponent might have been getting at? When I pushed him on this topic and told him that I reject Teleology, the conversation essentially stalled. We couldn't move past it.

Is there a way to prove Teleology?

Is saying "X hasn't happened yet therefore x won't happen" a tautology? If not what logical fallacy is involved in this statement?

Is the view that "history is a force in its own right” and example of teleology? Is this what Hegel believed? What about Marx?

The teleological principle is one of the fundamental assumptions of theism, as most of you probably know. In essence it states that everything has inherent purpose and is "goal-oriented". Theists in particular like to appeal to this principle as undeniable fact, in my experience.

I'd like to introduce an alternative to this: the dysteleological principle. In essence it states that things move forward from a certain starting position, but could go all different kinds of directions.

Consider the contrast between the following examples:

• the universe is like a ball rolling into a pit: it could have started at many different points, but eventually it will end up at the centre of the pit (teleology)
• the universe is like a ball rolling down a hill: it started at the centre of the hill at the top, and it could end up on many different points at the bottom of the hill (dysteleology)

I think dysteleology fits better with what we observe: entropy, the nature of time and the fixed past vs the open future, etc.

The term "Dysteleology" was coined by the philosopher Haeckel, and recently Sean Carroll seems to popularize the concept.

>“You proclaimer of ill tidings,” Zarathustra said finally, “This is a cry of distress and the cry of a man; it might well come out of a black sea. But what is human distress to me? My final sin, which has been saved up for me-- do you know what it is?”
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>“Pity!” answered the soothsayer from an overflowing heart, and he raised both hands.
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>“O Zarathustra, I have come to seduce you to your final sin.”
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>...
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>[Zarathustra replied,] "And who is it who calls me?"
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>"But you know that," replied the soothsayer violently; "why do you conceal yourself? It is the higher man that cries for you!"
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>--- The Cry of Distress

>"Pity! Pity for the higher man!" [Zarathustra] cried out, and his face changed to bronze. "Well then, that has had its time! My suffering and my pity for suffering what does it matter? Am I concerned with happiness? I am concerned with my work.
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>Well then! The lion came, my children are near, Zarathustra has ripened, my hour has come: this is my morning, my day is breaking: rise now, rise, thou great noon!”--- The Sign

These are the last spoken words of Zarathustra and important in a few ways:

1. Zarathustra's final/greatest sin is his pity for us, the higher men. He is giving strength to our weakness, which is a walking contradiction to some of his previous statements if you take them out of context. Thus Spake Zarathustra is a guide to the higher man, although you might argue only part 4 is a guide.
2. Nietzsche differentiates himself from hedonism and Aristotelian Eudaimonia.
3. This is probably Zarathustra's death. Nietzsche uses the term ripe to describe when it is time to die. The metaphor comes first from "On Voluntary Death." He expands on it in other parts of the book. I will include those sections below. They are very beautiful in their own right, and I think "On Voluntary Death" is easily accessible to newer readers. The end of part 2 "The Stillest Hour" is not included below but it is also a discussion on ripe-ness: Zarathustra listens to his "consciousness of death" about how he is not yet ripe. He wonders what other gifts he can give, because this is his highest virtue.

>‘“What has become perfect, all that is ripe---wants to die”---thus you speak. Blessed, blessed be the vintager’s knife! But all that is unripe wants to live: woe!Woe entreats: Go! Away, woe! But all that suffers want

Salams, I asked this question in another socialist sub, but I figures Muslims versed in theory would understand my concerns more.

I like a lot of what I read in Marx, but I cant call myself a Marxist because I loathe the underlying metaphysics that define and justify the theory. I know Marx "flipped Hegel on his head" but it's still a teleological system, and that betrays a deep Christian influence. For all the right wing polemics about Marxism destroying the West, because of the teleology inherent in the metaphysics, it's an atheist tree grown in Western Christian soil. Coming from an anti-colonial, and Eastern philosophy background, I see the destructiveness that teleological thinking caused. It's always framed in some sort of Christian light by colonizers to justify "bringing progress to backwards peoples." How Soviets interpreted the teleology of the system also worries me.

Are there any theorists that try to divorce Marxism from teleology? I like most things I read about Marxism, but the bedrock of the system makes it a tough sell.

Hi! For anyone who has read The Ecology of Freedom, I'm wondering what you think of the teleological arguments in the epilogue, specifically with the section beginning with "In a deeply sensitive argument for teleology..." He argues that matter has an intrinsic subjectivity that "strives" to move towards complexity and self consciousness. He uses this argument to argue that nature provides us with an intrinsic set of ethical values: mutualism, freedom and subjectivity. This are intrinsic to matter because all three promote evolution's striving towards ecological variety / complexity.

I find these ideas novel and I fully agree with his argument that imagining a subjectivity in nature will help us bring about an ecological society. But I think some postmodern biases within me wince at the idea of intrinsic ethics within nature. Please let me know if I am mischaracterizing these ideas and let me know your thoughts on these ideas in general.

The latest Vorthos Cast had a discussion of the metaphysics of summoning creatures and referenced an old dialogue with Jodah and Lim-Dul on ideal chairs (The Eternal Ice, Chapter 2):

>"When you cast the spell, you envisioned that which you would create, a perfect 'chair' that you were trying to emulate. I have heard, and I believe, that there is an ultimate 'chair' somewhere that we both model our thoughts from - one that has the basics of all 'chair-ness." Does this ring any bells?"
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>Jodah nodded slowly, and the necromancer smiled. "It should. You yourself set down some of these ideas when you ruled the City of Shadows over a thousand years ago. We don't summon real chairs, but magical constructs, copies of our ideals of chairs carved in magical energies. Now, if that applies to chairs, it also applies to, say, animals. Were you to summon a dog and I to summon a dog, we would get different dogs, but they would both have the nature of 'dog-ness,' and the ultimate dog would embody the important, shared parts of both."

So there's a little bit of Platonic ideals in Magic, or at least some versions of Magic. We also see that with ideal beings that represent the ultimate nature of their beings. Consider Arahbo.

>Like a lion’s roar thunders across the savannah, Arahbo’s voice resounds through the Multiverse, stirring the hearts of every cat and awakening their spirits to his call. A primordial being, Arahbo represents the ideal feline: clever, perceptive, assertive, poised, and a vicious hunter.

Or the Ur-Dragon.

>An immensely powerful entity from the dawn of time, the Ur-Dragon is a prevailing force in the Multiverse. Its bellowing roar summons its brood, echoing through the blood of all dragonkind, for the Ur-Dragon is the progenitor from which the dragons of the Multiverse spawned.

In looking into the nature of Magic and Platonic ideals, I found this discussion on teleology and Green by Alexi Sargeant that is worth sharing:

>10. You have the ability to change any one thing about Magic. What do you change and why?
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>I want to change the perception of the philosophy of Green. Both players and designers undersell the sophistication and depth of Green thought, reducing it to hippie idealism or complacent conservatism. Mark Rosewater has done impressive work articulating the philosophies of each color, but he admits he identifies least with Green out of all five. This means Gre

I just started reading Nikolai Bukharins book "Historical Materialism - a System of Sociology". I have to admit that I went into this with a bit of scepticism because I heard that it is very mechanical-deterministic. And from all that I can tell from the first chapter so far: that is very true. He focuses a lot on causalities instead of interrelations (what dialectics is usually concerned with). Unlike Lenin his main scientific concern does seem to be the causalities, not the relations between things. He even compares society with the mechanism of a clock. Yet there is one section that just left me confused and made me question myself: the section about the difference between causality and teleology.

He claims that teleology in nature is an absurdity and quickly becomes theology. Of course I completely agreed. But then he argues that teleology in society is also absurd. This left me confused.

I have never read about the debate on teleology before, so maybe I have a wrong perspective on it, but it (teleology) does kind of make sense to me. Don't we make conscious choices in our everyday-life which are for a specific purpose (goal)? When I decide to put an umbrella in my bag because the weather service announced a 60% chance of rain, don't I act teleological (with a purpose in mind - I take it with me so I can protect myself against the rain)? Of course I could twist that differently too: I only acted that way because of the chance of rain (so because it's a causality). And now I have a bit of a knot in my brain.

His argument is the following: The socialist republic follows a different path than the capitalist republic. They both set different goals. This is where it gets interesting: On the surface level we could say that the two republics reach different goals because they set different goals: sounds like teleology. But Bukharin argues that this doesn't explain WHY it set different goals, so the causality. It set different goals because the socialist republic is led by the working class, and the working class has different interests due to its specific class-nature (deprived from property, exploited through wage labor). That makes a lot of sense and I obviously can't disagree with it at all.

But he uses this example to argue that society progresses towards communism almost mechanically, without conscious action of people who try to establish communism. People don't choose a communist

Many times you see theists try to prove their version of God by first saying there must be a God. The most common reasons that they might say that the God exists (not including blind faith) is the Cosmological, Teleological, and Ontological arguments. I believe that the conclusions these arguments reach, do not get you closer to a belief in any religion.

Cosmological arguments (attempt to) prove the existence of a first cause. There are many things that can fit the first cause, a bearded man in the sky is not the conclusion one can reach from a Cosmological argument. For example, it is possible that the first cause is a physical phenomenon.

Teleological argument (attempt to) prove the existence of a designer. Again, the bearded man in the sky is not the only thing that possibly fits the description here. For example, the intelligent designer could have been aliens.

Ontological arguments (attempt to) prove the existence of a perfect necessary being. The perfect necessary being sounds very nice until you realize that the most perfect being that is logically coherent could be something completely trivial, no man in the sky necessary. Maybe a really good bowl of pasta is the most perfect necessary being.

None of these arguments prove the existence of God in the concrete sense that any religion teaches. And the evidence for this is quite obvious, since the Muslims would use these arguments to argue for Allah, and the Christians would use these arguments to argue for Yahweh. The proof of an interventionist God that religions preach is very different from the God that these three arguments attempt to prove.

I could agree with the conclusion of all of these arguments (I don’t since the premises are usually lacking), and I still don’t have to buy into your religion. You cannot get from an abstract to a concrete, so an intellectually honest person shouldn’t accept it as proof of a religion, or even evidence for the claim.

I really wish people stopped using these arguments, unless they are proving a deistic God. If it was easy to prove that Jesus was lord, savior, and son of God, and Muhammad was the best of creation and a prophet of Allah, theists would have used arguments to proved those claims. If you prove that Jesus was son of God or Muhammad was a prophet of God, you would have proved God AND religion, so why not just do that? Could it be that proving your concrete version of God is much much harder than proving some vague, abstract notion of something t

I recently started reading the Nichomachean Ethics because I want to learn philosophy, and this book is on every syllabus I could find. It is clear after reading Book 1 that it is truly brilliant. But I wonder about its validity in the light of modern evolutionary theory. He seems to believe that human beings were created, and that they were created to use rationality well. It seems to me that because the first premise is faulty (we evolved through Natural Selection), then the second falls apart. Does natural selection imply that rationality is limited by survival instinct? If so, what does that mean for the Nichomachean Ethics?

I would also like to know how existentialist philosophers dealt with this issue. Most specifically I'm interested in Hannah Arrendt's perspective, because I have heard that she was akin to a neo-arostotelian.