Seeing the truth is not conductive to survival

[Shajan624]

“Seeing the truth is not conductive to survival”

Evolution by natural selection did not come up with the cognitive apparatus to see external world ‘as it really is’ because our ancestors would have spent too much time and energy in 'seeing the truth' rather than searching for the next meal.

I am puzzled. Then how come we search for the truth?

Is it that ‘seeing the truth’ was not conductive to survival in early stages of evolution but now life has reached a stage where survival depends on ‘seeing the truth’?

[DandelionSoul]

If natural selection can be said to have a motive in selecting for cognitive efficiency, it's not so much that we wouldn't be looking for our next meal, but that we wouldn't be able to spot it, or to spot dangers, while we're being dazzled by all the everything. I once went for a stroll through a neighborhood while very deep in a trip, and about thirty seconds into it, with the house I was staying in still visible, I realized I was completely lost and asked my partner where we were and how far we'd gone. Filtering enables discernment, enables survival.

But part of our process has also involved the development of symbolic manipulation -- language. As a consequence of that, we can begin to ask ourselves self-referential existential questions and develop strategies for seeking the answers. And that process of searching began very long ago in our species' history: we can find evidence of shamanistic practice going back tens of thousands of years. And it's even possible, at least as I see it, that this kind of truth-seeking enabled the kind of lateral, imaginative thinking that led to innovations that have had direct benefits to survival, and will continue to.

Natural selection is not a self-reflective process, so far as we know. It's best, in my mind, not to think of it as goal-directed. Rather, it's just an observation about which species have survived and which have died off. As a result, when we ask "why" natural selection has done this or that, I tend to think the kind of answer we're likely to find is not a teleological one, but a causal one. So we aren't truth-seeking because it's necessary to our survival; we survive better because we're truth-seeking. In the same way, cognitive efficiency wasn't selected for because it was better for survival; it's just that the meaning of the phrase "was selected for" is nothing but the fat that it was better for survival.

[AshvinP]

If natural selection can be said to have a motive in selecting for cognitive efficiency, it's not so much that we wouldn't be looking for our next meal, but that we wouldn't be able to spot it, or to spot dangers, while we're being dazzled by all the everything. I once went for a stroll through a neighborhood while very deep in a trip, and about thirty seconds into it, with the house I was staying in still visible, I realized I was completely lost and asked my partner where we were and how far we'd gone. Filtering enables discernment, enables survival.

But part of our process has also involved the development of symbolic manipulation -- language. As a consequence of that, we can begin to ask ourselves self-referential existential questions and develop strategies for seeking the answers. And that process of searching began very long ago in our species' history: we can find evidence of shamanistic practice going back tens of thousands of years. And it's even possible, at least as I see it, that this kind of truth-seeking enabled the kind of lateral, imaginative thinking that led to innovations that have had direct benefits to survival, and will continue to.

Natural selection is not a self-reflective process, so far as we know. It's best, in my mind, not to think of it as goal-directed. Rather, it's just an observation about which species have survived and which have died off. As a result, when we ask "why" natural selection has done this or that, I tend to think the kind of answer we're likely to find is not a teleological one, but a causal one. So we aren't truth-seeking because it's necessary to our survival; we survive better because we're truth-seeking. In the same way, cognitive efficiency wasn't selected for because it was better for survival; it's just that the meaning of the phrase "was selected for" is nothing but the fat that it was better for survival.

I agree that "natural selection" implies the fact that what was selected for was better for survival, although it gets problematic if we imagine "survival" too narrowly, i.e. only that which allows greater chance of physical survival. I think it is clear, for ex., that at some time self-consciousness was not only selected for survival but itself became a critical aspect of That which selects for survival. We should also remember that "natural selection" and telos are not mutually exclusive. When we speak of telos in the modern world, we are usually imagining some external agent planning everything out and then setting it in motion. That is not the way it was conceived in the ancient world, especially because there was no "external" in the sense we use the word now. Rather, telos was the principle that natural processes contain within themselves their own determining factors for later forms, even if those factors cannot be fully discerned from the appearances of the earlier forms. I especially like this quote from Hegel:

“The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. The ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes these stages moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and constitutes thereby the life of the whole.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

[DandelionSoul]

I agree that "natural selection" implies the fact that what was selected for was better for survival, although it gets problematic if we imagine "survival" too narrowly, i.e. only that which allows greater chance of physical survival. I think it is clear, for ex., that at some time self-consciousness was not only selected for survival but itself became a critical aspect of That which selects for survival. We should also remember that "natural selection" and telos are not mutually exclusive. When we speak of telos in the modern world, we are usually imagining some external agent planning everything out and then setting it in motion. That is not the way it was conceived in the ancient world, especially because there was no "external" in the sense we use the word now. Rather, telos was the principle that natural processes contain within themselves their own determining factors for later forms, even if those factors cannot be fully discerned from the appearances of the earlier forms. I especially like this quote from Hegel:

“The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. The ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes these stages moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and constitutes thereby the life of the whole.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

I'm not sure that the definition you offered for telos says quite as much as it needs to. What I mean is that I don't think it's enough to say only that telos means that, in retrospect, we can see how each stage of a process contained in potentia the next stage of the process. That's more or less tautological because there's no other meaningful definition of "process." Rather, to call it teleological suggests, I think, goal-directed. Classically, a telos was a finish line, an achievement, a goal, a state of perfection. While it can be used to mean "end" in the sense of a mere terminus, that's not how it's typically used in discourse like this. We aren't asking if evolution is a process that happens in discernable stages that can be understood retrospectively. We're asking if those stages are part of some overarching purpose: if the development of a singular organism reflects the development of life as a whole.

Is that sort of forward-pulling telos (I'm gonna stop italicizing that 'cause I'm lazy) consistent with natural selection? Well, yes, evolution could be read as teleological. But I think we should use a whole lot of caution in speculating over it. Right now I would say that if the development of self-consciousness and the subsequent spiritual capacities that emerged from it are part of a purposeful story, that if the seeds of that were planted in the first protocells in the same way the seeds of a fully grown plant are planted in the... uh... seed of the plant (metaphor kinda got away from me there) in the service of That Which Is ultimately becoming a particular sort of something, then it's beyond our capacity to know, simply because that story isn't finished. So when someone is asking about natural selection and survival value, I tend to prefer to ground my response in the sheer facticity of the thing rather than positing a purpose I can't know. With that said, I think there is value in your approach, but I'm an existentialist at heart.

[AshvinP]

I agree that "natural selection" implies the fact that what was selected for was better for survival, although it gets problematic if we imagine "survival" too narrowly, i.e. only that which allows greater chance of physical survival. I think it is clear, for ex., that at some time self-consciousness was not only selected for survival but itself became a critical aspect of That which selects for survival. We should also remember that "natural selection" and telos are not mutually exclusive. When we speak of telos in the modern world, we are usually imagining some external agent planning everything out and then setting it in motion. That is not the way it was conceived in the ancient world, especially because there was no "external" in the sense we use the word now. Rather, telos was the principle that natural processes contain within themselves their own determining factors for later forms, even if those factors cannot be fully discerned from the appearances of the earlier forms. I especially like this quote from Hegel:

“The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. The ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes these stages moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and constitutes thereby the life of the whole.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

I'm not sure that the definition you offered for telos says quite as much as it needs to. What I mean is that I don't think it's enough to say only that telos means that, in retrospect, we can see how each stage of a process contained in potentia the next stage of the process. That's more or less tautological because there's no other meaningful definition of "process." Rather, to call it teleological suggests, I think, goal-directed. Classically, a telos was a finish line, an achievement, a goal, a state of perfection. While it can be used to mean "end" in the sense of a mere terminus, that's not how it's typically used in discourse like this. We aren't asking if evolution is a process that happens in discernable stages that can be understood retrospectively. We're asking if those stages are part of some overarching purpose: if the development of a singular organism reflects the development of life as a whole.

Is that sort of forward-pulling telos (I'm gonna stop italicizing that 'cause I'm lazy) consistent with natural selection? Well, yes, evolution could be read as teleological. But I think we should use a whole lot of caution in speculating over it. Right now I would say that if the development of self-consciousness and the subsequent spiritual capacities that emerged from it are part of a purposeful story, that if the seeds of that were planted in the first protocells in the same way the seeds of a fully grown plant are planted in the... uh... seed of the plant (metaphor kinda got away from me there) in the service of That Which Is ultimately becoming a particular sort of something, then it's beyond our capacity to know, simply because that story isn't finished. So when someone is asking about natural selection and survival value, I tend to prefer to ground my response in the sheer facticity of the thing rather than positing a purpose I can't know. With that said, I think there is value in your approach, but I'm an existentialist at heart.

I also stopped italicizing "telos" in last post bc of laziness

I definitely see what you are saying. I guess my only remaining criticism is that the telos of "goal-directed" almost implicitly assumes a dualism of internal agency and external agency which the ancients simply did not have. It says the inner lawfulness of the process is "tautological" (in a negative sense of being non-informative) because what we really want to know about is whether an external agent designed the inner lawfulness. But the "externality" of the agency was not even a possibility in ancient Greek thought (any forces "external" were also felt as tied up with inner activity of the human being participating in the phenomenal world). So telos could only be referring to the inner lawfulness which we both acknowledge exists. Does that make sense? I think also these few passages from Steiner should help clarify what I am trying (poorly) to say:

Among the manifold streams in the spiritual life of mankind, there is one we can follow which may be described as the overcoming of the concept of purpose in realms where it does not belong. Purposefulness has its own particular nature within the sequence of phenomena. It is a truly real purposefulness only when, in contract to the relationship of cause and effect where a preceding event determines a later one, the reverse applies and a subsequent event affects and determines an earlier one. This happens, to begin with, only in the case of human actions. A person carries out an action, which he pictures to himself beforehand, and lets himself be moved to his action by this mental picture. What comes later, the action, works with the help of the mental picture upon what comes earlier, the person who acts. This detour through mental picturing is, however, altogether necessary in order for a connection to be purposeful.

In the process which breaks down into cause and effect, the perception is to be distinguished from the concept. The perception of the cause precedes the perception of the effect; cause and effect would simply remain side by side within our consciousness if we were not able to connect them with each other through their corresponding concepts. The perception of the effect can only follow upon the perception of its cause. If the effect is to have a real influence upon the cause, then this can only be through the conceptual factor. For the perceptual factor of the effect is simply not present at all before that of the cause. Whoever maintains that the blossom is the purpose of the root, which means the former has an influence upon the latter, can maintain this only about that factor of the blossom which he can establish through his thinking. The perceptual factor of the blossom has as yet no existence at the time when the root comes into being. For there to be a purposeful connection, however, not merely the ideal lawful connection of the later with the earlier is necessary, but also the concept (the law) of the effect must really, through a perceptible process, influence the cause. A perceptible influence of a concept upon something else, however, we can observe only in human actions. Here alone, therefore, is the concept of purpose applicable. The naive consciousness, which accepts as real only what is perceptible, seeks — as we have repeatedly noted — to transfer something perceptible even into an area where only something ideal is to be known. Within perceptible happenings it seeks perceptible connections, or, if it cannot find such, it dreams them up. The concept of purpose valid for subjective actions is an element which lends itself to such dreamed-up connections. The naive person knows how this makes something happen and concludes from this that nature will do it in the same way. Within the purely ideal interconnections of nature he sees not only invisible forces, but also unperceivable real purposes. Man makes his tools to suit his purposes; the naive realist has the Creator build organisms by this same formula. Only quite gradually is this incorrect concept of purpose disappearing from the sciences. In philosophy, even today, it is still up to its mischief in a very harmful way. There people ask about the purpose, outside the world, of the world, about the determinants (and consequently, about the purpose), outside man, of man, and so on.

Monism rejects the concept of purpose in all areas with the sole exception of human action. It seeks laws of nature, but not purposes of nature. Purposes of nature are arbitrary assumptions just as unperceivable forces are (see page 109f). But also purposes of life which man does not give himself, are unjustified assumptions from the standpoint of monism. Only that is purposeful which man has first made to be so, for only through the realization of an idea does purposefulness rise. The idea however, becomes operative in the realistic sense only within man. Therefore human life has only the purpose and determination which man gives to it. To the question: What kind of task does man have in life?, monism can only answer: the one which he sets himself. My mission in the world is no predetermined one, but rather it is, at any given moment, the one I choose for myself. I do not enter upon my life's path with fixed marching orders.

[SanteriSatama]

“Seeing the truth is not conductive to survival”

Evolution by natural selection did not come up with the cognitive apparatus to see external world ‘as it really is’ because our ancestors would have spent too much time and energy in 'seeing the truth' rather than searching for the next meal.

I am puzzled. Then how come we search for the truth?

Is it that ‘seeing the truth’ was not conductive to survival in early stages of evolution but now life has reached a stage where survival depends on ‘seeing the truth’?

Are not seeing, hearing, touching, feeling etc. experiencing true as such? Or is the truth "out there", and can be sought to be seen by the visual sense only?

Or, is the idea of "The truth and the whole truth" as such also a false mirage? There are many kinds of truths, for example mathematical truth can't be closed inside a finite set of logical axioms, as Gödel showed. Perhaps what we search is better called core honesty and trust?

[SanteriSatama]

I agree that "natural selection" implies the fact that what was selected for was better for survival, although it gets problematic if we imagine "survival" too narrowly, i.e. only that which allows greater chance of physical survival. I think it is clear, for ex., that at some time self-consciousness was not only selected for survival but itself became a critical aspect of That which selects for survival. We should also remember that "natural selection" and telos are not mutually exclusive. When we speak of telos in the modern world, we are usually imagining some external agent planning everything out and then setting it in motion. That is not the way it was conceived in the ancient world, especially because there was no "external" in the sense we use the word now. Rather, telos was the principle that natural processes contain within themselves their own determining factors for later forms, even if those factors cannot be fully discerned from the appearances of the earlier forms. I especially like this quote from Hegel:

“The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. The ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes these stages moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and constitutes thereby the life of the whole.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

I'm not sure that the definition you offered for telos says quite as much as it needs to. What I mean is that I don't think it's enough to say only that telos means that, in retrospect, we can see how each stage of a process contained in potentia the next stage of the process. That's more or less tautological because there's no other meaningful definition of "process." Rather, to call it teleological suggests, I think, goal-directed. Classically, a telos was a finish line, an achievement, a goal, a state of perfection. While it can be used to mean "end" in the sense of a mere terminus, that's not how it's typically used in discourse like this. We aren't asking if evolution is a process that happens in discernable stages that can be understood retrospectively. We're asking if those stages are part of some overarching purpose: if the development of a singular organism reflects the development of life as a whole.

Is that sort of forward-pulling telos (I'm gonna stop italicizing that 'cause I'm lazy) consistent with natural selection? Well, yes, evolution could be read as teleological. But I think we should use a whole lot of caution in speculating over it. Right now I would say that if the development of self-consciousness and the subsequent spiritual capacities that emerged from it are part of a purposeful story, that if the seeds of that were planted in the first protocells in the same way the seeds of a fully grown plant are planted in the... uh... seed of the plant (metaphor kinda got away from me there) in the service of That Which Is ultimately becoming a particular sort of something, then it's beyond our capacity to know, simply because that story isn't finished. So when someone is asking about natural selection and survival value, I tend to prefer to ground my response in the sheer facticity of the thing rather than positing a purpose I can't know. With that said, I think there is value in your approach, but I'm an existentialist at heart.

Darwinian theory of natural selection is a very limited and incomplete view of evolution, not only as an explanatory biological theory, but even more so in the wider sense of evolution which includes also spiritual evolution - as the term is commonly used and discussed on this forum.

The global entelecheia of evolution can be stated as goal-direction of uniquely experiencing. From this perspective each experience has inherent value by virtue of being unique. Experiencing experiences difference and variance, not immutable same. Thinking with this global perspective, interestingly 'potential' does not exist on this level even conceptually. The algorithm only actualizes, self-realizes. The no-cloning theorem of quantum mechanics can be seen as an expression of the global generative algorithm, in which the purpose of experiencing is to experience.

The potential comes sensible in the local entelecheia, nested in the global. Potential arises from the qualitative and relational valuation of actual experiencing, as an instrumental device to guide and direct experiencing towards some desired quality of experiencing. By projection-creation of an superposition of possibilities, a local continuum of experiencing can create self-reflecting temporal loops for various degrees of qualitative choices.

[SanteriSatama]

But the "externality" of the agency was not even a possibility in ancient Greek thought (any forces "external" were also felt as tied up with inner activity of the human being participating in the phenomenal world). So telos could only be referring to the inner lawfulness which we both acknowledge exists. Does that make sense? I think also these few passages from Steiner should help clarify what I am trying (poorly) to say:

I think I get what you are trying to say, but it's not quite accurate description of Classical Greek. There were three voices: Passive, Middle and Active. Oversimplifying,

1) Passive voice corresponds with passive wittnessing of external.
2) Middle voice corresponds with intransitive and intuitive experiencing
3) Active voice corresponds with transitive effecting of external.

Classic example of Middle voice, first that comes to mind, is the first word of the famous poem by Psappho:

Fainetai moi keenos isos theoisin
emmen ooneer ostis
enantion moi kathitzei...

The poem continues to vivid description of the flood of internal sensations in the poet, caused by intransitive sensing of the "godlike man".

In English the semantic distinction between passive voice and middle voice could perhaps be brought forth in the following manner:
Passive (IIRC fainesthai): It appears (to me), that that man is like a god...
Middle (fainetai): In me he appears a peer of gods...

External agency is not exactly denied as such by internal intransitive experience. It's more like 'both and' situation. Another famous poem, IIRC by Alkman, starts:

Zeus hyei
pepagaisin d'ydatoon rhoa...

Zeus rains,
the flows of water block and chunk to ice

Naming and personifying a force of nature as god, who rains (in the active agentive voice) does not mean denying agency of god. In the poem the naming of force of nature as agency functions as poetical device which makes also possible to resist the agency distanced in the 3rd person, as the poem continues to address the reader in 2nd person: "Throw the storm!" and proceeds to drinking warm wine in the cosy warmth of a shelter.

[Shajan624]

Insightful comments.

I doubt higher order mental functions have made us any better at survival as a species. Cockroaches seem to be doing great without meta cognition!

Analytic Idealism maintains a strictly Darwinian view of evolution as far as I know. Does it make sense to say subjective processes in M@L grew more complex and organized over time? There was no grand design or ‘plan’, but was it in the nature of M@L to dream up more complex patterns over time?

We call it evolution by natural selection. Our hindsight might be distorted.

[Ben Iscatus]

Does it make sense to say subjective processes in M@L grew more complex and organized over time? There was no grand design or ‘plan’, but was it in the nature of M@L to dream up more complex patterns over time?

Yes, I think it is. MAL is moving in a direction it prefers. Natural selection depends on mutation. BK has said that there is no evidence that mutation is random - which implies that it is determined by MAL's preferences.