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Alex Macdonald

Phil 3400
Bob Larmar
Mar 25, 2017

The Teleological Argument:


Epistemology
and
Symbiosis in Nature
Introduction: The Modern Illusion

Modern day scientific materialists and positivists claim that any sound claim to true

knowledge must, by first principles, be based upon empirical and demonstrable evidence of

the physical universe. However, in this equation they leave out and ignore both the human

subject which also exist in the natural world and, to some degree, the grand canvas of

empirical evidence the overall articulated scheme the separate scientific disciplines detail.

In this essay I aim to discuss general patterns we see from physics, chemistry, biology,

ecology, linguistics and epistemology and suggest that information presented to us here can

form the basis of our intellectual and moral claims in the realms of metaphysics and ethics.

For the longest time the claim from the materialists has been that you cannot infer deeper

metaphysical meaning from basic epistemic data inferred from the natural world. However,

there is neither proof or evidence for this belief, and I am willing to argue, there is in fact,

inherent information written strictly within nature that directly contradicts this belief and that

can reveal that this belief is based on irrational motives and a political (that is to say power

based) impetus that utterly disregards the notions of objectivity and accumulative rationality.

Rather this worldview, which is rationalistic materialism, simply utterly avoids topics and

evidence it finds to be psychologically uncomfortable, as these ideas present them with a

mystery and uncontrollable reality that they cannot contain in the vices of rationalistic mental

power.
That is to say, they deny the existence of anything they cant understand, because the genuine

existence of those types of things would steal reality from their grasp and question and

challenge the notions of their authoritative clasp on true, real, objective reality.

They like to think of themselves as the grand arbiters and rules of reality. They set

themselves up as intellectual gods which can determine and manipulate reality (that is, decide

what is and is not real) according to their all-powerful intellectual framework, methods and

models. I aim to challenge this power structure, and, using its own methods, show how its

foundations collapse upon its articulated assumptions.

The Mystery of Existence

Energy itself, though we are capable of observing, measuring and labeling it, and describing

how it functions, exists fundamentally beyond human intellectual capacity. In other words,

we are not capable of epistemologically penetrating its actuality, or, what it is at deepest level

of being.

We start off with the premise that what we have conceptualized as the material universe is

composed of spacetime and energy, and at more fundamental levels than that particles

and virtual particles. The issue with all of these ideas is just that, that they are abstract

formulations and they do not and cannot penetrate into the true epistemology of what things

actually are.

We here we are composed of mass energy and given that substance is an essentially and at

the deepest level mysterious to us. We must acknowledge that our fundamental starting point
when observing and considering the physical universe should be one of mystery and a

realization of our pure ignorance on a certain level. We should not be constructing ideas like

material and acting like they possess true or genuine epistemological content on the level of

metaphysics. And yet this is something like how the idea of the material universe functions

for the modern-day scientific atheist / materialist.

The only knowledge we can garner from our empirical observation of the universe is what

its like, how it functions and how we can relate to it. Knowing what something looks like

and how it works is not the same thing as understanding what it is. There is a deep level of

mystery that the modern materialist simply passes over and usually fails to integrate the

implications of which into their worldview.

On the Objectivity of Mind

We have an awareness of reality, or, of our existence. This really should be the base starting

point for any philosophy: to realize that you exist and that you fundamentally have zero ideas

why or what you truly, deeply are. That we are, in fact, actually an experience of ourselves

and a deeply mysterious one at that, if we look properly at the reality of our existence. We did

not bring ourselves into being, but rather found ourselves within it. We were never given the

tools or capacities to know exactly what all things are, because such a thing would be a

contradiction. We can know, and do know however, that we do exist and that this existence

has as its very most fundamental principles, an awareness.

We can reconcile with ourselves that our awareness is fundamentally tied up with our

existence, and that if we were not aware, we would not exist.


To be a conscious subject, is to exist within reality (whatever that might mean). We know

that mind exists within something that is itself not the mind, namely what we can call reality

or if we like the external world. We know further more that the reason this reality is

objectively something, than we are as finite creatures. We know that something exists,

therefore we know that something has to have always existed. Since for there to have ever

been nothing to exist, there never could have been the possibility of something existing.

Furthermore, since we know that something has always had to exist, we know that this

something that exists has existed endlessly. Since we know then, that reality has existed

endlessly, we can call it something that is line with this understanding, we can call it: the

infinite, or eternity. Here is the final piece of this logical puzzle. If we as existent conscious

awareness exist within a reality that is infinite or eternal, than we know that in some sense,

we as conscious awareness exist within that reality as parts and pieces of that reality. And

being that these reality are more objective than we are, we can fairly say, that to have an

awareness is more like being a property of the infinite that has awareness of the infinite. In

other words, that logically speaking, we are the infinites awareness of itself. This points out

and shows us that there actually is a real and objective nature to mind. That to be a mind, is to

exist as a critical function (awareness) within a reality that is objective (which is to say the

most real). And so because we contained within the infinite and are a function of awareness,

we are effectively something more objective than solely our own egos or intellectual

projections can encapsulate or for the most, fully comprehend. We exist, both in reality which

we cant know the nature and within a reality that is more objective than us, granting us the

privilege of partaking as a piece of this objective reality.


Consciousness is an empirically verifiable experience by definition, and that experience of

reality as objective is equally so. The logical conclusion of this being that experience of the

mind as being a part of an objective reality is not an imaginative concept but rather a concept

more in lines with actual reality.

Empirically Observable Nature

So here we established two things: 1. There is no sense in which we can say what energy

actually is, and therefore, being that energy is what we are composed of, our existence is a

mystery impenetrable to the human intellect. 2. There is no sense in which we can deny the

objectivity of mind as it exists as a function within an objective reality (if we accept the

assumption that there is an objective reality).

So then, lets take a look at the universe for a second and, drawing from the physical sciences

lets determine some things from empirical observation. For simplicities sake, I will visit

each discipline and draw from it just one fact to start creating the simplest concept unity that

we can create.

From physics we can see that all that composed matter is a singular substance, namely atoms

and the most basic construction of the atom (1 negatively charged electron and 1 positively

charged proton) is the hydrogen molecule. This molecule is the simplest building block of the

inhabitable world, that is to say planet earth. The principle we can pull from this is that at

base there is a uniformity within nature.


From chemistry we can see this basic pattern become complexified, with adding protons,

neutrons and electrons, combining in different ways we get different kinds of molecule that

construct the world we live in. The principle we can take from this is that the uniformity in

nature allows itself to be added to, interlocked, interconnection, and built upon. In other

words: there is a uniformity the structure of which allows for complexification.

Jumping to biology, we can start off by saying that some of these more complex molecules

are cooked up in the alchemical furnaces of stars. Namely that of the carbon molecule, which

is the basic building block for organic life. A principle we can take from biology is that the

complexification of the uniform structure of atoms allows for the existence of animation, or,

structures that are capable of intrinsically constructing themselves.

Finally, moving on to ecology we can see that these animating structures, or biological

structures of life comprehensively relate to each other within a fixed and set system of

reception, transformation and distribution. The principle we can take from ecology is that

there is such a thing as symbiosis within nature. Symbiosis is defined as a relational system

of mutual benefit. With the final picture being that the sun warmths the earth, energizes the

plants, who photosynthesize the energy and create nectar for bees to enjoy. Plants also

generate oxygen which fuels animals that intake it and transform into carbon dioxide that

other plants in take and convert back to oxygen. When animals die, bacteria breaks down the

basic chemicals of the animals and it becomes part of the soil, which further nurtures and

feeds plant life. So, between biological organisms and basic chemical and physical reactions

(the sun, oxygen, carbon dioxide) there are mutually beneficial systems that allow for not

only the continuation of biological life, but for its growth.


So, from the uniformity of atoms, there is the capability through complexification of creating

animating structures which can relate to each other in systems of mutual benefit that move

towards a direction of increase.

Passion of the Western Mind: Reintegration of the Brain within Nature

Near the end of Passion of the Western Mind, Richard Tarnas journey through Western

Philosophy he explains that with the Kantian worldview, order was simply an imposed

arrangement of the human mind (or brain) upon nature, that we possess incredible abilities to

assimilate, simplify (conceptualize) and concretize knowledge (turn it into language). This is

Kants answer to Humes problem of induction, of never having a sufficient logical basis to

explain the order we experience, in being that all of the content of our lives are merely

continuous transient experiences, from one to the next. Tarnas points out however, that the

next step of re-integration humanity must take should be a recognition of the human mind as

coming out of and as being an integral part of nature.1 In other words, he argues that the same

symbiotic principles and structure of creation that nature evidently possesses are inherent in

the brain.

This would suggest that our minds are not imposing order upon nature, but rather that nature

is imposing its own order upon own minds. I think this is an important understanding, as we

need to be able to re-connect the rational faculties of the human mind, with the physical

universe if we want to begin to make scientific arguments from logical experience towards a

coherent worldview.

1
Richard Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993).
Epistemological Constructs: Foundationalism and Coherentism

In Michael Williams survey of the subject of epistemology Problems of Knowledge he clearly

outlines the two main approaches to epistemic truth that have been historical pursued. The

first is foundationalism: the search for basic beliefs or beliefs that can be reasonably

grounded in experience of the world: empirical data in other words. The second is

coherentism, which acknowledges the necessity for empirical grounding but also stress the

extent to which all genuine epistemological content (knowledge) exists within a framework,

or a web of interconnected ideas, that make ones matrix of beliefs.

There is no such thing as knowledge that exists outside of the context of a logical set of

relationships, between at minimum one idea and another. This is how knowledge, finds its

ground in language and the way in which epistemology (the study of knowledge) relates to

linguistics (how we conceptually represent or create reality).

He summarizes the basic position that the discipline has come to as fundamentally trying to

find a rest point between these two qualifiers and surmises that the closest we can get to

achieving the truest beliefs possible by a method of inference to the best explanation. He

notes that in the scientific method, given a range of data to explain we formulate the best

hypothesis possible in light of various epistemic desiderata: for example, empirical

adequacy and theoretical elegance.2 In other words, the general consensus is, the closest we

can get to a kind of knowledge is by having the most coherent set of beliefs (logical

consistency) based upon information that is the most empirically verifiable.

2
Michael Williams, Problems of Knowledge (New York, Oxford University Press, 2001)
Albert Einstein sums up the position neatly by stating that the grand aim of all science is

to cover the greatest possible number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the

smallest possible number of axioms or hypotheses.3 These are the criteria I am using to build

my argument.

Symbiosis, Coherent Meanings and the Structure of Language

Now, bringing this all together what do we have? Well I would submit that we have a basic

pattern and that pattern is: distinct parts in nature function together to become more coherent

wholes.

In Physics (electrons and protons), in Chemistry (molecules combining), in Biology

(molecules combining in greater complexity to create self-creating molecules and eventually

organisms), in Ecology (organisms relating in such a way with the molecules in the air and

earth that allows for the continuation of biological growth).

In my final estimation of this pattern I would argue that this pattern can be called symbiosis

in that two basic parts of a system function in relation to each other and the result of the

functional relationship is a newer and more complicated whole. I would argue that this is the

basic pattern in the structure of nature.

In his essay Science and Philosophy, Alfred North Whitehead speaks of the psychology of

experiencing ourselves as a body. He notes that, we know ourselves as a function of

3
Albert Einstein, Relativity: the special and the general theory: a popular exposition (Whitehouse
Station: Bonanza Books, 1961).
unification of a plurality of things which are other than ourselves.4 In other words, we are

not our hands, eyes, nose, feet, chest, brain, skin or bones but yet these things are what make

up our selves.

Being that this is how we perceived ourselves, it is also how we perceive reality and how we

make our coherent systems of thoughts and beliefs (formulated through languages) about

reality. Indeed, even if one considers the notion of knowledge we find knowledge only exists

at minimum in the form of a sentence, which is to say knowledge must necessarily contain

some explanation of a functional relation between at least two distinct things. Here we can

see that the same pattern intrinsic in Physics and Chemistry all the way up to organic beings,

is also intrinsic in the formation knowledge and language (distinct parts in a functional

relation making up a new coherent whole). Considering Tarnas claim that we should begin

to recognize the brain as a part of nature, this makes a lot of sense.

All of this is to say, that there is a basic structure and pattern in nature (or in mass-energy)

that tends in the direction of a more functional coherent whole. Even up unto the point where

human consciousness and its awareness of the infinite objective reality comes into play.

Furthermore, that the very process of the function of mind is to unify a plurality of things that

are separate and synthesize them into singular wholes. All of this within a system of energy,

which weve established is a fundamentally mysterious substance. And not only is it

mysterious but also has in it intrinsically the powers to create all of life in nature, even the

human mind and these very sentences to exist. The picture begins to reveal that the

4
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and Philosophy, (Random House, New York, 1947)
materialistic notion of a universe of incoherence and randomness is out of step with the

empirical data and is therefore an incorrect theory.

Conclusion: Towards a Rational, Moral Basis for Philosophical Discussion

Having made the step to suggest that coherent logical functions and relations between words

is in fact a manifestation of a pattern within nature, suggests that more logically coherent

belief systems are actually more in step with empirical reality. And here I believe is the

beginnings of what you could call a scientific argument for the basis of rational philosophy.

I only had a few days available to write this essay so Im sure there are holes and flaws or at

least unsubstantiated evidence or claims but this is a brief outline of an argument I am going

to continue working on and a beginning attempt of bringing philosophy back to the forefront

of the battlefield.
Bibliography

Tarnas, Richard. Passion of the Western Mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.

Williams, Michael. Problems of Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

North Whitehead, Alfred. Science and Philosophy. New York: Random House, 1947.

Einstein, Albert. Relativity: the special and the general theory: a popular exposition.
Whitehouse Station: Bonanza Books, 1961.

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