The Speculist

Final Cause

Steven Den Beste, explaining the three major forces at work in the current global struggle, identifies two distinct approaches to how we learn about and interact with the world around us. Conceived in ancient times and refined over the centuries, these two forces — which he has (uncomfortably) dubbed realism and idealism — have competed vigorously through the ages. Because it has fostered scientific, technological, and economic development, realism now has the upper hand on idealism, which has consistently stood in the way of these benefits. But idealism won't let go without a fight. Enter the three contenders in the current conflict:

Two contending factions are agnostic (but with some religious members), one is theistic (but with some agnostic members). Two are idealist, one is realist. None really like or trust any of the others, but the realists have been prospering while the others have failed, and so it is that the other two are afraid. In peaceful competition, they'll lose.

When the Islamists lashed out violently at the realists, the idealists tried (and failed) to prevent the realists from fighting back, and thus the lines in this war were drawn. The realists are engaged in a shooting war with the Islamists, and in diplomatic war with the idealists.

This is as good a summation of the philosophical bases of the War on Terror as you are likely to find anywhere. Den Beste's categories may not be perfect, but they are definitely illuminating.

The fundamental divide between the two camps draws out of the concept of teleology, which is the belief that the "final" cause of a phenomenon is more important than any of its "efficient" causes. Efficient causes are what we normally think of as causes. If I'm overweight, all those Snickers Bars I've been eating over the years are the efficient cause of my condition. But wait. Maybe I was tapped by the Fat Fairy early on; perhaps my heft is something that was Always Meant to Be. That built-in destiny, that ultimate condition that had to come about, is the final cause of my weight problem.

The difficulty that we have even grasping the notion of final causes is a testament to how thoroughly the realistic view has won out. Causes are things that make things happen; they precede effects. Efficient causes push time forward from past to future by small steps. Final causes paradoxically come after the effects. From the future, they pull time forward out of the past. That such future final causes can exist suggests a purpose to the universe, and ultimately a Cause or Designer behind that purpose.

In his book Biocosm, James N. Gardner points out that teleology's last stand in serious scientific discourse came about with the publication of William Paley's Natural Theology in 1802. Paley argued that, just as finding a pocket watch out in the woods implies that there was a designer and maker of that watch, finding a sparrow or other living creature (of greater complexity than a watch) implies that it, too, was designed and made by some greater intelligence. Paley's argument was shattered by the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species.

In its classical form, teleology is now dead, although it does pop up from time to time in the writings of Creation Science advocates. But Gardner makes an interesting observation about a lesser-known passage in Paley's work:

Paley [notes] that there are only three extended spatial dimensions in our cosmos...yielding an inverse square law for the diminution of the force of gravity in three-dimensional space...[If] gravity had diminished in our cosmos with an inverse cube law (or indeed any inverse power law by which the force of gravity diminishes more rapidly than under the dictates of the inverse square) life as we know it could not exist on planetary surfaces.

Gardner points out that Paley's argument is in "striking conformity" with contemporary thinking related to the anthropic principle, which basically states that it's an enormous coincidence (some would argue too big a coincidence) that the universe ended up being capable of supporting beings like us. Is there a connection between the anthropic principle and teleology? The Wikipedia article linked above describes the anthropic principle as (potentially) having a "fatal tinge" of teleology, and there are no doubt some flavors of it that veer off in that direction.

But certainly not all variations of the anthropic principle (even the "strong" version thereof) are teleological. Or it might make more sense to say that not all teleology is idealist in its formulation. In our recent discussion (yes, I'm referring to it again), John Smart talked about how the universe may encode emergent intelligence. In his model, intelligence is encoded in the physical laws of the universe in much the same way that intelligence is encoded in our genes. In both cases, it came to be there through an evolutionary process within multiple developmental cycles — meaning that it's no coincidence that the universe is highly tuned to support us, nor does that fact require a nod to idealism. In Smart's model, the universe doesn't need a "watchmaker" to account for its complexity, or for its accommodation of further complexity. Our universe has evolved from less complex models in the same way that we have evolved from more primitive forms of life.

I won't go into the specifics of how this works, and I don't bring it up in this context to discuss the relative merits of the theory. What interests me is that here's a model that allows for final causes without a rejection of realism. (Den Beste equated realism with empiricism; Smart's theory, as speculative as it may seem, is utlimately testable) An emergent final cause may be permissible, as Den Beste suggests here in his description of the origin of realism:

It started with the question, "What is the universe like?" and came up with the answer, "I dunno; let's go look and see." It posits that there actually is an objective universe, and doesn't automatically assume that it has any kind of underlying purpose. If such a thing is present, it will become clear in due course, and in the mean time let's all look around to see what kind of place we're living in.

[Emphasis added.]

An emergent purpose is similar to a final cause in that both seem to work by drawing evolution or progress to a particular end. One important difference between the two is that we could never achieve any understanding of such a purpose via idealism. Only realism will get us to an emergent driving force. Another important difference is that we can't know in advance what the particular end is; it emerges in unexpected and unpredictable ways.

In her book The Future and Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel describes the conflict between dynamists, who are creating the future through creativity and experimentation, and the enemies of the future, whose model of the future varies from elaborate and detailed plans to certain disasters that must be avoided. Each group is dedicated to a notion of human progress derived from its particular worldview. So in a sense, both groups are "idealists" — both can be seen as being devoted to a higher purpose. For the dynamists, the ends are emergent; we're discovering them and understanding them better as we go. For the other group (will anyone object if I call them "buzzkills?"), the ends are pre-determined, handed down from those who know better.

Dynamism incorporates the best of what both realism and idealism have to offer. Like realism, it relies on trial-and-error to move ahead. Like idealism, it allows progress to be seen as purposeful. I think that Den Beste's model of idealists vs. realists provides a clear picture of where we've come from and where we are now. And I think Postrel's picture of dynamists vs. buzzkills shows how that old conflict is being redefined, and gives us an idea of where the lines will be drawn going forward.