“Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist; he cannot live without her, but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.”     – J.B.S. Haldane

Discovering  something’s purpose is just like the elephant in the room – once it’s somehow noticed, there ap-pears to be no getting rid of it.    – the author                                                                                                                                                                           

MEANS TO AN END:  An Implicit Implication           

TELEOLOGY IS THE STUDY OF PURPOSIVENESS:  In classical Greek philosophy, it was an in-terpretative methodology whereby the explanation of phenomena is made sensible according to the purposes they serve – rather than their causes… Its name is derived from the two Greek words “telos” and “logos”. 

TELOS  means “end”; that for the sake of which something is done or occurs. In its most contem-porary form – telos pertains to a thing’s evident purpose, its aim, or its ultimate goal.  However, being idiomatic to ancient Greek language (and its own history of thought) – telos is an archaic term possessing a range of subtle meaning – and to classical philology, it remains a word of not-able interest and semantic conjecture.

LOGOS  is a familiar ancient term which remains seminal to the corpus of Greek thought. As a polysemic word in a field of related studies, even in antiquity, the nuance of its interpretation was itself the subject of doctrine.  From the disciplines of rhetoric,  to those of philosophy and theology – derived from the Greek lego (“I say”) – its name carried with it a gamut of meaning:  Designating “speech” – “explanation” – “reason” – and the “word”.

           Then vs. Now;  Tail vs. Head                                                   

A Tale of Tangled Viewpoints: The Diachrony of our Synchrony   

AS A METHOD OF APPROACH TO HUMAN KNOWLEDGE teleology has suffered setbacks at the current  time  – the tarnish on its name being somehow caused or owed to a certain kind of “implicit” modern  stigma: What many would refer to (today) as ‘intelligent design’.  Having once  been regarded for its virtue – but now in someway out of fashion – it is simply because an “aim” implies intelligence (because intelligence implies an agent) – that (now) it’s much to our chagrin (teleologically speaking,  that is): Something like an unwanted passenger (which would be some ways like the elephant in the room) – our so-called “problem” with a purpose  (that’s implicit  to any language)  has passed down hand-in-hand through time – “together” with the subject of its discipline… Which is “the reason” why nowadays  (owing to its purpose – so to speak) – that like an unseemly bedfellow – any form of teleological approach has become a slippery kind of slope  for the modern man of science. And much like any fall from grace, it was all downhill from there.                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                               As truth begets a lie,  so a lie begets its truth.   – Anon

                                                                       As above,  so below    – Hermes Trismegistus                                                       

  THE PROBLEM HAS A PURPOSE – “CAUGHT” WITHIN      A RHETORICAL FRAME : THE TOOL MAKER’S PARADOX 

  A “Figure of Speech” – the “Form” of Interpretation – in a Polytropic                 Web of their Entanglement     

     “A mirror mirroring a mirror”  – Douglas Hofstadter                                               

   THE DOUBLE AXIS OF “WORD”  :   TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN Intelligent Design, a Double-Edged Sword, or a Form of Self-Reference?

Somehow “In the End“: Following in the Thread of a Plot-Line Towards an Infinite Regression to a Mean…       

Our Turtle is (now) in the Room:  A Nowadays “Problem” with Reverse Causality

WERE ONE TO PUT IT IN A NUTSHELL: Like a form of “double trouble” (somehow getting two for the price of one) – Teleology has become something of a problem inside a problem  for mod-ern science… Owing to its reason  (like an inconvenient sort of truth), regardless of our endeav-ors,  however hard we may try – somehow in “the end” – one can neither sidestep nor escape its certain form of predicament;  a sort of double bind  that is somehow “both at once” – a dilemma of our logic, and a logical dilemma. And being someway like a self-fulfilling prophecy (something like our chicken & the egg)  it is a problem that’s both implicit  to its “means” – as it is equally the “fated” outcome of teleology’s meted  measure and of teleology’s own “teleological implication”: Something that in one way or another (hitting close to home) we all inevitably “face”,  in-tandem with the subject of its discipline. So much so that nowadays (being consequently unable to side-step its “certain” implication) – like a line drawn in the sand – it seems  that we must CHOOSE a position (or a side) – so that one may somehow come to terms with BOTH a fundamental  truth AND  the ONE confounding fact – of its “own” unavoidable conclusion. So that whether it comes to rhetoric, to biology,  to physics, or to cosmology (whichever way it is that we might “choose”):  That when it all comes down to “frame” its question – the problem with our “aim” is simply this:  

INTELLIGENT DESIGN – OR THE “SIGN” OF OUR INTELLIGENCE?  

THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH:  WE CAN’T  SUBTRACT THE “AIM” OUT FROM A PURPOSE…  Such that we may think  it’s someway possible  – but it is somehow “in the end” (and by its very definition) that a purpose can neither be removed or negated from “itself” (or from anything for that matter) without it someway achieving its own “end”…  

Which would consequently lead us to that other troublesome problem… 

THE ONE CONFOUNDING FACT: WE CANNOT EVEN TRY  TO TAKE THE “AIM” OUT OF A PURPOSE –  WITHOUT IT SOMEWAY BEING “ON PURPOSE”  (which for a person of intelli-gence – by design  – could present one with something of a pickle). 

Which might prove aim-less in what follows…

AN UNAVOIDABLE CONCLUSION:  WE MAY AIM – OR WE MIGHT TRY – SO WE MAY “TIE” OURSELVES IN KNOTS – HOWEVER, IN THE END:  WE CAN’T   EXPLAIN  “THE END” WITH-OUT  A PURPOSE (as we cannot  split the logos from its telos – we cannot “part” the telos from its logos).

WHICH IF YOU’D THINK TO ASK the question – also means to say;  we can’t explain “the end” out of “the word”.  Cause as “de-signs” of an intelligence – they are always “done” with purpose.

THE MATTER OF REASON FOR SCIENCE (a.k.a. the “logos” of its telos)

THEREFORE IN THE END – as a “matter of reason” for science (teleologically speaking, that is):  It is simply because “the one” becauses  “the other” – that any form of tele-ological approach has proved so maddeningly circular for its modern form of empiricism… And whether “by design” or not  – by appearing either way  (to “seem” as we must choose ) – the way it frames its question became the fate  of its approach – cause when we’re speaking teleologically,  the prob-lem with its mean  (i.e. the “problem of its measure”)  can be something like the argument of whether a cup is “half-empty” or “half-full” (which as every body knows – depends  on how you look at it).  And as if being in “a whole” we’re not  “a part” of  (or as if clutching to a straw or to a fig-leaf) – it was reckoned somehow in the end  – that to bal-ance out a purpose with its seeming implication would prove far too great an ask (or risk) for its own  empirical lens.  And while un-provably so, it was only a matter of time (or inevitability) that likewise (in the end), any form of teleologic thought would someday find itself excommunicated  from the church of modern science – only to be deemed (ironically) somehow outside the scope of its own modern purview… While however (and  in the end), as a famous Mark would once put it:  “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt…”   

ERADICATING THE AGENT: TAKING THE “I” OUT OF INTELLEGENCE

                                                                             “Include me out.”     – Samuel Goldwyn               

     An Inconvenient Truth and a Convenient Solution: The Toolmaker’s Prerogative

                               “If all you have is a hammer – everything looks like a nail.”   –  Abraham Maslow

                                Hallmark of our Kind:  The Teleology of  “Teleonomy”

SO WITH A NIP HERE & A TUCK THERE (and in a sotto-vocce fashion):  Handed with both the “means” of its (own) form of logic – that’s also wedded equally  hand-in-hand  (together) with its (own) “implicit” problem  (which its telos might imply for modern science);  given all the double trouble (with a cry of hallelujah) – a once unseemly bedfellow – “once” the elephant in the room – would one day find “itself” – conveniently re-purposed  and rebranded. Whereby in a modern manner of speaking  (to the science of our times) – as the shadow of its former  “self”  (through  ruse of modern guise) – its once  familiar image – could be cleverly re-packaged – as its new im-proved (but once familiar) form… AND IT WAS somehow et voila  (just like the empiricist’s new clothes): That through a sleight of modern language – its reason’s now  re-labeled “teleonomy”.

THE UNMOVED MOVER  

   “Everything that is a proposition of logic has to be in some way or the other like a tautology.”                                                  – Bertrand Russel

                                                                                                                      Reason is its own purpose.    – anon

SIGN OF GOD – OR THE SIGN OF ITSELF                          

TAUTOLOGY  is yet another distinguished term having origins in ancient Greek language; as a device or tool of rhetoric its name means “repeating what’s been said”.. Made in the likeness of its own image  (being somehow true to form) a tautology is a statement or expression in which the same “thing” is said twice, but somehow differently (the one relying on the other) so that its own reflexive point  (its “axis” – so to speak) becomes the meaningful equivalence between two parallel phrases or related terms… The prefix tauto  literally means “itself”; it forms a grammat-ical contraction between the two Greek words “to” + “auto” – meaning “the self” or “the same”. Thus a to-auto-logos  (in the manner of a rebus or a palindrome) literally connotes the form, im-age, and idea of the self explanation.  Much like a truism, tautology can be understood in terms of a self-evident statement of what appears to be obvious.  However for the tautology,  what is most important for “itself” – what is most “pivotal”  – has everything to do with what’s implicit;  because what would be “implicit”,  would be (both) equally and  at once that very fact (or quality which it has or it posseses ) that by its own definition – “IS” – what it says “it” is to be…  Because it’s somehow in the end, someway describing itself… Curiously performing as its own generative principle – simply to exist as its own  very “reason” for being; which would be namely – referring to “itself” – as if  “it” – were nothing but the implicit re-iteration  of “its” own  “subject”: Cause at the end of the day –“IT”- is nothing but a frame  (that someway “pictures”); which like the “thing” we call our consciousness – it would be no-thing but a “portrait” – of the self-referring system – referring to “the frame” which is  “it’s” – ‘self’ (that is ). Such that being “what it  is” (by belonging  to itself  while being no-thing ), it so becomes  its own explanation, being nothing but the reason  behind its very own purpose:  Because it’s some “HOW” – in the end  – “nothing” and  “the story of itself”… So like a story in the logic of a mirror:  BEING “LIKE” A MIRROR (someway “this” and  “that” – while it is someway “that” but  “this”) – it would appear  to be the nature of its very own “subject” that it is structurally edified by the “point” its own recursion; cause when it’s someway looking back  (when it is someway vice-versa) – that may also “hinge” upon its prior  referenced self.  So for all its means and purpose: Like the pivot, or a fulcrum, or an axis  (or the language we call consciousness), a tautology’s raison d’etre would literally have every “thing” – to do – as  the re-presentational  “form” – of its own  descriptive function.. So being “in” and of  “itself” (created in the “likeness” of its own  image) ONE could even say:  WHAT IT IS  – “IS” – WHAT “IT” DOES.  

        SO THAT WHILE IT’S BEING WHAT IT DOES  – it so “becomes” what-ever it might do.

                                                                    Ehyeh asher Ehyeh     – Exodus 3:14

BECAUSE AN “X” MARKS THE SPOT   

“It is here, It is now.”   – Peter Gabriel 

TO BRING THE MATTER HOME consider what’s understood in certain academic circles as the “anthropic principal”.   With anthropos meaning “human” in Greek – the anthropic principal is a philosophical consideration stating that “observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious sapient life that observes it”.   Adding furthermore – that “any working theory of the universe will be necessarily constrained  by the need to allow for human existence.” * In the fields of astrophysics and cosmology  –  the anthropic principal has been proffered as a logical argument to account for the emergence of human life (or of consciousness) in terms which are deemed obvious or “self-evident”…  It posits (more or less) that observers are necessary to the existence of a universe… Or put a bit more plainly:  That the “spectacle” of the world – requires an audience. Taken at face value, the anthropic principle addresses the bare necessity of things being as they are. Very simply put:  Things are the way they are – because – that’s the way they are… Through its teleological approach to the story of life in our cosmos, the Anthropic princip-le is both a truism and a tautology clearly expressed in its own oblique  terms:

                             IF LIFE WASN’T POSSIBLE  – THEN NO ONE WOULD KNOW IT.  **

Continue on to Chapter 6: “THE SLANG OF AGES”

*  Wikipedia

** A possible solution to “the liar’s paradox”

 Header image:  “Relativity” by M.C. Esher