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It is conceivable that a programmer unable to look ahead more than 5 or 6 characters at a time might be able to make some very slight improvements to a computer program, but it is inconceivable that he could design anything sophisticated without the ability to plan far ahead and to guide his changes toward that plan.

That's a reference to Aristotle's "final cause" of his Four Causes above.

“The final cause is an end which is not for the sake of anything else, but for the sake of which everything [else] is. So if there is to be a last term of this kind, the process will not be infinite; and if there is no such term there will be no final cause. Those who maintain an infinite series do not realize that they are destroying the very nature of the Good, although no one would try to do anything if he were not likely to reach some limit (peras); nor would there be reason in the world (nous), for the reasonable man always acts for the sake of an end — which is a limit.” [Metaphysics, Book 12, Part 7]

Funny thing is the life sciences seem not to recognize formal and final causes, evidently believing instead that material and efficient causes explain everything you need to know. But as Chandra Wickramasingh has pointed out, that is tantamount to the expectation that a typhoon blowing through a junk yard will produce a Boeing 747.

Great post, SirLinksalot. Thank you so much!

Since you can obviously "do" some philosophy, perhaps you can help with this question?

IF evolution is geared towards survival, that is, if species evolve and adapt, over time, hanging on to that which is useful for survival, discarding that which is not...and assuming that human beings are at the end of that process....THEN doesn't it also follow that a brain geared for survival is not capable of doing cosmology?

Or to put it another way, why should we believe the speculative arguments of brains which are produced from an evolutionary process?

Or to get to the heart of the matter: aren't evolutionary biological arguments ultimately self-destructive?

(Note: That is just one of the philosophical problems I have with evolution. There are plenty more but I have never really been able to dialogue philosophically with scientists. They either dismiss philosophy, or are simply incapable of it).

Funny thing is the life sciences seem not to recognize formal and final causes, evidently believing instead that material and efficient causes explain everything you need to know.

So very true. The picture will remain incomplete until all four causes are considered.

Thank you so much for your outstanding essay-posts!