On the related issue of motives, the idea that these are emergent and
contingent, somewhat akin to what Sartre meant by projects, seems right to
me but there is also the issue of observer ascription concerning what
motives or goals any self-organizing system may have (including, one could
assume, the self). The biologist, Robert Ulanowicz (in Growth and
Development), illustrates this delightfully in his version of '20 questions.
In that version the group picks no name at all. The person who is guessing
(animal, vegetable, mineral) is said to be correct (or not) arbitrarily by
the first respondent. The next respondent also answers true or false
arbitrarily but must be bound by the first respondent's response and so on.
Gradually the item the group supposedly had in mind (but really dynamically
constructs) emerges without anyone having deliberately picked it. The point
of theory (or modeling) then being not so much what is the correct answer --
there really is none, or more precisely there are likely to be many -- but
what explanation best fits the collective reconstruction of what has occurred.
I myself have no idea if evolution (or a chick) is motiveless or not but
suspect, consistent with the organicist tradition, that it is not
directionless but rather an entrainment into developing, larger scale
structures whose emerging patterns we can, at best, only discern with
difficulty. But the emerging XMCA Fall feast, outlined by Eva, may help me
see some more of this. Unfortunately I'll have to fast for a time as
circumstances force me to be off-line for awhile. I look forward to delving
archives and catching up when my virtual self restabilizes.
Regards,
Rolfe Windward M.Ed., Ph.D.
Science/Technology Curriculum & Teaching
email: rwindwar who-is-at ucla.edu (until September 15, 1997)
RWindward who-is-at compuserve.com
webpage: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rwindward/