Q&A: Evolution and Aristotle
Evolution and Aristotle
Question
Good week!
Sorry about the number of questions; I just thought about them on the Sabbath and got really energized to ask…
The evolutionary view assumes that every substance has a drive to survive, that is, to continue existing. If so, then one would have to assume that at most every tiny particle also has such a property.
If so, it comes out that when atoms bond with each other and create molecules, cells, etc., the point is not that they become one, but that each particle uses the other in order to survive.
And the question is: why should a particle care in what form it survives? After all, it has no consciousness or will; it simply exists, that’s all! And even when people say that it has a drive to survive, they don’t mean that it has some external property like that (since that would assume a designer and a purpose); rather, they mean that its very existence is described as a kind of will (something like Aristotle’s idea about the functional properties of matter). If so, what difference does it make to it in what form it survives, especially given the law of conservation of matter?
And it should be added that even what I said earlier, that each particle uses the other in order to survive, does not mean that it does so with an active drive; rather, particles that happened to bond with one another are called by the name of a complete structure.
2. A similar question about the second law of thermodynamics: according to those who formulate it by saying that everything moves from order to disorder (and not only from one state of aggregation to another), this is difficult for me, because nature itself does not care how it is ordered, and the whole concept of order exists only in human consciousness. If so, is awareness and purpose built into this formulation?
3. What mainly troubles me is that the very concept of a law of nature seemingly contradicts materialistic evolution, because a law always appears to be something beyond the existence of matter itself. So what causes matter to strive to exist, etc.? It seems proven that there is a prior idea.
4. A similar question: why is mass attracted to mass? After all, gravity operates even if there is empty space between them and not דווקא a field, so why should mass obey gravity, and what compels it to do so?
Seemingly this proves that there is a fundamental force in the universe to which everything is connected (which is called a law of nature), and it runs everything like one organism.
If so, it cannot be that there is a struggle for survival in nature?
5. In other words, the very concept of a law of nature assumes that there is something in existence beyond the mere fact that it exists, because one cannot answer that the law itself simply exists, since then it would come out that all the particles are subordinated to some kind of collective program rather than fighting one another.
Put differently: the very fact that everything exists in one space (and according to Einstein matter even affects space itself) requires that there be a connection among everything.
And yet another formulation: Aristotle’s view that the concepts of order, law, use, etc. are only descriptions of existence itself does not fit with the very fact that there is a law, which requires the priority of something beyond existence.
Thank you very much!
P.S. Sorry for the length. I’m a yeshiva student who has wanted for a long time to ask about these topics, but didn’t have the energy to formulate my thoughts properly. I hope I managed now…
Answer
There are very basic misunderstandings of the concepts in what you wrote, and it’s hard to give a whole lesson here. You need to read and study more before the questions will remain.
- No matter has any drive to survive. Evolution speaks about living creatures (or plants), not particles of matter. And even they have no “drive” to survive. Evolution says exactly the opposite: there are no drives here, only the result of a blind process.
- For this you need statistical knowledge. I explained this in the third booklet or in the third talk in The First Available.
- I didn’t understand anything.
- Same as above.
- Same as above.
Discussion on Answer
Sorry that I’m asking in parts; every time I wrote everything, it got deleted and wasn’t sent.
2. This is not connected to statistics, but to the very distinction whether the universe is moving toward order or toward chaos?
3. The question is that the concept of a law always assumes priority over the matter itself, on which the law acts. So this is difficult for me, because according to Aristotle it would come out that the law describes the very existence of matter itself (rather than being a prior idea that guides matter how to act), and likewise according to evolution, which makes no dualistic assumption. So why does the law operate the matter?
In other words: the very fact that matter works lawfully presupposes an ideal prior lawgiver. (And one cannot say that the law is itself just a property of matter and nothing more, because then what is the cause and law that sustain matter itself, such as the conservation law?) Unless we say that the universe is infinitely eternal—which science itself rejects (even without getting into the philosophical debate whether infinite regress is possible, or whether motion and development are possible in an infinity).
And this leads to the next questions I wrote:
4. The fact that all particles operate under the same laws and obey the same laws, even though each particle exists for itself, proves that all the particles have a more basic and deeper connection?
And that itself contradicts the claims of evolution that all matter develops on its own. (Of course I mean my first remark, that by “matter” the intention is “living things,” and only I argued that even living things are just a description of matter.)
Sorry for the length and the fragmentation (that’s the site’s fault).
I’m writing from a phone, so it’s also hard to formulate the questions themselves, and I also had to rewrite everything several times.
In any case, thank you very much!
1. They are not. Inanimate matter has no genetics, and without heredity there is no evolution.
2. It is exactly connected to statistics. I referred you to reading material.
3. I’m not sure I understood your meaning, but it seems to me that you mean the argument from laws. See my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%d7%9b%d7%aa%d7%91%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%91%d7%98-%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%98%d7%aa%d7%99-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%99%d7%97%d7%a1%d7%99-%d7%90%d7%91%d7%95%d7%9c%d7%95%d7%a6%d7%99%d7%94-%d7%95%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%95%d7%a0%d7%94
In general, you should read it. It touches on some of your other questions as well.
4. Matter was not created through evolution. And the law is not based on a connection between the particles, but on their similarity. Similar things act in the same way under the same circumstances.
I repeat that you need to read and study more, because you are missing basic concepts.
Thank you, I’ll try to reformulate.
1. I do not mean that matter has a “will”; rather, I used borrowed language, meaning that a property characterizing all matter is that it survives. (That is what I meant in my reference to Aristotle: that the description of a use of reality is not a prior idea, but only a working description. And to that I compared the “drive” to exist—not as a “will,” but as a description.)
It is clear to me that natural selection speaks about life and not about matter, but that itself was my question—for from a materialist point of view, a cell, and likewise anything living, does not really have “life”; it is only a description of a number of molecules that are connected to one another. (And even according to “vitalism,” the point is not that there really is life in a dualistic sense, but only a description of particles connected to one another.) If so, the question is: why is that considered to survive more, when the particles that make up the cell—which itself is not really alive, and for evolutionists is nothing but matter—will in any case exist forever (the conservation law)? So what significance is there to the form in which they exist?
In other words: why is it that becoming more complex (for example, atoms bonding with one another until they become a molecule and afterward a cell) is considered to be a greater degree of existence?