Opening Example: Teleology

When people say “the heart's purpose is to pump blood” or “a pencil's function is to write”, what does that mean physically? What are “purpose” or “function”, not merely in intuitive terms, but in terms of math and physics? That's the core question of what philosophers call teleology - the study of “telos”, i.e. purpose or function or goal.

This post is about a particular way of approaching conceptual/philosophical questions, especially for finding “True Names” - i.e. mathematical operationalizations of concepts which are sufficiently robust to hold up under optimization pressure. We’re going to apply the method to teleology as an example. We’ll outline the general approach in abstract later; for now, try to pay attention to the sequence of questions we ask in the context of teleology.

Cognition

We start from the subjective view: set aside (temporarily) the question of what “purpose” or “function” mean [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) Opening Example: Teleology

(01:00) Cognition

(02:12) Convergence

(04:23) Corroboration

(05:55) Cognition - Convergence - Corroboration

(10:02) Examples are Confusing, Let's Make it Really Abstract!

(12:39) When is the Cognition - Convergence - Corroboration Pipeline Useful?

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.