Self-Aware Science: Evolution is Intentional (Revised)

I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations [...] had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation.

—Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself.

—Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation

The standard view of evolution says that evolution is random, that life is accidental, and that nature has no purpose. But what about its purpose, its goal, its intent?

Science is surely searching for something, and is it not also of nature?

Materialism is unable to form a coherent picture of the world because it ignores that there is something forming pictures of the world: it lacks a useful understanding of Man because it ignores Man's thirsting for understanding.

Materialism fails because it is blind unto itself. It falls for the illusion and chases idols on top of idols in eternal return. So we get a knowledge with no meaning, a culture with no purpose, and a world with no light.

For it is by no quantum probability, special relativity, weak force, strong force, genetic drift or chemical reaction that you are reading this piece. It is because you want to that you are reading this.

The Will exists.

It is real, palpable, and whether "free" or not, the Will is a part of nature. Yet is not visible or touchable. It is beneath and beyond the physical spectrum of experience—a non-visible force, a meta-physical natural phenomenon.

And it is observable.

It is the snail slithering up the tree. The tree digging down through the Earth. It is the orchid opening up. The infant learning how to walk. It is our getting up in the morning, and it is you reading this sentence.

But because it is not visible, touchable, or measurable, the Will does not exist for the materialist world-view. And you will not see this in a scientific journal because it is the blind-spot of contemporary science; its yearned-for substratum; its buried keystone.

What kind of world-picture leaves out the world-creating force?

An innocent one, a naïve mentality, one that is not yet self-aware.

But we are self-aware, and evolution continues.

So as we see beneath the surface and embrace the Will to live into our understanding of the organism, then let us see that Life and evolution are not all that accidental, coincidental, random, etc.—No, we are nature. The universe is intelligent. Reality is organic. And evolution is intentional.

"But what is this purpose?" you might ask. And the answer to that question can only be found inside of you.

The end, the goal, the finality of evolution is nothing physical (larger bodies, faster running, higher jumping, etc.)—which is why materialism sees it not.

The purpose is pre-physical. Biological evolution is something like the adaptation of mind; the calibration of consciousness; the unfolding of awareness; the unraveling of existence.

The self-creation of the world.

The inner, embodied world.

And it is more trial and error than it is random mutation. For how random is science? Did Einstein randomly come up with his great theory, Darwin accidentally write On the Origin of Species, and Copernicus un-intentionally put the Sun at the center of his system?

No, science is the search for truth; the exploration of experience; the intentional proliferation and natural selection of mental adaptations.

The cross-pollination of ideas; the free market of mentalities; the natural selection of belief systems.

The gradual perfection of the walking universe.

And a perfect microcosm for evolution: the natural progression towards ever more conclusive living drafts of this embodied world.

So when people have a problem with the materialist conception of evolution, it is with good reason: when researchers and educators claim that life is accidental and purposeless, they are imparting plain ignorance (in the words of Darwin)—ignorance served as science.

Fortunately, creation continues, and science evolves.

Are we ready to embrace intention, purpose, responsibility?

Does science dare uncover itself?

The Discovery of Man