> your decisions are being made
> before your are consciousnessly aware of them
Yes, I'm aware of these studies.
But they make the mistake of presupposing materialist reductionism a priori, as if it were actually true.
Those who assume materialist reductionism have an entire set of questions they are incapable of answering, such as:
1) How can teleology arise from non-teleology?
2) Whence consciousness?
3) How can something come from nothing?
There is a great deal of evidence that materialism is not the best explanation for Reality. If you want to see some of this evidence, read "Mind and Cosmos" by Thomas Nagel.
> Show teleology is more than a human construction
> to explain the purposes we ourselves invented
Your question itself is enough evidence that humans didn't invent teleology, but merely recognized its existence. You are asking for a reason why. You are asking a teleological question.
Two year old children do the same thing, constantly. They ask why.
It is natural to ask why.
It is very unnatural to deny the naturalness of asking why, or to try to suppress it, as if the desire to understand why didn't exist in all of us.
Indeed, the answer to the "why" question is one of the four causes Aristotle says we must explain to understand what a thing is. We must understand the why behind it. That is the final cause, or the purpose for the thing.
What you cannot answer is this: How can final cause -- purpose or motivating reason for something -- arise out of nothing? Indeed, the intelligent person recognizes that such an idea is non-sense, and rejects it out of hand.
You get purpose, or reason for being, from a priori purpose or reason. I work in order to have money. I want money in order to buy food and shelter. I want food and shelter to continue to survive. And so on.
You never get purpose, or reason for being, from nothing.
You think by asking me to show that teleology is more than a human construction, that you will bolster your evidence for reductive materialism -- especially if I can't provide an answer that meets your satisfaction. But in so doing, you are demonstrating teleology. You have a goal. You are driving towards that goal. And your goal is self-contradictory. Your goal is to establish that teleology is somehow not Real, not inherent in the universe, and not inherent in us. But goal-based action is what teleology is all about. So you are engaging in the very behavior you are seeking to prove doesn't exist, except as a figment of our imagination.
What you cannot answer is this: How can final cause -- purpose or motivating reason for something -- arise out of nothing? Indeed, the intelligent person recognizes that such an idea is non-sense, and rejects it out of hand.
I can indeed answer this, and I will. Also, it strikes me as bad form to imply that someone who disagrees with you is unintelligent because they do not reject the ideas you want them to reject.
Now to my answer: purpose arises from lack of purpose because purpose itself is merely emergent behavior in the neurons of our brains, arising from the laws of physics.
You get purpose, or reason for being, from a priori purpose or reason. I work in order to have money. I want money in order to buy food and shelter. I want food and shelter to continue to survive. And so on.
You never get purpose, or reason for being, from nothing.
You still have to show that purpose, itself, exists in any form other than a chemical arrangement in our brains. For that matter, you have to define the "nothing" from which purpose is supposed not to have originated, before I can agree that, indeed, that sort of "nothing" is incapable of creating "purpose", or even agree that such a definition of "nothing" is tenable.
But in so doing, you are demonstrating teleology. You have a goal.
I may have a goal behind this comment, but behind that goal is an emergent phenomenon of the laws of physics, and as such, my "goal" is not incompatible with my claimed nonexistence of teleology.
Yes, I'm aware of these studies.
But they make the mistake of presupposing materialist reductionism a priori, as if it were actually true.
Those who assume materialist reductionism have an entire set of questions they are incapable of answering, such as:
1) How can teleology arise from non-teleology? 2) Whence consciousness? 3) How can something come from nothing?
There is a great deal of evidence that materialism is not the best explanation for Reality. If you want to see some of this evidence, read "Mind and Cosmos" by Thomas Nagel.