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PrawnOfFate comments on Wrong Questions - Less Wrong
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There is some evidence of that within the universe, but it is not a conceptual identity. The big Why question could still have an answer that is irreducibly teleological. The universe as a whole has to have some unique properties.
Note that I think of teleology as a subset of causation rather than as coextensive with causation.
I don't think I can imagine how this could work. A teleological answer to "why does the universe exist?" implies (at least to me) some goal-seeking agent that makes the universe happen, or orients it towards some particular end. But making stuff happen or pushing it in a particular direction is causality.
I agree, but I don't see why the universe would have to be uniquely irreducibly teleological instead of, say, uniquely acausal (being the only entity that just springs into existence without a cause).
Thinking in a certain way doesn't prove anything. The evidence for teleology being reducible to causality comes from within the universe, like the evidence for everything being finite, or for everything being contained in some larger structure.
If you canno explain how agent-based causally-reducible teleology is the only possible kind, irreducible teleology remains a conceptual possibility.
I doesn't. That is only one of the unique properties it could have.
Yes. It's always possible for me to be simply wrong; something might exist even if I think that something is logically impossible. But (1) by induction from within-the-universe evidence, I find it very unlikely, and (2) even if I wanted to include irreducible teleology in my model, I wouldn't know how. So it's expedient for me to treat it as an impossibility. I'm content to agree to disagree with you on this one!
That doesn't have any bearing at all. An inhabitant of an infinite universe could notice that every single thing in it is finite, but would be completely wrong in assuming that the universe they are in is finite.
You take your assumption --which is presumable not justfiable apriori-- that the past causes the future, and invert it.
This sounds like just as much of an a priori assumption as my working assumption that it does have some bearing.
Yes, induction can lead to incorrect conclusions. But this is not a very strong argument against any given induction.
I change my existing model so that the future causes the past within my model? I'm not sure how to do that either. I picture flipping the direction of every arrow in my causal graph, but that doesn't introduce any irreducible teleology; I'm still left with an ordinary causal graph when I finish.