How do we know that evolution was not purely accidental?

--

How do we know that evolution was not purely accidental?

--

When two cars collide, that is usually an accident. People do not customarily crash their cars into other cars. An accident is an event that is not intentional. Someone may step on your toe by accident. He will then, I hope, say, "excuse me, I did not mean to step on your toe. It was an accident".

Because so far as I know, most events have a cause. And if laws of nature are event (the evolution is a law of nature) then it has a cause.

This is an unsound argument. An accidental cause is still a cause. How can we tell the difference between an accident and 'laws of nature'? And what is the relationship between the 'laws' and human minds?

What turns to seam accidental only concerns the limited knowledge that we have on Cause itself...

This may help in understanding what an accident is: Accident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It surprises me you've never heard of accidents, though. I thought this sort of thing was universal.

That's very insightful. I've come to the same conclusion myself but have different feelings about it. The problem is that all explanations must come to an end. Everything, at some point, ends in what we call "brute facts". You could call that magic but I think the more popular philosophical term is contingency. The way I see it, neither one of us can avoid brute facts. They have to be included at some point. The only difference is that people like yourself seem to want to compress all the "magic" into a single brute fact, namely "the universe exists". Whereas people like myself are more comfortable with contingency so we grant that there are countless brute facts. I see the universe as a beast in its own right. There aren't any laws controlling the beast. The beast does whatever it does and we can describe it in hindsight.

I see the universe as a beast in its own right. There aren't any laws controlling the beast.

By "beast" do you mean that it is somehow organic in nature?

So, you don't think laws of nature exist?

That's very insightful. I've come to the same conclusion myself but have different feelings about it. The problem is that all explanations must come to an end. Everything, at some point, ends in what we call "brute facts". You could call that magic but I think the more popular philosophical term is contingency. The way I see it, neither one of us can avoid brute facts. They have to be included at some point. The only difference is that people like yourself seem to want to compress all the "magic" into a single brute fact, namely "the universe exists". Whereas people like myself are more comfortable with contingency so we grant that there are countless brute facts. I see the universe as a beast of sorts in its own right. There aren't any laws controlling the beast. The beast does whatever it does and we can describe it in hindsight.

If by the laws of nature you mean "governing forces" that "control" how things happen, no. I think that's theology in disguise and fits right in with the view of a deity handing down such decrees. I see the laws of nature as true descriptions rather than prescriptions. The universe is random and we can describe that randomness.

Some people think that if something is a law of nature then it must always happen. I think that's backward. I think that if something always happens then its a law of nature. Whether or not that something always happens or not is still contingent and not necessitated by "laws".

You should know what I mean by laws of nature, since I posted a link.