Leonid

The property of rationality needed to form a concept of man. But it would be wrong to define each and every man only by this essential property. Rationality is a property which essentially differentiates humans from other animals, but it is not the only distinguished property. Humans differ from other species by appearance, anatomy, physiology etc...If one ignores these properties, he won't be able to define mentally ill as human.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/students-riot-in-london-over-tuition-fee-rises/19710751 Thousands of British students went on massive somewhat violent rally to protest against government’s plans to triple tuition fees. London police promptly closed them without water and toilet facilities for many hours in central London, treating them like a rightless cattle. I assume that this is the price which one has to pay in order to exercise the “right” for education. The premise which is beyond of this ‘right” is that some group of people , students, are entitled for the products of the effort of other people, tutors, and the reward for this effort is arbitrary defined by government, in other words, by force. The only possible outcome of such a philosophy is an abrogation of individual rights. As in economics fiat monies drive away the real ones, so in politics fiat positive “rights” drive away the real inalienable rights. The only criterion left is a brutal force, employed by government, students, or any other gang “When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone’s claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one’s wishes are limited only by the power of one’s gang. In order to survive under such a system, men have no choice but to fear, hate, and destroy one another” (The Roots of War,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 37) What students overlooked is that in the situation when government, that is-a force, determines tuition fees, both students and tutors are rendered rightless. They are functioning not by right but by government permission which could be arbitrary changed any time, as it happening now, or revoked altogether. Therefore the students who believe in their inherent “right” for cheap or free education deserve to be treated as cattle. The tutors, who failed to teach their students that there is no such a right, don’t deserve any increase. If students and tutors want to regain their rights as a free people, they should start direct negotiations with Universities’ governing bodies and to keep the government out of equation.

If nature dictates and you don't oblige...well, nature will take its course. No living organism, except man, can contradict objective reality. Man can, if he is willing to pay the price which is oblivion. Such an action would defeat life as standard of value and therefore immoral

A government is an institution of coercion. Its only proper function is to put the use of retaliatory force under restriction of objective law. Business belongs to the realm of mind, not force. Government has no business in runing businesses.If government runs a business on absolutely voluntary basis, it becomes a corporation or NGO and stops to act qua government.

Hotu Matua, on 19 October 2010 - 08:34 PM, said: "Can A make a deal (a contract) with B, when B has the monopoly of force?" Obviously not. Such a contract would be nil and void as any contract made under duress. However even in present semi-free countries no government has a monopoly on usage of force. In America alone millions of people are legally armed and, besides, one may use the force even without arms. From the Objectivist point of view a government doesn't have a monopoly on force, its only function is to put the use of force under restriction of OBJECTIVE law. Since such a law pertains to the nature of man as rational being, it should be identical to any agency-A, B, C etc...If any agency forces people to accept health or any other insurance, it would be an initiation of force and therefore violation of objective law. Proper government should protect the people and prohibit such an action. The fact that such an arbitrary legislation is a result of democratic process- a vote-is irrelevant. Nobody has a right to vote freedom out.

Cynicism, uncertainty, and fear are the insignia of the culture which they (liberals) are still dominating by default. And the only thing that has not rusted in their ideological equipment, but has grown savagely brighter and clearer through the years, is their lust for power—for an autocratic, statist, totalitarian government power. The New Fascism: “Rule by Consensus,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 209. In full accordance with Ayn Rand’s prediction we are living now in the Age of Fear. This is best expressed by the popular catch phrase that became the motto of our times: “better safe than sorry”. For the rational person this formula simply means that one should take precautions in order to avoid clear and present dangers. However in the modern society of unreason this expression became an equivalent of faceless, unsubstantial fear. Such a fear could be alleviated only by omniscient omnipotential and omnipresent entity which previously was known as god and now as all-protective semi-totalitarian statist government. From the days of Hobbs and Machiavelli the power lust autocrats knew only too well that the best way to keep the populace at bay is to install the baseless fear in their minds. After this simple transplant procedure the government can do whatever it pleases with the people in order to protect them from GM products, passive smoke, cell phone radiation, global warming and the conquest of the West by Sharia Law. 177 pages of the report “Sharia’s threat to America” are devoted to this single goal- to scare people half-dead, to make them to believe that they may find themselves under heavy boot of Sharia law faster than one can say shahada, that tomorrow all the people in the West will wake up in the “brave new world “ ruled by Islam. And why should we believe it? Because Omar Ahmad, founder of CAIR had stated in 1998 that: “If you choose to live here [in America]… you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam. Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.” While a fictional interpretation of Islam is used to filter the reality of the Muslim world and its undercurrents, the West and America in particular will be compromised and ultimately overthrown…” Observe that he never mentioned by what means less than 1% of American Muslim population can overthrow the mightiest State in the world. A rational person would regard such a statement as silly wishful thinking, another story taken from the “Thousand and one night” book. However, reason became very scarce commodity in the West. Chapter 8 of the report states: The growth of Muslim populations in the West augurs the inexorable spread of shariah into Western societies — less by violence than by dint of natural procreation, unchecked immigration, and the incessant demands of an aggressive minority that refuses to assimilate. Logic should tell us, then, that the growth of shariah in the West threatens Western-style liberty: threatens freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and upends religious and sexual equality. [p.130] “In fact, by manipulating perceptions at the national strategic level about the nature of shariah, the enemy can actually exercise profound influence over the nature and adequacy of the defense mounted. That is most especially true of actions needed to contend with the Muslim Brotherhood’s stealth jihad – even though we know its avowed purpose is aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.” {p.133} In other words-be scared, be very scared! Fear paralyzes mind. Nobody asks or answer the question how the tiny minority of Muslims could ever “ exercise profound influence over the nature and adequacy of the defense mounted.” The similarity of this report with the “Protocols of Zion's Elders” is overwhelming. Their common denominator is a paranoid fear of conspiracy. And, as in the case of “Jewish conspiracy” the populace demand actions. They demand to ban and to banish, to restrict and to deport, to close Muslim institutions and in general to treat all Muslims as like as they forfeited all their rights, as some people, even among those who fancy themselves as Objectivists, request. The statist government would be only too happy to show compliance. The words of Thomas Jefferson “…that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right…” mean nothing to them. If global warming doesn’t provide sufficient excuse to eliminate the last remnants of Western liberties, then Sharia “ threat” definitely does. Sharia indeed may overtake the West, but only by default, that is-if the West driven by irrational fear will forfeit its freedom.

If you have been paying attention, you will know that it is not actually a mosque. If the sponsors can raise the money (which remains to be seen), it would contain a prayer room, but also a restaurant, a 500-seat theatre, basketball courts and a swimming pool that would be open to all. It would not have a minaret, but there would be a memorial to the 3 000 people (in cluding 300 Muslims) who died in the 9/11 attacks. Now, what is wrong about it?

"You're not describing metaphysical subjectivity at all. You're talking about different things." I'm describing self-awareness which is metaphysically given subjective experience.

"Emotions are not metaphysically subjective for the reason that they are not purely mental phenomena but have corresponding bodily states" Emotions are primarily automatic value-judgments which depend on implicit values previously internalized by sub consciousness. They are pure subjective phenomena which may not relate to any existent of reality, like love of god for example. Feelings, like pain do pertain to bodily states. However they are not result of objective process of perception, but introspection. Sometimes they do correspond to the physical processes in the body, but some times not, like in case of phantom and psychosomatic pain. In any case the awareness of feeling itself occurs in mind. Dreams don't correspond to any events of reality. There are many other purely subjective mental phenomena, like false memories, emotions invoked by music, etc…The fundamental difference between subjective and objective experience is that in case of objective experience the source of it is objective reality; in case of subjective experience the source is the subject himself

"Anyway, the point is one cannot jump out of one's own mind to share a percept either, which leads to the conclusion that feelings are not unlike percepts and percepts are also subjective." No. That would be an example of treatment of data, obtained by extraspection, percepts, as introspectual data, feelings. While percepts pertain to objective reality, feelings pertain to the subjective realm of human mind. The confusion between these two realms is the source of subjectivism . This is exactly the fallacy of Kant and Marx. Ayn Rand in "Romantic Manifesto" describes how perception of the same object causes different emotions in different people. If feeling were objective, then the same percept would cause the same emotion in every human being. Evidently this is not a case.

First, one should distinguish between feelings and emotions. Some feelings are sensory input from the body itself like pain; they could be assessed only by introspection and therefore are subjective. This is true that pain has objective physical basis (not always), but the feeling of pain cannot be described in objective terms to another person. This is "first person experience". If I tell you “I have toothache"-you can understand it to the some degree only if you yourself had such an experience in the past. Emotions are output, an automatic value-judgment. One can analyze the source of one's emotions, in spite that this process could be very difficult and complicated even in regard to oneself, let alone analyzing of somebody else's emotions. However the feeling itself is also first person experience and couldn't be described objectively to another person. If I'll tell to somebody “I feel fear", and this person never has had such an experience, he simply wouldn't understand me. The point is that each and every objective experience obtained by extraspection pertains to the facts of objective reality and could be proved ostensively. Feelings and emotions pertain to subjective reality, Qualia, and cannot be proved as facts. One may measure a temperature of the air, and this is objective fact of reality. However, two different people may feel differently in the same weather, one may feel warm and another cold. The reference to the temperature would be irrelevant; it will not change the feelings. This is not for nothing people have great difficulties to communicate their feelings and emotions.

Subjective knowledge is a knowledge which obtained by means of introspection, that is-the knowledge of one own consciousness, the content of one own mind, Qualia. Objective knowledge is a knowledge which obtained by means of extraspection, that is-perception of objective reality and integration of perceptual data into concepts. Both means of knowledge are valid. However, subjectivism is a notion that knowledge of reality could be obtained by means of introspection and the knowledge of consciousness by means of extraspection. In other words subjectivism means acceptance of primacy of consciousness. In Ayn Rand's words "Subjectivism is the belief that reality is not a firm absolute, but a fluid, plastic, indeterminate realm which can be altered, in whole or in part, by the consciousness of the perceiver—i.e., by his feelings, wishes or whims." (“Who Is the Final Authority in Ethics?” The Objectivist Newsletter, Feb. 1965, 7)

Yes. The main question which Objectivism asks about good and therefore valuable is “good for what or for whom?" Suppose, you know that your smocking habit will reduce your life span say by 10%, but you enjoy your smock, it gives you a pleasure. In other words you trade the quantity of your life for its quality. As long as you made such a conscious decision, pack of cigarettes is a value for you. But suppose you've changed your mind and now you're smocking only because you are an addict. In such a case there is no value in smocking and you should kick the habit out as soon as possible.

The concept of focus represents central part of Objectivist philosophy of mind. Focus means the state of a goal-directed mind committed to attaining full awareness of reality. Focus is also defined as primary choice on which all other choices depend. In the book on Objectivism Dr.Peikoff wrote: “The choice to focus is man’s primary choice. Until a man is in focus his mental machinery is unable to think, judge or evaluate. The choice to throw the switch is thus the root choice on which all the other choices depend” (1) This proposition represents some logical contradiction. Presumably a man who has to make this primary choice is not in focus-otherwise he wouldn’t need to make such a choice. To choose volitionally to be in focus, one has first to recognize his condition-to be aware that he’s not in focus. Then one has to understand that this condition is undesirable and he would be better off if he’s in focus. This is value-judgment. Then he has to be willing to change this condition and to decide to be in focus. This is the decision-making process. Then he makes a volitional mental effort and thus becomes in focus. All those actions require a very high level of awareness. The obvious question is how the person, who’s out of focus and hasn’t made his primary choice yet, would be able to perform such a formidable feat. It would be as the drunk in the middle of an alcohol induced mental fog would suddenly decide not to drink anymore. To make a volitional decision to be in focus a man has to be in full focus already. Therefore this act cannot be primary volitional choice. This proposition also contradicts the collection of empirical data about human mental development. It’s well known fact that the most acute mental focus we have as infants and toddlers. In just few years we acquire and process enormous amounts of knowledge. By age 3-4 most children learn to speak fluently meaning they’re able to form concepts. However it would be bizarre to claim that infants and toddlers make the conscious volitional primary choice to be in focus. I propose to resolve this contradiction by suggesting that focus is not a volitional choice but a property of consciousness like red colour is the property of tomatoes. To be aware is to be aware of some thing. Without focus there cannot be any consciousness. Volitionally man can only unfocus himself, “to throw of the switch” so to speak, but even that he cannot do completely without the help of drugs or alcohol. Otherwise how such an “unfocused” person is able to go about his daily life? Even simple activities like shopping, driving a car and holding the most simplistic job require abilities to make choice and value-judgment. Focus is inherent in the consciousness and we only can volitionally change its degree (to be more in focus or less).If it's so then how can we call this condition primary choice? To make any choice (including to be in focus) one already has to have some degree of focus and that sounds like circular argument. Infants who unable to speak and function on perceptual level cannot make any volitional choices. However they are observable in very high focus from practically day one of their life. During first 2 years of life a child absorbs and process more information then during the rest of his life. For example an infant can learn numerous languages without difficulty-a task which is very difficult in adult life. Infants obviously conscious beings but I don't believe they can make volitional (even implicit) choice to be in focus. Only when they become older they able volitionally to alter the level of their focus I think that volitional choice is always teleological one-one want to achieve certain goal. When such a choice is made then level of focus will adjust itself to the requirement of the needed action. This adjustment not necessary has to be volitional. What I mean that if one makes volitional choice to be in focus he has to have already quite high level of awareness. The focus itself has two properties: Intensity and selectivity. Observe animal behavior: for them (especially for hunted animals) to be in focus is a question of survival and not of choice. The level of animal focus intensity is high but selectivity is low-they aware of every thing all the time. The animal with higher level of awareness has better choice to survive and transfer this trait to it offspring. Evolutionally it may be the way to reach the level of human consciousness. Adult humans cannot be focused on every thing all the time. Their focus thus becomes selective. Our sub consciousness may adjust the intensity level of the focus needed to obtain some particular goal. Obviously the level of the focus needed to get ice-cream is different from the one needed to write philosophical treatise. In other words intensity of the focus is determined by the chosen purpose. The choice of the purpose is the primary choice. Volitionally man can only unfocus himself and also not for a long time if he wants to live. Volition is a faculty of consciousness which enable as to make choices. Animals and small children don’t really make any choices-they however may pursue certain goals on preconceptual level. ”The preconceptual level of consciousness is non-volitional; “Volition begins with the first syllogism” (2) The act of focusing one’s consciousness is volitional. “Existentially the choice to focus or not is the choice to be consciousness or not” (3) Therefore the act of focusing is volitional act and cannot be done on preconceptual unconscious pre-focus implicit level. That why I claim that focus cannot be primary choice since choice requires conceptual focused level of consciousness as its follows from the above quoted statements. My proposal is that focus is an attribute of any consciousness and its intensity and selectivity is a function of the goal or purpose needed to be achieved. Goal-driven behavior is not necessarily conceptual but the choice to focus qua choice has to be. Animals don't make any choices but they do face life and death alternatives. Their actions are goal-driven when survival is the primary goal. The difference between goal and purpose is that purpose is consciously chosen goal. Infants who act on preconceptual level also don't make any choices. They have desires which are driven by pleasure-pain mechanism. Their behavior is also goal-driven: to avoid pain and to obtain pleasure. As we have established, both animals and infants have the ability to focus without choice. What than the mechanism of focus of preconceptual mind? In my opinion it is a goal itself; the implicit desire to achieve something activates focusing. In adult humans unfocused mind is also functioning on preconceptual level. Unfocused mind is unconscious mind in human conceptual sense. Such a mind doesn't possess volition. Therefore prefocused non-volitional mind unable to make any choices, let alone any primary choice. It's no such a thing as implicit choice since choice presupposes reasoning. Only desire or goal setting can be implicit. One may feel implicit desire for ice-cream but when one has to choice which ice-cream to buy one has to employ his conceptual faculty. In conclusion: I’ve shown that unfocused mind acts on preconceptual level and doesn't possess the faculty of volition. Volition and choice are attributes of conceptual mind. Therefore in logic unfocused mind cannot make the choice to be in focus This is definition of choice from Brainy Dictionary:" Choice-Act of choosing; the voluntary act of selecting or separating from two or more things that which is preferred; the determination of the mind in preferring one thing to another; election. “Choice’s characterization of action is that it's a volitional action.” Aside from involuntary responses, such as bodily reflexes, all human actions, mental and physical, are chosen by man. As Leonard Peikoff once observed, the man who is completely out of focus has abdicated his power to choice. Choice to focus is not reflex and qua choice it has to be volitional action. To say that this choice is prerequisite to all other choices is like to say that volitional action is prerequisite of volitional action which is infinite regress. Choice has to be volitional. This is metaphysical base of free will and freedom. Non-volitional choice is contradiction in terms .Precisely because one cannot choose without choosing something, focus cannot be primary choice. The concept of primary choice belongs to the category of concepts known as primary or first cause-like primary mover, intelligent design, Big Bang, God etc…First cause allegedly causes everything of its kind or everything at all. However this concept has intrinsic contradiction. If primary cause is the cause of everything, then it has to be the cause of itself and that leads to infinite regress. If primary choice is the cause of all other choices then what will be the cause of primary choice? Evidently it has to be another primary choice and so on ad infinitum. Since infinite regress is logical fallacy, the concept of primary choice cannot be valid. Suppose X="Choice" Y="Choice to focus" It is clear that Y is included in the genus X. X(X1,X2,X3.......Xn) and therefore cannot be prerequisite of X since Y is part of X. Actually the proper way to express it would be X=choice; X(f)=Choice to focus. X(f)<X and cannot precede X. If X (f) is cause of X then X (f) is cause of X (f) since X (f) is part of X and that means infinite regress. If X (f) is not part of X then A is not A which is violation of the Law of Identity. In both cases we face irresolvable contradictions. The only way to resolve this contradiction is to postulate that primary choice is axiomatic like existence or consciousness. But this also cannot be validated since primary choice qua choice is not metaphysically given. It’s man-made act of human volition. Focus is not matter of choice but intrinsic attribute of human consciousness. Every man possesses focus and maintains the level of its intensity by choosing his goals. The possible trigger of the process of focusing is goal-setting. In other words focus is teleological, goal-driven concept. That can explain how animals and infants are focusing. That also may explain how unfocused adult human mind which functions on preconceptual level become focused. Volition is ability to set or reset goals according to their priorities. Conscious mind is always in focus in various degrees Degree and selectivity of his focus is secondary to man's goals. Without goal or purpose man needs neither focus nor consciousness. I claim that focus cannot be primary choice, prerequisite of all other choices-for the obvious reason I've described above. This is the summary of my position: a. The concept of primary choice is invalid since it leads to infinite regress . b. Focus is not a choice; it is prerequisite of any choice. c. Focus is inherent, inalienable property of human consciousness and qua focus doesn’t require prerequisite. d. Volition is ability to set or reset goals by choice according to man's priorities. e. Focus has properties: intensity and selectivity which are goal-driven. References 1. Leonard Peikoff “Objectivism: The philosophy of Ayn Rand” 1991, pg 59 2. Ayn Rand “For the New Intellectual”, 9; pb14. 3. Ayn Rand” The Objectivist ethics, Virtue of selfishness”, 13pb21. 1.

This hierarchy apparently is a feature of every living being. See: Biology & Philosophy © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007 10.1007/s10539-007-9079-5 Nano-intentionality: a defense of intrinsic intentionality W. Tecumseh Fitch1 (1) School of Psychology, St Mary’s Quad, University of St Andrews, Rm 2.57, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9JP, UK

cmdownes" Can you expand a bit on the distinction between internal causation and external causation?" Suppose you shoot an animal and it died. In such a case it's obvious that the bullet that killed this animal is the external deterministic cause of the animal's death. But suppose you didn't kill the animal but only wounded it, and the animal finally recovered. It would be preposterous to claim that your bullet is the cause of the healing process. Such a process is self-initiated goal orientated action driven by internal final cause, that is-animal's survival. Sun light is not a cause of snake's action. The cause is internal, but a snake uses sun light in order to achieve its own goals. Suppose there is no more sun light. In such a case most of organisms who depend on it as a source of energy will perish, but some will mutate and use alternative sources of energy. Evolution therefore is also driven by internal cause.

energy flow and life.pdf

Here you refer to the question of life's origin. In fact you are asking how abiotic determined system became a living organism which is driven by self-causation. As far as I know we don't have full satisfactory answer, although some researches invoke law of thermodynamics (see attached file below:"energy flow and life"). Self-organization is not a miracle as well as self-causation which is emergent property of the living organism. In any case, in the moment of formation of such a system it becomes closed to efficient causation. (Rosen, Life itself.)

"For instance, let us say that I leave some algae in a petri dish with bright lights and some food. Overnight, the algae consumes the food and the number of organisms doubles. At least intuitively, this seems like it should be a decent example of goal-directed action. But what's the alternative confronted by the algae? " Modify your experiment. Put the food only in one half of Petri dish, in the second half put the sand. Leave algae in both sides. You will see that algae's "choice" is food and not sand because consumption as such is not its goal. Goal is survival and betterment of an organism. It doesn't matter that such a "choice" is not volitional. It's a result of algae's self-initiated action. The same action on conceptual level of self-awareness becomes volitional choice.

Antecedent means a preceding occurrence, cause, or event.If system itself initiates the change of its status from A to B then you cannot define such a system as its own antecedent cause. The cause of such a change is not a preceding occurence but the system itself.

"No, the fact that the influences are not external does not mean that there are no antecedent causes, antecedent is not synonymous with external, it only means that the state of the system at a certain moment is determined by the state of that system at a previous moment." True. And this is exactly what self-causation means. The current state of the system is determined by the previous state of the same system. System itself initiates the change of its state.

This is true on regard to the process of self-organization of abiotic systems, but we discuss here a living organism. In such an organism the interaction between local parts which creates emergent properties is self-initiated process. Especially it is true in the case of self-organization of neuronal nets which eventually results in the new emergent property-mind. I highly recommend to read this article: "Nano-intentionality: a defense of intrinsic intentionality" by W. Tecumseh Fitch1, which describes such a process in details. (Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007 10.1007/s10539-007-9079-5, School of Psychology,). The forming of snow crystals is not a process of self-organization but rather bottom up fabrication since such a process doesn't involve dynamic interaction between components. As J. B. Edelmann Æ M. J. Denton observed: "In the assembly of a jigsaw no new‘‘order for free’’ is generated by the interactions between the pieces—the only order that emerges was already explicit in the shapes of the pieces themselves...Organisms and their component self-organizing systems are as Wiley and Brooks (1982) comment, ‘‘open ended in terms of energy and closed in terms of information and cohesion...the self organized complexity in these cases is arising solely from the rules that define lower level interactions—there is no external input of information! Moreover, in the case of protein folding(Anfinsen 1973), aster formation (Nedelec et al. 1997) or insect nest formation (Camazine et al. 2001) these can be observed in vitro in isolated systems consisting only of the constituents of the self-organizing system itself where all environmental physical or chemical influences have been excluded." (Biol Philos, 2007; 22:579–601). In other words the absence of any antecedent cause of biological self-organization has been proved in in vitro experiments.

Evolution and self-organization are two different processes. "that self-organization and natural selection are two different mechanisms for generating biological complexity—self-organization providing adaptive order ‘‘for free,’’ natural selection generating ‘‘hard earned’’ adaptive order which is decidedly ‘‘not for free’’—yet see the two mechanisms as essentially complementary". (Weber and Depew 1996; Kauffman 1993: 409; Camazine et al. 2001: ch. 3; Ruse 2003: ch. 9; Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1999: 115–116; Conway Morris 2003: 204–205). Evolution is determined by the abilities of organism to survive, but these abilities are emergent properties of the living organism. Properties themselves are emerging in the process of self-organization which by definition doesn't have antecedent cause. Evolution is a process of selection of properties which are most suitable for the goal of survival in the given enviroment.So selection of properties is determined by enviroment, but not properties themselves. In fact, evolution is a process which selects goals on which further generations of the given organism would act.In other words it is a mechanism which allows projection of the goal (survival, betterment) into the future. This is exactly a process in which efficient cause becomes final cause. Therefore evolution itself is a process of self-initiated goal orientated response to the environmental challenges which is driven by self-causation. Environment doesn't cause to organism to developed certain properties, organism does it all by itself.