[FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

[Steve Smith]

glen wrote:
> ... Purposefully designed systems have bugs (i.e. epiphenomena, unintended, side-, additional, secondary, effects). Biological evolution does not. There is no bug-feature distinction there.

In trying to normalize your terms/conceptions to my own, am I right that 
you are implying that intentionality is required for epiphenomena 
(reduces to tautology if "unintended" is key to "epi")?

This leads us back to the teleological debate I suppose.   The common 
(vulgar?)  "evolution" talk is laced with teleological implications...  
but I think what Glen is saying here that outside the domain of 
human/sentient will/intentionality (which he might also call an 
illusion), everything simply *is what it is* so anything *we* might 
identify as epiphenomena is simply a natural consequence *we* failed to 
predict and/or which does not fit *our* intention/expectation.

We watch a rock balanced at the edge of a cliff begin to shift after a 
rain and before our very eyes, we see it tumble off the cliff edge and 
roll/slide/skid toward the bottom of the gradient but being humans, with 
intentions and preferences and ideas, *we* notice there is a human made 
structure (say a cabin) at the bottom of the cliff and we begin to take 
odds on how likely that rock is to slip/slide/roll into the cabin.   
*we* give that event meaning that it does not have outside of our 
mind/system-of-values.   The rock doesn't care that it came to final 
rest (or not) because the cabin structure in it's (final) path was 
robust enough to absorb/reflect the remaining kinetic energy in the 
rock-system and the cabin doesn't care either!   We (because we are in 
the cabin, because we built the cabin, because we are paying a mortgage 
to the bank on the cabin, because we intend to inhabit the cabin, 
because we can imagine inhabiting the cabin before/during/after the 
collisions) put a lot of meaning and import into that rock coming to 
rest against/on-top-of/beyond the cabin, but the rock and the cabin 
*don't care*.   If instead of crushing the cabin, the rock grazes it on 
the side where there was a dilapidated porch you intended to demolish, 
carrying it away and crumbling it's bits to compostable splinters in the 
ravine *below* the cabin out of your site, you might want to refer to 
the epiphenomenal nature of rolling stones as clever demolition and 
removal crews?

I'm probably just muddying the water (at the bottom of the ravine, now 
filled with cabin-deck bits).

- Steve