What's the behavior of all life? The only common denominator is that it continues itself. This points to no particular purpose for life as a whole, since simply continuing leads to no predictable conclusion or end point.
Purpose FOR life? Life is purposeful. The purpose for life, therefore, is then to have purpose. That's an easy one. It's: "everything that we see Life doing".
Why is there life on Earth? Because a life form may discern a purpose for itself? These two concepts are not related. There is life on Earth because there can be life on Earth. There is no universal agent, like a God, for which a universal purpose would have significance.
Other than in colloquial, folk-belief contexts - where it seems to be real - where can one accurately say there is purpose? Purpose did not arise as organisms got more complex. Apparant or experienced 'purpose' did, but this was illusory. Nothing reaches toward the future, everying is compelled toward that one single future that is coming, whatever our illusory sense of purpose may be. In an objective discussion 'purpose' cannot be used descriptively. There are merely events in sequence. Speaking in terms of purpose can be a deft shorthand, but it is misleading.
Purpose is misleading if you talk about it? There are "merely" events in sequence? Where can one accurately say there is purpose? There is no "particular" purpose, life just exists? So there is no way to say, with any accuracy, that time exists? Or that any event "occurs"? Time is merely events in sequence? There is no time, or any particular form of life, it all "just exists"?
Yes, its called 'life,' and when you say 'life' you are talking about the set of all things living (and possibly related systems.) This set may have different properties than the elements contained within the set. I said no such thing. Observations are all we have to base anything off of. Your argument was: Clearly a nonsequiter. Your argument assumes that we have no limitations in finding truth (or knowlege, in this case, the specific knowlege in question is "the purpose of life".) Clearly this is false, and I pointed that out. I have little idea as to what you are comparing, I see no analogy in this to my argument. You are going to have to be much more specific. -Andrew
OK, so there's this set, of all "living" things, and possibly "related" things? Why "possibly"? Why not "actually" related? The set "may" be different to the things in it? That's a mathematical, or logical conjecture of some kind? Some sort of operation? The set is the set, or it "may" be the set? And I'm in no way implying that Returning to this: Two "entirely different" uses for some tool, adaptation (use), and purpose, are like, the same thing, dude.
Thats read: the set might include life-related systems. Depending upon context, definition, etc... as opposed to: it includes things which might be related. However, this is mere semantics. Not what I said. I was specificaly talking about properties of the set and it's components. And yes, the properties may be different, as in, there exists no logical/mathmatical theorem which states that the propertie(s) of a set must be equivelent to it's componants, nor is there one which states that the propertie(s) of a set must not be equivelent to its componants. In other words: There is no way to determine the property of the set based soley upon that property of it's componants. That is the root for the fallacy of composition. Designed Purpose of a screwdriver: to screw screws. Purpose of screwdriver in example use: to harm. Harm is not the same as screwing screws. -Andrew
How do you know it was designed? What's the "designed purpose" of a rock? There are several other things you can use (adapt purposefully) a screwdriver for, apart from driving screws and stabbing. You could use it like a small lever, you could dig a hole with it, or scratch some surface, for example. It's probably a pretty BIG list, the "list of uses for a screwdriver". What's the point of pointing out that screwdrivers are "designed", or have a "designated" use?? ? That you "shouldn't" use them unless you want to deal to a screw? Nor is it the same as performing surgery.
A question on stars Hope you don't mind me asking a non-telescopt type question, but I figured the guys with the scopes would know. This evening at about 9 PM pst from CA. I observed a star on the eastern horizon theat was twinkling with very prononced colors of blue, red, off white, and regular star-like brightness. I'm 51 and have never seen anything like it. Am I over the hill, or can someone explain what I seeing?
But there is a set? This set exists? And there's no way to determine its properties, because they may be different, we can never find out? So, if there's a "set" of all living things, there is no way to tell if the properties of the set are the same as the properties of the things in it? Does Einsteinian Relativity consist of a set? Or is it just a single thing? We can't decompose his theory into different things (like organisms and genes, the process of selection and variability), so it can't be a "composition" or anything? Is there a set of "all gravitational objects"? Is there a single element, or a set of them, in the Theory of Universal Gravitation?
sorry, I first post this in the telescope forum before I noticed the last post there was a couple of weeks old.
I think we can agree that there are some things in the world that make life worth living. likewise i suppose we can agree that there would be some point at which it would be pointless to go on living. cant we simply agree then that an INDIVIDUALS purpose in living (maybe 'goal in life' would be more accurate) is to move toward those things that make life worth living and away from those things that would make it not worth living? if so then the question becomes 'is it theoretically possible for a person, deliberately or unconsciously, to act against HIS OWN purposes or is ANYTHING he does, by definition, a part of his own purposes?
That's the determinist/probabilist argument. The way I see it, Life is both. Necessarily lifeforms have to purposefully carry our their duty, but have certain degrees of freedom (constrained by the environment), in which to do this. The random bit is external pressures and changes, the deterministic bit is the "programming", or directed activity (towards survival), i.e. purpose. There's the problem or "paradox" of choice. Why do we believe we have it, and so do other living things?
so if i dont have freewill then anything i do, or rather anything that the atoms that make me up cause me to do, is, by definition part of my purpose (directed to the best of my knowledge toward those things that make life worth living and away from those things that do not)?
But ultimately it would be no different than ascribing purpose to a stone rolling down a hill. It's purpose was to reach the bottom. In fact in a determinist universe it becomes rather moot, ultimately, to think in terms of separate nouns. You just have a shifting universe of matter. Some portions of this matter have perspective and consider themselves separate.
go back and read what i wrote. i have already done away with the question of purpose. i am asking something totally different. IF we accept that our 'purpose' or rather 'goal in life' is to move toward those things that make life worth living and away from those things that do not then is it possible for a person to act against THEIR OWN purpose/goal? judging from your response i would assume that your believe it is impossible. indeed it appears that you cant even conceive of any alternate possibility except to imagine that freewill exists. you seem to be equating 'purpose/goal in life' with 'explanation for why we do everything we do'. my whole question is 'are they equal'? why do you believe they are equal?
I do believe you can do things against your own purpose goal. It gets into the issue of identity. Are we in control of ourselves or have we been hijakced to various degrees. You could almost look at it like computer viruses. If those programs are 'not me' than yes, I can do things, contorted or limited by programs that are 'not me'. I think it is obvious that I can conceive of that possibility since I keep writing from that perspective. I have been pointing out some of what I consider to be the implications of determinism. To do this I must conceive what it would be like if free will does not exist. IN a determinist universe they seem equal to me. 1) the reason something is done in a determinist universe - and even that word 'done' is questionable: it is more consistant to say, the reason something happens - is because of the exact set of momentums and causal chains precisely prior to its being done. Hallucinations of intent are not the reasons that what happens happens. They are merely biproducts that happen simultaneously. 2) In a determinist universe we would have no access to our purposes. At least no objective ones. Things happen. What their purposes are would be impossible to determine. It would be like trying to determine the motivations of clock parts. The forward looking anticipation we do would not be why the future took the shape it took. These are the viewer's hallucination's that they are in the driver's seat. It would be the past that would completely determine the next instant - on a particle level.
