No, you fail to make a point. What is your point? Simply put, yes. But it isn't a simple mechanism, Evolution is selection, of organisms that are "better" at surviving. Evolution "makes" (or is) random changes, in organisms (via genetic variability) and in the environment (but life changes its environment too). "Better equipped" or better organised individuals have "greater chances" of surviving and reproducing - key properties of purposeful lifeforms. Looks easy, but there are feedback cycles everywhere, complicating things a whole lot.
I have two threads about this running for months, I have no desire to start explaining myself all over again here. Sorry about this, I'm out..
Because this was the most likely occurrence. I'm inclined to agree. Except for the "fun" part. If it were so, life wouldn't be so fucking miserable. And blame it on the miserable people if you will, it still is that, most of the time. I'd say "bringing about change" is the goal of life. Why do we have minds? Because minds can precalculate what is required for an instance and then it is more likely to happen. In a competitive place where constant locomotion happens, the more stable organisms are bound to eventually get to intelligence. Why do we also have emotions? Because that gives us direction. Pure mind would not have one. It can calculate and understand, but it doesn't have a purpose. So we have emotions to move us towards a purpose, just for the sake of keeping us moving. Since this intelligence happened to be born in a competitive place, we also have the desire to keep living and prevail. To bring it more in sync with the original post, I'll try putting it like this: Living beings have a purpose, to bring about change and build new systems (on all levels), tear down weaker ones... life in general expands. But the direction it takes is only "more complex" and which way it goes is random. So life in general has no purpose but that it becomes more complex. Why? Who knows. Why do people who think there's no purpose feel like telling everyone? Because they get sick of people acting as if there was one, if they see no real purpose in sight and purposes are, in the end, illusions to keep us expanding in any random direction.
"constant locomotion happens" - for no purpose? Why do organisms move around and respire (and reproduce), it just happens? What binds them to "eventually" get more anything? What's a "competitive place"? No, evolution and life are directed towards complexity and diversity. Mutations and environmental changes are "random" (but recall that lifeforms also change their environment). Evolution and Life (together), are not random (but the process of evolution is). Evolution isn't a separate process, evolution is life. Life is evolution. Life "controls". If lifeforms had no control, would there be any cell walls, or any cells? Would any compartmentalisation of any kind have "occured"? There probably isn't much purpose to this thread, given there seems to be a group firmly convinced that Life is purposeless, random, "just happens", etc. They can't explain why they think this, without then implying that there is purpose, but refuse to see that they are "just' reasoning in a circular way. If it's true, why bother even thinking about whether it is or not? Why do some think there's no purpose (in which case there's no purpose in thinking about purpose)? So why do they think about it?
Nope. Because there's energy flowing, which pushes things to move. Because it is the way we can, under current conditions (Sun bursting the energy, the atmosphere being what it is), stay stable. Yes. We might as well have been something which does anything else, if things had gone differently. Erm... eventully? What do you mean? A place where there's a competition... I'm don't need to elaborate, do I? There're systems here which make use of energy to stay stable. So we compete for energy. Well, that's up to you to prove (at least to a level). I said that life gets more complex in a random direction. You claim it is directed to be more complex (that is what you meant, right?). So who do you claim directs life? We are systems. Systems, which are all established as life. We, as beings, though, so far have had no control over our cell walls or cells. It HAS happened. And since it gives an advantage, it stays. Control is kinda the wrong word. We didn't control them to be this way. Or do you wish to argue that we somehow designed cells ourselves? On that note, we can do that now. Bigger systems with intelligence can comprehend some systems, and change them. But in what direction? We can only imagine a purpose for that, since there isn't a mandatory one. *sigh* take it a little easier, why don't you?? I'm sure we can discuss it in more detail with less questions at a time.
I'm asking what you meant with: Then this: "a competition"; something like the way fire "competes"? If you lit both ends of a strip of paper, the fires would compete with each other? What do you mean "we compete" for energy? How can we compete, you mean like a fire or a chemical reaction does? Is competition for resources also without purpose?
Specific animals and plants can have their own purposes, but what is the purpose of life in general? It has none.
You think I should ask them maybe? Since they are not, by definition, living things (hydrogen and oxygen and water), they can't have any intentions. What was your intention in asking a lame question?
In general, if living things have individual purposes, then living things have (Life has) purpose. False conclusion, obviously. You're fooling yourself - how can things have purpose, and have no purpose?
Well, it means there's constant change. So systems get destroyed, created... lots of change. But comparing the amount of energy/work new systems require before they come to exist by chance and the amount of energy/work new systems require if they're precalculated, precalculating events on any level will be more useful. Which is why sentience is developping so well and the general rule of "more advanced beings have a better nervous system" seems to hold. Like, think of natural selection vs writing our own genes. Natural selection happens because any random mutation can happen, but the unbeneficial ones get left out over long time... you know the story. But think of how much energy it takes, and compare it to if we can create new various productive combinations fast, precalculating them. But what kind of new genes should we use? Enter chance again, what we try. Only the systems have become even more complex and stakes are therefore higher. Edit - I think I'm getting an idea of what you mean. You mean the meaning of life, that consists of living beings. We only count our own organisms as living beings. We have our own desires of living, since beings without the desire to live, obviously died. Basically, you only mean life in the biological sense. Not life as in "everything in the univese". Since we live in the universe, we (at least me, and probably some others) seem to include in our lives everything around us, not only the living. Since we (me, and still some others) consider ourselves more or less machines, parts of that universe. If I got that right, then yes, it really is to thrive, adabt and become more diverse. And I don't think most people would argue with your point.
Well, I assume that everyone understands the difference between alive and not-alive. Life requires the existence of non-life (a stage to "live" on). Those who respond with a standard "Life has no purpose" riposte, must be stuck on some idea that occurred to them when they learned something about Evolution: it's random, chance mutation. There's a bit more to it than genes getting altered - whatever the mechanism is when this "happens".
I am looking at it from a philosophical point of view, and can siscern no puropse. I have nothing to sell, nothing to prove. my only motivation being to seek the truth. You say " There's a bit more to it than genes getting altered...." What is the "bit more " you are thinking about and what brearing does it have on whether life has a purpose ?
When people talk about the meaning of life, we think as utterly deep as we can. The existence of everything we see in life. Not just living beings. When you make it about just the process of life, it kind of loses a lot of the deep and mystical feeling... yeah, we survive and create diversity so that we can adabt and survive... But when asked about the meaning of life, a guy may still think, "Why? Why do we follow that endless trail? Do we have a goal we want to reach? Why do we keep adapting?" Sure it's the desire to adabt, but... what for? What's the purpose? Life seems to create a loop of creation and not offer a specific goal, meaning the further goal can be anything. So it feels like a means without a purpose. Hence the feeling of no purpose. Uh... that make sense? Anything important?
Evolution is the chance mutation of genes, and it's the selection of individuals with "better" genes (the "bit more"). Better genes are a relative phenomenon. If certain individuals live for longer, then they're better equipped. Selection is "purposeful", mutation isn't. Life has "a" purpose, therefore, which is to evolve and become more diverse, and to behave purposefully, just like you are doing right now. P.S. This motivation you say you have - does it seem meaningful or purposeful? Yes, maybe, but the thread title is "The purpose Life has"; Life needs a planet to live on (and presumably the planet and the solar system are here because of the galaxy, and so the entire universe), but we tend to consider Life separately, even though we know it depends on everything else.
Haha, I think I can understand both sides of it now (maybe there was a third side that I missed). But when a guy is asked what the meaning of life is, he'll think of HIS life. Everything he knows about the life he's had, and the world he lives in. If he thinks in terms of universe and matter and basic philosophical concepts, he won't know you're talking about biological life in general. edit - So the question now should be... why do we need to adabt?
Your mistake is to assume that we need to adappt. The process is random and we have failures as well a successes
The "process" of biological evolution is random? What is the process of selection? Why are organisms selected and how? Selection is random too, huh? Whether "we" need to adapt or not, "we" most certainly do adapt. Mistakes, assumptions and "needs", are things we project on the process to explain it.
