The purpose of life is for you to find the purpose of life, and then at age 52 you finish with the last half and find more purpose, and even at your death bed you will never find the purpose but you will hopefully find the closest thing...an eventuality. If there was one purpose of life, it would be fucked. My grandma died yesterday, 92.
All of these are purposeless. There was no intent, nor goal behind any of them. You seem to be now confusing purpose, with 'event.' I did not intend to sit on the calculator, I did not intend to make it excecute commands, I did not intend to sit on a knife, did not intend to bleed, nor was there intent in being hit by the rake. I fail to see how you view these events as having purpose: Strawman. I never say that all the componants have no purpose, indeed I previously stated that many of the componants have purpose. The flaw in your reasoning which I refer to is: just because all the componants of a whole have a purpose, does not mean that the whole itself has a purpose, (to do so, as I have stated many times, is a fallacy of composition.) How do you come to the conclusion that life (as a whole) has a purpose? Fallacy of composition. Every lifeform may have its own purpose, but that has no impact on the purpose (or lack thereof) of life as a whole. I can't make any conclusion at all. Unlike Einstiens theory, every argument you have presented so far does not lead to your conlcusion, and furthermore, there is no evidence present on the meaning of life. As I said, even if it was absolute truth that every life-form has a purpose, or many purposes, that would still not proove that life itself has a purpose. Again, a perfect example of a fallacy of compositon. No one has to read it for the information to be stored there. To claim that they do (need to be read to have information) would be an epericistic viewpoint (and something for a different topic.) If the book is a pile of ash, then it is a pile of ash, and not a book, and obviously has no information (in the sense we are speaking of). That said, this is leading nowhere (no point in debating the purpose of books when life is at stake.) -Andrew
You had no intention of sitting on the chair? Hang on, what's an event? Do you mean something that happens which is beyond your control? Like a supernova or earthquake? You had no control over sitting on the calculator? But you did, you had control over the event of sitting (on the chair). But you intended to sit on the chair, which turned out to be a chair+calculator. You don't specifically say "all of the components", you say "Life" has no purpose. Is Life "all of the components" of Life, or not? No, actually it's an example of you using something called "fallacy of compositon", irrationally. If you see another purposefully behaving "thing", and it's something alive, this supports the theory that live things behave purposefully - this isn't fallacious reasoning at all. As far as we can tell, Einstein's theory is correct. You are saying that because we haven't observed "the whole thing", it must be a fallacy of composition. So is the conclusion something like: "Life has no purpose, except that all the examples of it that I've encountered, appear to have purpose"...?
I did, perhaps the 1 intended action of the list. However, this has no bearing on my argument. Yes, but it was not my intent of sitting on the calculator. And by event, I simply mean something that happens (beyond my control or not.) In order for their to be purpose behind something, there must be intent. No intent of sitting on calculator. The intent of sitting on chair is irrelevant. Just because an action has intent, does not mean that all, or any, of it's consequences were intended. Hence, just because an action is done in purpose, does not mean it's consequences have purpose (though they may.) See above paragraph. Does it matter? All atoms are invisible tothe naked eye. Humans are made up of atom componants. Therefore humans are invisible to the naked eye? Or consequently, if I say: "Humans are visible to the naked eye" would you conclude "All h humans componants (and therefroe atoms) are invisible to the naked eye"? No. Just because the componants of life have meaning, does not mean that life itself has meaning or vice-versa. This is the bases of the fallacy of composition which you are commiting. Please, look up the term.
I agree. From a naturalistic viewpoint, life is an accident, and as was discussed, accidents are not seen as purposeful. It's like asking what purpose rain had for falling this morning (in other words, what was the desired end for which rain fell?); it just happened as a result of the water cycle. And doesn't declaring X as the purpose of life require a value judgement if a purpose is an "intended or desired result"? Is survival and "evolving into more complexity" really valuable?
How do you get from "behave" to "purpose"? You seem to be under the assumption that one leads directly to the other - or that the former can not happen without the latter. Please can you clarify how you make this leap? Your thought process?
Nice to see you are a comedian.by the manner in which you address me above. Not particularly good but a vast improvement on your confused thoughts on life. Life is. I behave. I could not behave if I lacked life but to say that life, itself, behaves is wrong. Life is a process with no discernible purpose. Name -calling is something that goes on in the playground. So do not expect to be treated as an adult, unless you behave like one.
I'm interested in what that might be. Can you tell me? What is the difference between the purpose of live things, and the purpose of life? And I say your reasoning and your argument are false. Since we can only see Life as its individual componentry.
That's it exactly. Have you ever read Voltaire's Candide ? In it professor Pangloss constantly explains to Candide that everything that happens is for the best. Taking your example of rain, Pangloss would have said that god made rain because he knew plants needed it to grow or that fish needed water. Voltaire was having a go at Leibniz's theory that god made the best of all possible worlds, the latter's attempt to explain away the presence of evil in the world.
Holistically speaking. Actually it's a lot of processes together with a planet (and a solar system). ...except for Biology and Behaviour Science, and Information Theory, and Medicine. And Pretty Much Everything We Do.
You get funnier each time you post. Brilliant of you to address me as my leg. Shows you have an original mind; so original that no one can keep up with you. As I suggested, you are never going to understand what is being said to you, however clearly itis explained. So please feel free to carry on without me. It will save you having to think up hilarious names by which to address me. You need all the time you can get to think .
Given some of the wording both you and Myles used it sounded like a deterministic universe was an assumption. Whether this is correct or not we can continue discussing it in that context. Yes, this seems to be inherent in a determinist position to me. Choice and purpose are illusions. Things happen. A purpose cannot be chosen. It would be determined by genes and environment, so no selection out of options can take place. Yes, it gets speculative here. It does seem like one could have complicated life forms that did not have subjective experiences that led to illusions like purpose and choosing a goal and so on. Very mechanical robots, but ones of great complexity. (It seems possible we will create such things in the near future. Though even if it passes a Turing test and it makes claims about its own subjective experience, how will we know it actually has them?) Is there an advantage to having these illusions? - I mean in evolutionary terms. Or is it simply a biproduct as you described it? I can see some problems for subjectivity consciousness in evolutionary terms. A more machine-like human would be 'willing' to do anything - or better put "would simply do whatever was necessary" - to protect its offspring. No amount of torture could reveal their hiding place, for example. Also no obstacles or pain related experiences would be a hinder - except for their direct toll on the robotlike human's physiology - to feeding that family, etc. I suppose this speaks somewhat in favor of your biproduct hypothesis. Even if it is a disadvantage, it comes along with complexity. The complexity being an advantage, but not the biproduct. I could be wrong about its being only a disadvantage, but it seems to me causal chains could be set up that would mimic all the food seeking, mate seeking etc. behavior, without needing to get some 'extra boost or oomph' from the machinlike creature being aware of what it was doing. Would a drone, computer guided missile reach its target faster or more accurately if it took pride in its performance?
I'd say the reason humans (like a lot of mammals we've looked at now and then), see purpose, is because of survival strategy: there is an advantage to discriminating purpose if you're a prey animal, like a Miocene hominid or ape. Maybe other animals see a sense of purpose, how would they abstract it, or is it innate, so they don't need to?
1) I did not throw a tantrum 2) You were the one who grouped you and Sarkus together. 3) You are confusing Sarkus and Saquist. I hope you have the minimum maturity to acknowledge this. 4) I do not need to read that specific book to have a sensible debate. If you feel you cannot discuss this issue with me without my having read that book then don't debate me. It seems other people in the forums manage to be more flexible communicators. It is immature to keep raising the issue. I made rather simple direct points about your use of language that did not fit with a determinist position, and did that from a determinist position. Sarkus - again, not Saquist - understood this and responded without telling me that I needed to go out and buy a book and read it before we could commiunicate. Since you lumped the two of you together, perhaps it could give you a moment's pause when you notice that we can have a discussion without implying that the other one needs to do some homework. 5) I said you were rude, Myles. I did not suggest we talk about my feelings. Nor did I mention them. You were rude and continue to be. Now you are saying I am some kind of wimp, for some reason. More ad hom. Unless you are capable of noticing your behavior and your mistakes and admitting when you are off, I want nothing to do with you. I have very little sense that reading a specific book will change your patterns here.
OK. 1 simple point. You are confusing Sarkus with Saquist - which is odd since you brought up Sarkus. Feel free to apolagize for your tantrum based on this confusion.
Yes, I have confused Sarkus and Saquist and not for rhe first time. I made a mistake.My comments referred to Saquist
