Does life have purpose?

[iNow]

-wikipedia.org

 

Instead of being unecessarily mysterious, can you please tell us exactly which word on wikipedia you are referencing above?

 

 

 

EDIT: Nevermind. Behavior is your word. Now, what's your point?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior

 

Looking at the wiki link more closely, the quotation you shared references specific actions. It references specific behaviors (odd that, considering the context of the page from which you drew the quote). So... how does this relate to your claim that there is some inherent purpose in life itself (which you have also yet to define)?

[Fred56]

how does this relate to your claim

How does it not relate to my claim that life and purpose are related (intertwined irrevocably, if you like).

None of these behaviours described in the wiki (which are specific) can be said to be purposeful of course?

And my comment on the last sentence in your post will start with the following query:

 

Why are you stating (for the third or fourth time) that I am trying to define or illustrate some mysterious purpose that life has?

 

Question two: how do you decide that something is alive, that is, what does your brain do to tell you the difference between a rock, and something that crawls over it, or flies down and gobbles up the thing that's crawling

-surely there can't be any discrimination of purpose? This must be absolutely impossible, or extremely difficult to do (invoke the notion or observation of purpose -purposeful action or "behaviour"). So what do you observe, and what notions do you invoke, assuming life is not purposeful?

[dichotomy]

My turn.

 

Life’s unconscious purpose is to ensure the survival of the ‘strongest’ lifeforms, in the broadest range of environments, and for the longest possible time.

 

Therefore life is ultimately here for the greater good of itself. Life’s battle with itself exerts the right amount of pressure (evolutionary) to keep it finding and filling nature’s many niches.

 

It seems obvious that life is successful in evolving ever greater levels of consciousness and creativity, the homo-sapien is the prime example here. Life also is successful in evolving ever greater levels of resilience, the various microbes are the prime example here. Evolution seems, to me, to be in order for life to unconsciously spread the risk of its own extinction in an eternally changing cosmos.

 

So, life’s purpose, at the end of the day, is to spread the risk of it’s own extinction. In human terms, it’s here for the greater good. The fact that life attemps to persist is evidence of its unconscious purpose. Sperm unconsciously attempt to find ovaries, their purpose is to find ovaries to fertilize. Yes?

[thedarkshade]

"A child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind" -Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

 

EXACTLY, that's what I've been trying to say all the time!

[Paralith]

EXACTLY, that's what I've been trying to say all the time!

 

Except a newborn child has a state of mind. It dislikes being ejected from the warm, safe womb. It wants to be warm again. It is probably hungry, and wants to feed from its mother. Its mind is by no means blank.

 

Nor is it "blind to the ways of mankind." When ejected from the womb the baby bawls and cries, voicing its unhappiness to its caregivers, thusly giving its first recognizable communication seconds after being brought into the world. As the baby grows it will seek to be with other people. It will imitate the adults around it, as this is how it will acquire learned behaviors. You can't be "blind" to something if you're actively seeking it out.

 

How does it not relate to my claim that life and purpose are related (intertwined irrevocably, if you like).

 

Now, this may have some truth, that life and purpose are related. Once life begins, individual organisms within their lifetimes can carry out many actions that are purposeful. My purpose now is to find food. My purpose now is to find a mate. My purpose now is to protect my young. An organism can have any number of proximal purposes. But I assumed you were talking about ultimate purpose, the reason why life came into existence, and why it continues to exist. For that, there is no reason. There is no plan for life. The only function of life is to create more life. It continues to exist because its function is to continue to exist. It began simply because it could, not because life as a whole was ever meant to fulfill some kind of ultimate goal.

[dichotomy]

Except a newborn child has a state of mind. It dislikes being ejected from the warm, safe womb. It wants to be warm again. It is probably hungry, and wants to feed from its mother. Its mind is by no means blank.

 

So, a baby is 100% instinct (crying for attention, sucking action for feeding, grasping hands, etc) until it is eventually subject to environmental, parental, and social conditioning, right? So, if anything a baby is blind to enviro conditioning but not to instincts? But are we not blind to our instincts when we are babies? Instincts exist, this is true, but we don't actually know what they are, or why we use them at early stages of development.

[Paralith]

So, a baby is 100% instinct (crying for attention, sucking action for feeding, grasping hands, etc) until it is eventually subject to environmental, parental, and social conditioning, right? So, if anything a baby is blind to enviro conditioning but not to instincts? But are we not blind to our instincts when we are babies? Instincts exist, this is true, but we don't actually know what they are, or why we use them at early stages of development.

 

A baby is subjected to environmental influences right from the get go. Its brain is constantly taking in information, learning and re-wiring itself. I wouldn't say that a baby is 100% instinct, either. It may be 98% instinct, especially for the first week or so of its life, but like I said, once it begins to experience the outside world, it begins to be effected by it.

 

And instinct is never conscious. An instinct manifests as an urge, a need, a reflex. You don't think about it - at least, most animals don't. We humans are a little more inward-looking than most other organisms, so we may be more aware of our instinctual urges, but instincts aren't ever supposed to be knowable in the way you're describing.

[dichotomy]

A baby is subjected to environmental influences right from the get go. Its brain is constantly taking in information, learning and re-wiring itself. I wouldn't say that a baby is 100% instinct, either. It may be 98% instinct, especially for the first week or so of its life, but like I said, once it begins to experience the outside world, it begins to be effected by it.

 

 

Yes, I understand that babies are conditioned from when their senses begin to function. Starting at some point within the womb. To my understanding most babies operate on 100% unconscious instinct, because they do not realize when they are being instinctive and when they are being calculating. They are zero% conscious of why they are performing a survival action.

 

And instinct is never conscious. An instinct manifests as an urge, a need, a reflex. You don't think about it - at least, most animals don't. We humans are a little more inward-looking than most other organisms, so we may be more aware of our instinctual urges, but instincts aren't ever supposed to be knowable in the way you're describing.

 

I generally agree with what you state here. Just to clarify. The way I'm describing humans 'knowing that they are in instinct mode' is that at some stage of maturing, for some of us, we realize when we are in instinct mode and when we are in conditioned response mode. Instinct is indeed unconscious when we are using it, but a short time later we realize consciously that it was actually instinct, and not a planned/calculated response.

 

So, a young child's mind is not blank, blind or a clean slate, but it is initially unconscious to it's pre-programmed survival actions.

[foodchain]

I don’t know myself. I would say if life did not work for survival overall it would not be here, I think such reflects in evolution and of course the various phylum’s down to species. I think lots of big assumptions are made daily in science and happen to be kept until something better comes along to support the data. For instance, the gene centric point of view. That use to be and still is a big one, but now we have so many views of life. The protein view, the cellular, heck is there any angle you cant study life from?

 

I still go with the organismal point of view, but it seems more and more that’s getting lost to all kinds of fancy trends. I mean already in this thread I have seen the neo-Darwinists point of view to many others. Anyone up to talk to some evo-devo, or what about the simple aspect of gene regulation? How can an amoeba have way more genetic code then a human and be an amoeba?

 

I mean I don’t think I have heard much about the backbone of life in this thread which is natural selection. I mean what about plants for instance, what will plants be in context of natural selection in say four billion years? Can we know? Personally these are big questions and why I hope nasa or what not discovers life soon on other planets. Most want to simply look towards chemistry, well from materials point of view what about mechanical logic, or electrochemical logic, what about boundary conditions in cellular automata, does anyone even go outside the view of chemistry, it really does not seem like it. Homeostasis to me appears to be nothing more then a sort of equilibrium in a physical reality. I don’t know how anyone can say life wants to evolve, or really cant stop from its current structure on earth. I also do not know why something like a prokaryote could be considered alive but a virus could not. I mean biochemistry, what cant you talk chemistry of, you can have wallchemistry, it seems pretty moot to me when you bias yourself but to just one part of physical reality.

 

The more I study biology really the more I want to study physics, I do know this.

[Fred56]

[Life] began simply because it could' date=' not because [it'] ...was ever meant to fulfill some kind of ultimate goal.

Life is purposeful. Evolution has 'a' purpose - to evolve organisms that are more 'efficient' at living (and evolving). Efficiency and its improvement is a goal (that will never be 'reached'), n'est ce pas?

[dichotomy]

How can an amoeba have way more genetic code then a human and be an amoeba?

 

Off topic, but... might this be because an amoeba (or its distant relatives) is a sort of primary starting (block) organism (with lots of code) that better enables other organisims to branch off it and form other more 'evolved' lifeforms? The amoeba may have needed to have way more genetic code to pass down to the next relative on the tree so that this new relative could then use the code it required for its niche environment, and so on and so forth? I think I need a more informed opinion here.

[Paralith]

Life is purposeful. Evolution has 'a' purpose - to evolve organisms that are more 'efficient' at living (and evolving). Efficiency and its improvement is a goal (that will never be 'reached'), n'est ce pas?

 

Yes. Once life begins, living organisms have the purpose of reproduction. But why should life exist in the first place? For that there is no reason.

 

The way I'm describing humans 'knowing that they are in instinct mode' is that at some stage of maturing, for some of us, we realize when we are in instinct mode and when we are in conditioned response mode. Instinct is indeed unconscious when we are using it, but a short time later we realize consciously that it was actually instinct, and not a planned/calculated response.(emphasis mine - paralith)

 

Sometimes. You are giving us humans a little too much credit, I think. We are more aware of our own motivations than other animals, but that doesn't mean we are always completely aware of them. A great majority of what you do has a genetic influence (and thus is related to survival and reproduction) to some degree or another, and for the most part you are not aware of that influence. So a baby not being conscious of why its performing a survival action is not that amazing of a thing.

[iNow]

Life is purposeful. Evolution has 'a' purpose - to evolve organisms that are more 'efficient' at living (and evolving). Efficiency and its improvement is a goal (that will never be 'reached'), n'est ce pas?

 

And suddenly we're right back where we started. You simply have asserted that "life is purposeful" with no support, and in the face of counter arguments. You also misrepresent evolution by saying it makes organisms more "efficient." Evolution simply makes organisms which survive, and traits that lend to that survival are passed on. It has nothing to do with efficiency or improvement.

[Sancho Panza]

Question: Does life have purpose? Answer: Yes. Obviously.

Of course, now that such an unequivocal statement has been profferred, it must be supported, thus we get to the real question: What is the purpose of life?

 

I don't think one can define the purpose of life without a point of view from which to discuss the question. For instance, from my point of view, the purpose of life is to provide a stage for playing out the interaction between my mind and my surroundings. For each reader, the purpose of life is the exactly the same unless one alters the primary contextual element which is "point of view"

 

If one views the question from the point of view of our planet, one might state that the purpose of life is to compost the planet's organic material.

 

From a theological point of view based on mankind as a whole, one might state that the purpose of life is to attain a higher level of soul purification or to satisfy the whim of a deity.

 

From the point of view of the universe, life may have no purpose other than our apparent existence inconsequentially on a particle of receding debris.

 

If someone was to formulate a response that satisfies every nuance discussed in this forum they still would not have answered the question. They will have just identified another point of view.

 

Because everyone is permitted a different point of view and because we all possess the ability, if not the willingness, to consider different points of view, there can be no answer that totally satisfies the construct of the question.

 

In other words, in order to answer the question, "What is the purpose of life?" one has to narrow the parameters and identify the point of view from which it must be considered.

[Fred56]

Answering that question is indeed fraught with much philosophising and usually some inanity. However, the question "does Life have purpose", or alternately "does Life exhibit purpose?", is a but easier on the brain cells, because purposeful behaviour -i.e. purpose, is something we observe all the time. In fact it's how we generally tell living things from non-living things. But then, some appear to have a problem with this too (except I can't honestly see what the big issue with something as obvious as purposeful, or directed, or goal-driven behaviour is).

Just adding in that one little pronoun makes the picture shift a whole lot.

[Paralith]

(except I can't honestly see what the big issue with something as obvious as purposeful, or directed, or goal-driven behaviour is).

 

Because there is no issue. No one is arguing that individual organisms do not exhibit purposeful, directed, goal-driven behavior. We're arguing that life, in general, has no more reason to exist than do rocks. Whether or not an individual rock can have purpose has nothing to do with it.

[dichotomy]

 

 

 

Sometimes. You are giving us humans a little too much credit, I think. We are more aware of our own motivations than other animals, but that doesn't mean we are always completely aware of them.

 

Yes, I agree with 'sometimes' and the frequency of awareness depends very much on the individual.

[Sancho Panza]

simply put, The correct answer is "Life indeed has a purpose and the purpose of life is to provide a stage for playing out the interaction between my mind and my surroundings. Try and mount a cohesive argument against this statement without changing the point of view from which it is considered.

 

Sanco Panza

[Fred56]

Another opinion:

omething is an agent if it can be viewed as satisfying a goal that is first created and then, if necessary and appropriate, transferred to another. It is the adoption of goals that gives rise to agenthood, and it is the self-generation of goals that is responsible for autonomy. Thus an agent is just something either that is useful to another agent in terms of satisfying that agent's goals, or that exhibits independent purposeful behaviour. Importantly, agents rely on the existence of others to provide the goals that they adopt for instantiation as agents. In order to escape an infinite regress of goal adoption, however, we define autonomous agents to be just agents that generate their own goals from motivations.

 

Autonomy: A Nice Idea in Theory

Michael Luck, Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK mml@ecs.soton.ac.uk

 

No one is arguing that individual organisms do not exhibit purposeful, directed, goal-driven behavior.

How about this guy? It looks a lot like he disagrees completely with what you are saying:

You simply have asserted that "life is purposeful" with no support, and in the face of counter arguments. You also misrepresent [/b']evolution by saying it makes organisms more "efficient." Evolution simply makes organisms which survive

I'll restate the argument he seems to be objecting to:

Life certainly exhibits purposeful behaviour, or "has purpose", and one or two posters to this thread appear to agree with this. But not everyone. Especially not the one I just mentioned. Wonder if he might care to explain why he believes that evolution is being misrepresented. Evolution is definitely purposeful, and its goal appears to be "to evolve organisms that are more 'efficient' at living (and evolving). I would say I got that right, despite what some of you obviously have to say about it.

 

I would say iNow is mistaken.

But of course, he has every right to believe whatever he likes, as do we all (he doesn't have to explain why, even). I have no idea what counter arguments he might be talking about either, perhaps he also believes he has posted one or two that actually stand up, hard to say. Ad crassendo. Oh right, you guys don't know Latin...

Also I have already said something about the difference between "Life has purpose (is purposeful)", and "Life has a purpose"; the latter would be a metaphysical issue or question. Maybe some don't get this either, not much I can do (or want to) about people's particular skills with their native language.

[Quartile]

Awareness is a fundamental cornerstone of evolution - even coding DNA is a form of awareness when you realize that cells are tiny processing units.

 

I would say that the purpose of life is to grow in awareness and have fun with being alive. To be generally creative.

[Sancho Panza]

A broad range of responses to a question does not necessarily indicate that the subject is complicated. It is at least equally likely that the question was poorly asked.

 

Philosophy aside, if lifes only purpose is to perpetuate itself then it has attained all of the justification it needs.

 

 

Sancho Panza

[Fred56]

It is at least equally likely that the question was poorly asked.

How likely that it was misunderstood, as well, would you say? What's poorly worded about: "does Life have purpose?"

This looks like a Phil essay title, or something.

Not that I didn't expect some to immediately assume that I am asking about some 'mysterious purpose" that Life has, people jump to all sorts of conclusions, in general. I mean, I try not to do this, but it seems to be a universal trait we all have (we don't look that hard at questions). The only mystery is that the purposefulness is the purpose... (I'm sure at least one person who reads this sentence will understand this).

I would say that the purpose of life is to grow in awareness and have fun with being alive. To be generally creative.

Yep, that looks like a valid kind of conclusion. Unless there is some ultimate purpose or goal that Life's evolution has up its sleeve. But let's not go there...

if lifes only purpose is to perpetuate itself then it has attained all of the justification it needs.

If you mean evolution has produced lifeforms that can reproduce, and that's the only goal:

why did evolution keep going once it had produced organisms that could reproduce? Why isn't the planet covered with prokaryotic lifeforms? What are we doing here? Or mammals, or vertebrates, or the annelids (why didn't evolution stop with nematodes) etc?

[Sancho Panza]

First of all, I did not state that self perpetuation was lifes only purpose, only that self perpetuation is sufficient purpose to justify itself.

 

Second, you just altered the question from "Does life have purpose?" to "What is the purpose of evolution? and "What are we doing here? you should really start new threads for those.

 

Fred, if you are really seeking he answer to your question then you should more clearly define what you are asking. If you are trying to find support for your own theory, why don't you just tell us what it is and we can debate it. Are you withholding your own theory seeking a favorable environment to launch it?

[Fred56]

Second, you just altered the question from "Does life have purpose?" to "What is the purpose of evolution? and "What are we doing here? you should really start new threads for those.

This looks, IMO, like a conclusion you have made. I posted a response (to yours) and I've managed to change the whole direction of the thread? I must be all-powerful or something...

 

And I'm not "seeking the answer"; Nor am I trying to support a theory, I'm only asking questions.

 

This is something we do --even if we think we know everything...

 

Here's what I think I know about the whole enchilada:

Change is inevitable. The Universe changes constantly, as Life does too. There is compulsion, but also striving, to this change; a contention, a constant egressing or extending (growing) and energy consuming process. Life is cursive: it excurs and incurs constantly.

 

All life observes its environment. It is obliged to do this. It requires a store of energy, and has learned how to meet this requirement in gradual steps, that have yielded an ability to aggregate and communicate better with other lifeforms, and eventually develop, via this more efficient storage, "better communicating" lifeforms (with each other, and with the environment). Life observes. This is an active, energy requiring, and ongoing process.

 

Information, in the form of photons of EMR, chemicals, and electric potential (in special cases), is collected, or received -in the case of prokaryotes via channels or pores (or simple gaps) in their outer wall, or sheath, that contains their substance (prevents it dissipating) and protects it.

 

Life only samples the constant 'flow' of mass/energy and it then uses these samples to 'remember' or map its environment. In eukaryotes, there is more structure, and more 'sophisticated' transport systems (proteins embedded in cell walls). Also, these more developed cells have learned how to live as a single community, an evolutionary step which led to collections of differentiated cells becoming more dependent on the collective behaviour of all the others.

 

Life began because conditions allowed it, and it has a goal-driven purpose, or purposefulness. Current thinking follows the logic that, since it is here, conditions must have been favourable for its existence. What these conditions were can only be modelled, or we can try to recreate the necessary conditions for something like a lifeform to 'come together', to start up, or emerge from a background somehow.

 

Evolution has 'a' purpose - to evolve organisms that are more 'efficient' at living, at exploiting available resources, gathering and accumulating information. The gene-space has or is a surface against which that measurement occurs. The process is some kind of operator, or set of operators, complex operators or functions, some as old as evolution itself, with a complex variable space; many 'variables' are their own complex system, or subsystem. Like a mesh or network, an organisation. This is bound (compelled) by any particular ecological situation, or, what the surface looks like that it's against at the time. Efficiency and its improvement is a goal. It changes its "tune" as the background harmonics change, but it's following an external conductor.

 

Your turn.

[Sancho Panza]

Fred, you obviously fail to grasp the difference between poorly worded and poorly asked.

 

If you ask a direct question such as "Does life have purpose?" then it must answered either with a simple "yes" or "no" or begin with "The Purpose of life is:"

 

If you wish to confine the responses to questions of philosophy, mathmatics, evolution, or chemistry then you should narrow the question to identify the context of the response you seek. If you wish to include all possible points of view then you should state that as part of your question. The ability to

establish response parameters insures that the answers you receive are responive to the intent of your question. Failure to do so is like trying to play chess without a board or piece movemenet rules.

 

Leaving your question overly broad seems to allow you to play the answer game. if someone answers that the purpose of life is to grow in awareness and have fun with being alive then you want to apply evolution. If someone answers that life is about perpetuating itself then you responds with something like "why do we play?" Every answer, response to an answer or partial explanation you have offered so far has begun at some point beyond the answer to the question you have asked and appears based on an unstated or assumptive conclusion.

 

You are obviously not seeking an answer, you are seeking an argument.

 

And by the way relying in "wiki" for facts is a bit like letting a blind man take your picture you might be dead on or you might not even be in the frame.

 

In closing:

"So six blind men of Hindustan

disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

exceeding stiff and strong;

Though each was partly in the right,

they all were in the wrong!"