Does the Universe Have a Purpose?

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Charlemagne_III

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If the universe has a purpose, what is it?

If the universe has no purpose, why did it come to exist?

Can science answer either of these questions?

If not, is science severely limited in how it serves our need to know?

Can philosophy or theology answer either of these questions?

Can it answer them more fully than science can ever hope to answer them?

If science, philosophy, and theology cannot answer these questions, what then?

Shall we then just wonder at why we wonder?

Your thoughts?
 
Charlemagne_III said:
If the universe has a purpose, what is it?

If the universe has no purpose, why did it come to exist?

Can science answer either of these questions?

If not, is science severely limited in how it serves our need to know?

Can philosophy or theology answer either of these questions?

Can it answer them more fully than science can ever hope to answer them?

If science, philosophy, and theology cannot answer these questions, what then?

Shall we then just wonder at why we wonder?

Your thoughts?
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  1. I have always argued that purpose isn’t the kind of thing that an entity has in an absolutely-once-and-for-all sense. Purpose is something that only exists with respect to some expected future outcome. If I throw a rock, the rock only has a purpose if I expected “throwing the rock” to accomplish something. For example, if I wanted to knock a ball out of the tree, then the rock would have the purpose of knocking the ball out of the tree while it was flying through the air. It wouldn’t have had that purpose before I picked it up, and it won’t have the purpose after the ball is out of the tree.
  2. It seems to me that a God cannot apply this kind of purpose for two reasons.
    A. God never “expects” anything. That is to say, because of all the “simultaneity” inherent in everything God does, anything God creates has necessarily already fulfilled its purpose. It is literally impossible for God to be waiting on the universe to accomplish something; the universe has either already accomplished it, or already failed.
    B. God himself has no purpose. There is no entity that can claim to have “created” or “used” God for a purpose, because God can’t be created or used. Therefore, even if he were capable of giving something a purpose in (A,) there would be no “higher” purpose available to ground the purpose God gives.
  3. Science can’t investigate a “universal purpose” in this sense, because a purpose involves the interaction between the thing with a purpose, and the thing assigning a purpose. If science has no way of “getting at” the purpose-assigner, it can’t extract a purpose from the thing itself (since purpose doesn’t exist in an absolutely-once-and-for-all sense.)
For example, science can have some say about the “purpose” of ancient pointy sticks, because we know something about the people that used them (e.g. they were hunters.) But if we went to an alien planet and the first thing we saw were pointy sticks, we would need to first learn about the aliens that made them before we could tell if their purpose was ceremonial/practical/other.
 
Science is a study of the quantitative. One can look at the quantitative and make qualitative conclusions, but that is has moved beyond empirical science and into the realm of philosophy and theology.

So science alone, if based on strict quantitive empiricism, cannot give you purpose, though it may be needed as a foundation before certain qualitative assessments of purpose are made. Philosophy and theology can give you purpose, teleology, final causes, if you will.
 
Do we really have a need to know or is it more of a wanting to know? I believe our needs are much fewer than many of us think they are. Just a thought.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
  1. I have always argued that purpose isn’t the kind of thing that an entity has in an absolutely-once-and-for-all sense. Purpose is something that only exists with respect to some expected future outcome. If I throw a rock, the rock only has a purpose if I expected “throwing the rock” to accomplish something. For example, if I wanted to knock a ball out of the tree, then the rock would have the purpose of knocking the ball out of the tree while it was flying through the air. It wouldn’t have had that purpose before I picked it up, and it won’t have the purpose after the ball is out of the tree.
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So purpose is subject to a subjective awareness of purpose?

When the human heart is beating, it’s purpose is to keep us alive.

Does the heart has an awareness of its purpose?

Does a monkey have an awareness of the purpose of its beating heart?

As to the rock that lands on the ground from the tree, does it not still have a purpose?

To be part of the earth upon which we walk?

Or would it be that the earth itself has no purpose since it cannot see a purpose?

The purpose of earths or planets could be seen in the mind of God, if nowhere else.

Otherwise, it would seem that the entire universe is purposeless.
 
puzzledtoo said:
Do we really have a need to know or is it more of a wanting to know? I believe our needs are much fewer than many of us think they are. Just a thought.
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This raises an interesting question.

Why do we even wonder about how many needs we have?

Are we the only creature who wonders about that?
 
puzzledtoo said:
Do we really have a need to know or is it more of a wanting to know? I believe our needs are much fewer than many of us think they are. Just a thought.
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We have different kinds of needs, such as biological needs, psychological needs, and social needs. I think we also have spiritual needs or metaphysical needs. The latter may be the luxury of those who are somewhat comfortable in satisfying their other needs, at least partially. But they exist nonetheless in most of us even though they do not always take center stage.

With regard to the OP’s question, I think we would find a purpose for the universe even if none existed. We have a need to do so.
 
Wesrock said:
So science alone, if based on strict quantitive empiricism, cannot give you purpose, though it may be needed as a foundation before certain qualitative assessments of purpose are made.
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Would a biologist tell you that the purpose of the heart is to keep us alive?

Who assigns that purpose to the heart?

The blind watchmaker?
 
meltzerboy said:
With regard to the OP’s question, I think we would find a purpose for the universe even if none existed. We have a need to do so.
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If none existed, we would still have to answer the question of why we need to assign a non-existent purpose to the universe.
 
Asking if there is a purpose to the universe is really the same question as asking if there is s God who created it.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
If none existed, we would still have to answer the question of why we need to assign a non-existent purpose to the universe.
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We would never admit to a non-existent purpose to the universe. The very thought is too frightening for many of us. Even some existentialist philosophers say that the purpose of the universe is whatever purpose we, as individuals, assign to it.
 
meltzerboy said:
We would never admit to a non-existent purpose to the universe. The very thought is too frightening for many of us.
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But apparently not so frightening that atheists would not admit to a non-existent purpose… 🤷
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Would a biologist tell you that the purpose of the heart is to keep us alive?

Who assigns that purpose to the heart?

The blind watchmaker?
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The science could tell us that the circulating blood keeps certain chemical reactions within certain cells continuing. And I think it’s pretty obvious what that tells you about the teleology of the heart, but I don’t think science alone can tell us that is its purpose. There is a qualitative leap there to something that can’t be measured.

Edit: Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that purpose is less of an objective reality than the empirical facts. I’m just saying it is a qualitative truth, and strictly speaking, the scientific method is restricted to quantitative truths, even if it’s common for many scientists to make qualitative statements based on the quantitative facts.
 
Wesrock said:
The science could tell us that the circulating blood keeps certain chemical reactions within certain cells continuing. And I think it’s pretty obvious what that tells you about the teleology of the heart, but I don’t think science alone can tell us that is its purpose. There is a qualitative leap there to something that can’t be measured.
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Good point.

Anyway, this thread was inspired by reading Charles de Koninck’s The Hollow Universe, extracts of which may be found here.

goodcatholicbooks.org/dekoninck/hollow-universe.html
 
If God is not the author of your universe then your universe is too small.
 
fisherman_carl said:
If God is not the author of your universe then your universe is too small.
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Not to hear atheists talk. The universe is so large and we are so nothing in it. :rolleyes:

This in spite of the fact that the universe cannot think but we can. 😉
 
From The Hollow Universe:

“As another sample of the advanced views, we have Bertrand Russell’s pronouncement that physics proves man to be a mere collection of occurrences, that ‘Mr. Smith’ is in fact a collective name for a bundle of events. Again, there is the assertion of certain outstanding biologists that ‘what life is’ has become a meaningless question; that if the behavior of organisms is to be explained at all, this will have to be done in terms of physics and chemistry.”

So the purpose of our “bundle of events” is just to make more bundles of events?

But why? :confused:
 
Charlemagne_III said:
If the universe has a purpose, what is it?

If the universe has no purpose, why did it come to exist?

Can science answer either of these questions?

If not, is science severely limited in how it serves our need to know?

Can philosophy or theology answer either of these questions?

Can it answer them more fully than science can ever hope to answer them?

If science, philosophy, and theology cannot answer these questions, what then?

Shall we then just wonder at why we wonder?

Your thoughts?
Click to expand...
I seems no-one has an answer for that.
 
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