Is there any purpose in the universe?

[tonyrey]

Intentionality is aboutness. For example, the arrangement that forms the word “cat” has derived intentionality. It’s a pointer to a concept beyond just that arrangement of scribbles. It has a meaning about something external to itself (a cat).

I stated that the word has derived intentionality, which itself is a conclusion of my view on the subject, with it only having such a meaning if there is a mind to understand it. That arrangement of scribbles forming “cat” does not objectively carry the meaning cat. That info isn’t objectively or absolutely embedded into that arrangement of scribbles.

Does that help?

I’m trying to parse out your own understanding of our consciousness. Are our thoughts actually about anything external? When I think about cats, am I truly thinking about cats? Or is that just illusory and the neurons in my brain firing with this thinking process are just a mechanical chain reaction and nothing truly about cats (or about anything, really) manifests anywhere in my thought process?

Your post reminds me of an atheist who used to visit this forum who believes truth is an “isomorphism” of atomic particles in which one set corresponds to another! “We” don’t exist because persons are figments of the imagination. He didn’t explain what the imagination is or how it operates at the microscopic level…

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I’m not sure your really addressing my point, but I should still point out that the problem with your scenario is that whatever intentionality exists in the computer program was imparted to it by you. The computer program has no expectations or preferences. Nor does its coding or outputs have any meaning apart from a mind to understand them.

Yes and no. The program I am writing explicitly does have expectations and preferences. It forms expectations about how other parts of the system will develop. It has sets of criteria that it uses to select the outcomes it prefers. Moreover, it is allowed some randomness in its preferences, so not everything was explicitly coded by me.

Now, yes, in a sense I did create all those mechanisms and therefore the intentionality. But there is nothing magic about the code I am writing, or the CPU that does the calculations. I.e. there is nothing that I have done which couldn’t conceivably be done without someone explicitly designing it.

However, I take issue with your final sentence. For one thing, we’ve all been playing fast and loose with the concepts of meaning, significance, purposefulness, and so on. I was explicitly talking about purpose with my computer system. However, there is a sense in which the events inside the computer are meaningful to the algorithms I’ve created, because some of those events will require the system to update it’s expectations about the future, while others do not.

Anyway, my point was that intentionality, that is, “aboutness” of things beyond itself (a neuron pattern representing something beyond itself… a neuron pattern), cannot emerge from a purely mechanical world devoid of qualitative aspects such as formal and final causes. Expectations, preferences, these are things with a whole lot of “aboutness” about them.

I disagree. Note, for example, that I have nowhere required that the future expectations *be at all accurate *. For example, consider mental patients. Their expectations about future events are all over the place. Nevertheless, they act with purpose even if that purpose is not “about” anything real.

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey, I think your use of a human person in this analogy is flawed. What is actual in us and what is potential in us do change. We are the same being, but we are changed and moved. Pretty much everything in our experience is changed when producing an effect (every action has an equal but opposite reaction).

This is not true with God. God can produce effects without changing himself. There is no backwards effect on him, no actualization of potential or anything of the sort, as he is a being of pure act.

Obviously there are differences but the fact remains that whatever we think or choose and however we behave we do not lose our identity. Nothing will ever change the fact that you are Wesrock! After all we are made in the image and likeness of God…

 

[Wesrock]

No (to JapaneseKappa), what you have is a series of on and off switches going on and off in a chain of cause and effect events. Unless you admit that any of these material patterns can be objectively about something other than itself, or that there is something beyond the material going on, no meaning or purpose or expectations or preferences actually exist in the system, and speaking otherwise is ficticious and misleading. All, and truly all, that is happening is a series of mechanical events falling out in a certain way devoid of any intentionality.

 

[Wesrock]

Also, accuracy has little to do with the matter.

 

[tonyrey]

Everything is imparted from external sources…

Introspection doesn’t come from external sources. The reverse is true: our primary datum and sole certainty is our mental activity. We **infer **the existence of everything else. Mindless structures know nothing!

 

[Bradski]

Introspection doesn’t come from external sources.

So what do you think about when you ‘introspect’? Yourself, no doubt. In isolation? I’m not even sure that’s possible. You think about yourself in relation to the external world.

QED.

 

[tonyrey]

Introspection doesn’t come from external sources.

The dominant factor is how we are feeling at any particular moment. Whether we like it or not we are trapped in the “egocentric predicament”. Our sensations, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, desires, ambitions, values and principles take precedence over everything else. When we**’**re in pain we’re certainly not thinking about ourselves in relation to the external world; the dominant factor is what we did to cause it, what we can do to relieve it or whether we should ask some one for advice or should we call the doctor. Obviously we’re not thinking about ourselves all the time but we don’t live as if we don’t exist! We’re always aware of who we are unless we’re deeply engrossed in thought but even then our purpose is at the back of our mind. One of the notable occasions when we are oblivious of ourselves is when we’re deeply in love or concerned about another person yet even then we soon ask ourselves what we can do for that person.

It’s not surprising human beings dominate our mental landscape given that most of us believe persons are far more important than animals and things - unless we live alone and treat a pet as a person. All this doesn’t mean we’re necessarily self-centred but normal individuals have a right to privacy and self-determination which implies that we should respect those rights in others. If we’re obsessed with things rather than people there is a serious flaw in our personality which may well be due to the rampant materialism in our secular society.

 

[sonofbarry]

I’d say that there are most likely credible ‘reasons’ for the universe existing. One thing led to another and here we are. (We are relying on science here because religion is making no new progress.)
If it turns out to be a god or a god-like entity, there are still likely to be scientific principles in play. Otherwise, we are talking about a universe where non-scientific factors are crucial to the existence of everything.

As for ‘purpose’, that’s a different consideration. There might be a purpose in God’s creation of this magical little planet with life everywhere, but little or no purpose in the universe elsewhere, which is, apparently, bereft of life.

 

[Bradski]

The dominant factor is how we are feeling at any particular moment. Whether we like it or not we are trapped in the “egocentric predicament”. Our sensations, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, desires, ambitions, values and principles take precedence over everything else.

Hell’s teeth, you are asking about what WE feel during introspection and I say that it must include external sensations and you say no. And then you list all the things you think are included. Which is nothing but a list of everything that must need external sensations to be considered valid.

How is a belief even possible without something external to oneself in which to believe? How is desire possible without an object external to oneself that is desirable? How can you value something without that something being valuable in itself? That is, external to the self.

You are tying yourself in knots.

 

[tonyrey]

The dominant factor is how we

I prefer Hell’s bell’s. It rhymes.

…you are asking about what WE feel during introspection and I say that it must include external sensations and you say no.

It does not always include external sensations.

And then you list all the things you think are included. Which is nothing but a list of everything that must need external sensations to be considered valid.

Please explain how each individual item is related to an external sensation.

How is a belief even possible without something to oneself in which to believe?

Is a new-born baby aware of the external world? Or are its impressions due to its perceptions? It doesn’t even know what things are!

How is desire possible without an object external to oneself that is desirable?

All that a new-born baby knows is that it is thirsty or in pain…

How can you value something without that something being valuable in itself? That is, external to the self.

We instinctively value ourselves from the time we start to think.

You are tying yourself in knots.

Individuals often accuse others of their own defects…

 

[tonyrey]

I prefer Hell’s bell’s.

Correction: “Hell’s bells.” I don’t know what the bells signify but perhaps they are a source of irritation because they are reminiscent of religion.

 

[tonyrey]

Yes and no. The program I am writing explicitly does have expectations and preferences. It forms expectations about how other parts of the system will develop. It has sets of criteria that it uses to select the outcomes it prefers. Moreover, it is allowed some randomness in its preferences, so not everything was explicitly coded by me.

It is the occupational hazard of programmers to think everything is programmed including all their thoughts, beliefs, choices, decisions, goals, tastes, values, principles, ambitions, successes, failures, achievements, love affairs - and, of course, themselves! In other words they tend to be fatalists, like a programmer on this forum who stated that truth is an isomorphism of atomic particles…

 

[tonyrey]

I’d say that there are most likely credible ‘reasons’ for the universe existing. One thing led to another and here we are. (We are relying on science here because religion is making no new progress.)
If it turns out to be a god or a god-like entity, there are still likely to be scientific principles in play. Otherwise, we are talking about a universe where non-scientific factors are crucial to the existence of everything.

As for ‘purpose’, that’s a different consideration. There might be a purpose in God’s creation of this magical little planet with life everywhere, but little or no purpose in the universe elsewhere, which is, apparently, bereft of life.

Welcome to the forum!

The universe is so immense we cannot assess the probability that other forms of life exist nor does it matter because they would be so remote we would hardly be capable of contacting them. Ironically theology is progressing as the result of scientific discoveries! Thomas Nagel, for example, has stated there is no room for agency in a world of neural impulses, chemical reactions, and bone and muscle movements. Naturalism strongly suggests that we are “helpless” and “not responsible” for our actions - which of course he doesn’t believe for one moment! A conflict between science and religious belief only exists for materialists who take atomism to its logical but absurd conclusion!

 

[Eric_Hyom]

As for ‘purpose’, that’s a different consideration. There might be a purpose in God’s creation of this magical little planet with life everywhere,

God loves each and everyone of us as he loves himself. Can God have a greater purpose to create children in his own image?

 

[RCinMT]

I’d say that there are most likely credible ‘reasons’ for the universe existing. One thing led to another and here we are. (We are relying on science here because religion is making no new progress.)
If it turns out to be a god or a god-like entity, there are still likely to be scientific principles in play. Otherwise, we are talking about a universe where non-scientific factors are crucial to the existence of everything.

As for ‘purpose’, that’s a different consideration. There might be a purpose in God’s creation of this magical little planet with life everywhere, but little or no purpose in the universe elsewhere, which is, apparently, bereft of life.

Oh…has science now offered an explanation for why the universe exists? To my knowledge, science explains the how, not the philosophical why. That’s not to say that some scientists playing at philosophy don’t try to step into the “why” discussion but they’re pretty bad it.

 

[Tomdstone]

That’s not to say that some scientists playing at philosophy don’t try to step into the “why” discussion but they’re pretty bad it.

Michael Polanyi was both a scientist and a philosopher and I don’t see him as being pretty bad at philosophy. Why would anyone consider him to be pretty bad at philosophy?

 

[RCinMT]

Michael Polanyi was both a scientist and a philosopher and I don’t see him as being pretty bad at philosophy. Why would anyone consider him to be pretty bad at philosophy?

Why indeed. Did somebody mention him by name or is somebody just eye poking? Some comments have operative words such as “some”…

 

[Eric_Hyom]

God gave us the greatest commandments, so they must be a greatest purpose for us. If God first loves each and everyone of us as he loves himself, these commandments then become profound.