Purpose

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Is it an individual ant colony? Yes.

Is it individual from the individuals making up the individual? No. So it really isn't a being. It can't act against the will of the little ants, to hurt them or destroy itself after they are almost done building it. It is a product of a collective will but by this collectiveness, creates no such separated will, perception for itself; therefore I don't care to classify it as such an individual.

... is it possible to view a human being from such a perspective? ... that is, "a colony of human cells can't act against the will of the individual cells, to hurt them or destroy itself after they are almost done building it. It is a product of a collective will but by this collectiveness, creates no such separated will, perception for itself"? ...

[Holiday20310401]

Ofcourse we can hurt ourselves. I'm doing it right now just to make sure.

But yes I understand, and sure you'd be on to something here.

It is/would be very hard to injure or destroy or kill yourself because we are compelled not to. We are against that perceptual change, the thought of death changes our consciousness to nothingness.

Maybe it is programmed in our DNA as a result of all the hard work

Like some incentive/insurance policy given to the cells like "ok we've worked together to build the index finger but we need some way of knowing our work won't be in vain". - cells. .

And so as an echo to the hard work, the DNA alters to the experiences of the individual cells themselves in a more chaotic approach (because individual cells would appear much different than one another than human's general DNA compared).

[paulhanke]

... even more extreme, try this on for size:

Imagine that you're an alien circling around earth. Your physical makeup is completely distinct from anything you find here. You study some of the animate things on this planet and discover that they are all colonies of living organisms. One of the types of colony at times starts over-producing chemicals that are toxic to itself and cause it to destroy itself - this pathology seems to occur when resources are scarce and thus balances the number of colonies to the available resources. Unfortunately, there is nothing here to indicate anything more than event-response behavior within these colonies, and the living organisms themselves are much too simple to have any intelligence. This planet is rich in life, but has yet to evolve an intelligence that you can relate to.

[Fairbanks]

Originally Posted by trulyhis

"The purpose of life is fulfilled by realisation and pursuit of problems that you meant to solve" . . .

If we assume that intelligence includes, to some degree, power to create what wouldn't otherwise exist in nature, and that we and other organisms have this intelligence and power, then we have to say that purpose inheres in each of us. Does life itself have purpose? Of course not, life is an abstraction.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Fairbanks

If we assume that intelligence includes, to some degree, power to create what wouldn't otherwise exist in nature, and that we and other organisms have this intelligence and power, then we have to say that purpose inheres in each of us. Does life itself have purpose? Of course not, life is an abstraction.

... if the power to create what wouldn't otherwise exist is purpose, then doesn't life itself have purpose? ...

[Fairbanks]

Originally Posted by paulhanke

... if the power to create what wouldn't otherwise exist is purpose, then doesn't life itself have purpose?

The power to create is not purpose. Intelligence with (an appropriate) power to create, and using that power, is the act, which presumes purpose.

Life is an abstraction and it is not all all agreed what should be put into that abstraction, especially whether intelligence is necessary; living organisms have power to act, but whether they have the power to act as the intelligence desires is a different story on each occasion.

[CORGIGUY]

I give you the existentialist point of view on this.

Satre calls facticity as the things you can't control. Like you are man, woman, black, white, certain nationality, war, the economy, your job, your patrner etc...

you are alway free to choose as to what you do with those facts, some choices may be unpleasant, but nevertheless you are always free to choose or not to choose.

Existentialist view Purpose as meaning and value. There are things that we value in life that drive our choices. our choices are always constrained by our facticity. I may be stuck in a lousy job, i can choose to quit, but if i quit how i'm going to pay the rent, so i choose to stay in the job. A lousy choice, nevertheless a choice.

[Fairbanks]

Originally Posted by CORGIGUY

I give you the existentialist point of view on this.
. . .
Existentialist view Purpose as meaning and value. . . .

'Intelligence with (an appropriate) power to create, and using that power, is the act, which presumes purpose.'

If we see value as virtue in an older sense, that is, power to do what needs be done, then we could see value (power) in something at hand that could further intelligence's ability to create. This brings the two points of view a little closer.

We'll have to work on what 'meaning' might be. The meaning of meaning. It might be nothing other than creating relation, which is cogitation or intelligence and that would be as intended, that is, purpose.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Fairbanks

Life is an abstraction and it is not all all agreed what should be put into that abstraction, especially whether intelligence is necessary; living organisms have power to act, but whether they have the power to act as the intelligence desires is a different story on each occasion.

... hmmmmmm - let's flip that around and see what happens:

"Intelligence is an abstraction and it is not at all agreed what should be put into that abstraction, especially whether life is necessary; intelligent organisms have power to act, but whether they have the power to act as the life desires is a different story on each occasion."

ACK! It still makes sense!!!

[Fairbanks]

Originally Posted by paulhanke

... hmmmmmm - let's flip that around and see what happens:

"Intelligence is an abstraction and it is not at all agreed what should be put into that abstraction, especially whether life is necessary; intelligent organisms have power to act, but whether they have the power to act as the life desires is a different story on each occasion."

ACK! It still makes sense!!!

Intelligence is at the ground of non-natural cause.

That is, there are natural causes, which is what physicists describe, from which if you know the complete status of the world you know all of it forever and there would be nothing of interest to anyone. Then there are intelligent causes, doing things that would not happen, not ever, never, in a physicist's natural world. This is Kant's bifurcate world: the stars above, the moral law within; mechanical side, intelligent side.

Intelligent organisms, which might or not not be all organisms, do not always have the power to act as they desire, and might not always have the power to act at all, and it's a good thing, too.