Purpose
Lately Bryce offered a trailer for a sci fi series called Expand. It looks at a dystopian future where people on Earth are basically superfluous because all their needs are provided by automation and slaves in the asteroid belt. Seems the Earthlings are full of angst because their lives have no purpose.
I honestly don't get it. In the trailer the people seemed prosperous. It looked like a sort of paradise. It's like they invented a reason to be unhappy.
I think this concern about purpose is sort of an archeological remnant of our religious past where people were told that they were on earth to fulfill God's plan. Lots of good work was done in service of that idea - I'm thinking hospitals and stuff. When we finally realized that God does not exist it took away a central motivation for a lot of people.
I think they should get over it because even with a God in the picture there still is no purpose in any sort of universal sense. One is forced to ask what is the purpose of God? And I've heard mambo jumbo like "God is the source of purpose" - sort of god is self-purposed. Sort of like God is self created.
My point is that reality has no purpose. Within that life has no purpose. And within that a life form has no purpose. It all just happens because it can.
I never thought my life had a purpose. Once long ago at work I was complaining about something to co-workers. My boss, Claire Moon, smiled and said, "Life is hard. Then you die". The whole room grinned. I took it as my motto. I took it as drawing attention to the good bits in life as special and letting the bad bits fade away.
Counter-intuitively, Natural Selection introduces the concept of purpose into reality. With a pile of rocks like a mountain you can look at the chain of cause and effect that made a particular mountain but you can't find a purpose that it serves.
Natural Selection many different lifeforms from bacteria to people. A life form has many systems operating that keep it going. We can say, "what is the purpose of this system". Like the purpose of a heart is to pump blood and the purpose of blood is to distribute nutrients and remove waste.
So within a life form we can ask "what is the purpose of this or that thing?" and get a reasonable answer.
But we can't ask "what is the purpose of a platypus?" and get a reasonable answer.
I do things on purpose. I like making pictures for instance. I do that on purpose - it's not me jerking around in random spasms of some sort.
One can ask - what is the purpose of your computer? I find that hard to answer. I have a computer that I use for many things. Is the reason I have a computer its purpose?
This may go back to the problem of angst. Once people thought of themselves as a part of a greater whole with their own function to play in that greater whole. This was used by slave holders to comfort slaves. You slaves have your special role that gives you a place in the whole
I celebrate the idea that there is no purpose to suffering - that helps us reduce suffering
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.