Why Why?

[Ahriman]

I suppose we could expect broad agreement between atheists on the question of why why and it's relationship to myths about gods.  Gods, though, are a tiny sliver of all answers to that question.   There's something other than a person not believing in gods going on if no possible answer to the question is entertained as valid, though, I think.  

Nothing to something is a bit vague and unrepresentative.  There are all sorts of processes that can turn disorder into order, though.  Life, broadly, is one of them.  We're a strong agent to that effect, specifically.  I would expect any living creature capable of wondering about why to incorporate some comment on their own mortality, but if escaping death were the entire answer to why I have a why..I'd feel as dissatisfied as you might, Ferry, with the notion that the whole of why was to praise someone else.  I think that alot of people would.  It certainly wouldn't explain ideations about purpose which surround us giving up our own lives to it's ends.  

I'm not sure if we're maintaining a consistent sense of terms when we insist that there's no reason behind our existence, and specifically when we chase that with comments about process and something from nothing.  Using that as a springboard to declare why why void.  There are all sorts of reasons for our existence, and all sorts of attendant processes related to that.  Is there some specific reason that these things are incapable of providing valid insight into human purpose?  When people insist that science or the natural world can't provide such purpose..is that a true statement or something born out of the history of attempting to avoid conflict with answers to purpose which arise from the divine?  Isn't it possible that those divine answers to why are, themselves, misapprehensions of some natural and at least conceptually scientific fact?

Let's argue counterfactually about a thing.  It's not really the point of life to praise a god - but if it were..that would be a purpose.  A purpose we're individually dissatisfied with.  Is it not possible, similarly, for there to be a valid natural teleology that disappoints common human misapprehensions and demands of purpose?  Wouldn't science be a tool for describing that natural teleology?  Wouldn't that natural teleology reduce to natural facts about human beings and their relationships to everything around them?  If it does, wouldn't that provide a more accurate account of the focus of religious ideation?

Why do you wake up every day and do what you do?  Why do you put in the effort, why do you sacrifice?  Why do you risk?  Are there things more important in your life and to your life than your life?  It's not gods, but it's something..and how does it escape the criticism offered of divine purpose, or, indeed, the insistence that there is no purpose at all?  Does that apply to you, to whatever it is that compels you?  Is that a non thing?  Say a person told you, to your face..... that there is no why to any of what you do or are in mere reality.  Is that something you'd accept as a true statement?  Think of the thing(s) that you are the most invested in, that you feel the closest to.  It could be big or small, it doesn't matter, just that you derive a sense of purpose and meaning that informs you on how to live your life (or give up your life) from it.  Can you argue against your own statements with respect to that thing, or are you forced to concede that your thing is no more or less false than the belief that the why is to worship a god?

Can I have a smaller word salad please?

[The Grand Nudger]

The adults are trying to speak. Good job teaching me about the floor of my own derision, I guess? You remain...and....somehow..... seem even more completely worthless since the last time I forgot you existed.

I'm not even mad, I'm impressed.

[Ahriman]

The empty can rattles the most, punk.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oooookay? Now that we've had your completely essential take.

Honestly, there's plenty there to discuss. Is there something you wanted to talk about..or...?

[arewethereyet]

Oooookay?  Now that we've had your completely essential take.

Honestly, there's plenty there to discuss.  Is there something you wanted to talk about..or...?

Ahri is easing into his real self.

The snark is coming out more and more often.

Wait for it...

[LadyForCamus]

@Ahriman Your disinterest in making an attempt to understand what someone is saying to you does not magically transform what they are saying into, “word salad.” If you’re here to have discussions, then for the love of FSM, have a discussion. Demonstrate at least a passable level of effort here. Otherwise, we could take your lack of serious engagement as a tacit admission of trolling. Just sayin’.

[Ferrocyanide]

Nothing to something is a bit vague and unrepresentative.  There are all sorts of processes that can turn disorder into order, though.  Life, broadly, is one of them.

This one touches upon physics/chemistry.
I think you are aware that there is that book by Lawrence Krauss titled “A Universe From Nothing”. To summarize, Lawrence states that perhaps the philosophical nothing doesn’t exist. Also, he states that empty space which was called a vacuum or a nothing, is not a nothing.

It’s that philosophical nothing that I was talking about. I don’t think you would have nothing and then out pops a proton. I don’t think such a process exists.
On the other hand, transformation from energy to matter and matter to energy is something that is observed.

Life and order: This can be summarized to a molecule that makes copies of itself. The copy has to be accurate. Once you get different molecules that can make copies of themselves, the one that wins is the one that makes the most copies (and perhaps it destroys the other versions in the process).
A portion of this concept has been demonstrated in the lab. They have made RNA molecules that can make copies of themselves to a 90% accuracy.

If people want to call that order, they can I suppose but what is order?

but if escaping death were the entire answer to why I have a why

I’m not sure if I understood you.
Having questions such as “Why I exist” is not related to death. It’s just human curiosity which is tied to the desire to know, desire to explore, curiosity. These are tied to emotions. We are all emotional machines.

“What happens when I die”, “Where do I go when I die”, those ones are related to escaping death, which are also related to emotions.

There are all sorts of reasons for our existence, and all sorts of attendant processes related to that. Is there some specific reason that these things are incapable of providing valid insight into human purpose? When people insist that science or the natural world can't provide such purpose..is that a true statement or something born out of the history of attempting to avoid conflict with answers to purpose which arise from the divine?

For me, purpose means having a job to do. The purpose giver is an intelligent being. For example, a hammer is build by an intelligent being and its purpose is to drive nails into wood.
If you want, you could state that nature (a brainless thing) gave us the purpose to procreate, understand natural laws, build cities, build Space shuttles and go explore the rest of the universe.

#1 You can try having that conversation with a christian and I am guessing his response will be “Your god is nature, my god is a caring ultra-being.”
In his mind, you are a blasphemer and you are in the crosshairs of god. You are in big trouble. Pascal’s wager (Pain, torture).

#2 The christian will use the “argument from design” argument. He will say only an intelligent being can design something as complex as DNA.

A purpose we're individually dissatisfied with. Is it not possible, similarly, for there to be a valid natural teleology that disappoints common human misapprehensions and demands of purpose?

If you want to claim that nature (a brainless thing) gave you a purpose, you could.
For a theist, it creates a problem:
#1 The theist says to himself “I am the superior creature on this planet. I am the most intelligent. I can create a hammer and a VHS player”.
#2 The theist will say to himself “Not even I can create a single cell, a single strand of DNA. How could nature create me? Nature is stupid therefore the natural answer is that a super intelligent being created me.”

Why do you wake up every day and do what you do? Why do you put in the effort, why do you sacrifice? Why do you risk? Are there things more important in your life and to your life than your life? It's not gods, but it's something..and how does it escape the criticism offered of divine purpose, or, indeed, the insistence that there is no purpose at all? Does that apply to you, to whatever it is that compels you? Is that a non thing? Say a person told you, to your face..... that there is no why to any of what you do or are in mere reality. Is that something you'd accept as a true statement? Think of the thing(s) that you are the most invested in, that you feel the closest to. It could be big or small, it doesn't matter, just that you derive a sense of purpose and meaning that informs you on how to live your life (or give up your life) from it. Can you argue against your own statements with respect to that thing, or are you forced to concede that your thing is no more or less false than the belief that the why is to worship a god?

One word: emotions.
Emotions are part of my programming and it leads me to do certain things. Even though I use logic, emotions play a big role in what I do.
If we had no emotions, would it bother you if I cut you with a knife?

Why do I choose to remain alive? I would have to say that we enjoy being alive instead of just being separate molecules scattered around.

I concede that my thing is no more or less false than the belief that the why is to worship a god.
In other words, maybe there is a god and maybe he wants me to worship him.
That’s fine and dandy but ............ Before I worship him, I would need to have conversations with him.

[The Grand Nudger]

If people want to call that order, they can I suppose but what is order?

Order is generally believed to be an organized state, as opposed to disorder, a disorganized state.  A popular example being a puzzle complete, and a puzzle in pieces.  Another could be a tree, and loose fiber.

I’m not sure if I understood you.
Having questions such as “Why I exist” is not related to death. It’s just human curiosity which is tied to the desire to know, desire to explore, curiosity. These are tied to emotions. We are all emotional machines.

“What happens when I die”, “Where do I go when I die”, those ones are related to escaping death, which are also related to emotions.

I was wondering about the whys of why outside of mortality and our attempts to evade it - since it was mentioned.  I think that we can zero out plenty of answers to why that amount to nothing more than adding minutes to the clock, and people have been known to clean their clocks entirely for the thing or things they think offer the answer to the question of purpose.  In that case, none of our objections to the answers which we've zeroed out would fit.  None of our objections to answers based in mortality would fit.

For me, purpose means having a job to do. The purpose giver is an intelligent being. For example, a hammer is build by an intelligent being and its purpose is to drive nails into wood.
If you want, you could state that nature (a brainless thing) gave us the purpose to procreate, understand natural laws, build cities, build Space shuttles and go explore the rest of the universe.

#1 You can try having that conversation with a christian and I am guessing his response will be “Your god is nature, my god is a caring ultra-being.”
In his mind, you are a blasphemer and you are in the crosshairs of god. You are in big trouble. Pascal’s wager (Pain, torture).

#2 The christian will use the “argument from design” argument. He will say only an intelligent being can design something as complex as DNA.

I also think that having a purpose is akin to having a job or a duty, but I don't think that there has to be any intelligent designer for people to have a job or duty.  I'm unconcerned with christian answers.   

Procreation, understanding natural laws, building cities, space shuttles, exploration..all fantastic.  I'd add drinking coffee, tickling my kids, buying the groceries of the customer ahead of me in line.  If we're just sticking to the positive, ofc.  

If you want to claim that nature (a brainless thing) gave you a purpose, you could.
For a theist, it creates a problem:
#1 The theist says to himself “I am the superior creature on this planet. I am the most intelligent. I can create a hammer and a VHS player”.
#2 The theist will say to himself “Not even I can create a single cell, a single strand of DNA. How could nature create me? Nature is stupid therefore the natural answer is that a super intelligent being created me.”

As before, I'm unconcerned with the problems that arise when someone premises their worldview on goblins.  Objections to goblins can't be valid objections to the sorts of answers to purpose I'd entertain as serious..as they don't refer to goblins.  I'm not sure it makes sense to object by means of a brainless thing..either.  Ultimately, all of what we do boils down to a brainless thing, as that brainless thing produced our brains.  More a difference in quality than kind when you think about it, imo.  

One word: emotions.
Emotions are part of my programming and it leads me to do certain things. Even though I use logic, emotions play a big role in what I do.
If we had no emotions, would it bother you if I cut you with a knife?

Why do I choose to remain alive? I would have to say that we enjoy being alive instead of just being separate molecules scattered around.

I concede that my thing is no more or less false than the belief that the why is to worship a god.
In other words, maybe there is a god and maybe he wants me to worship him.
That’s fine and dandy but ............ Before I worship him, I would need to have conversations with him.

You being alive vs you being molecules scattered around is a great example of order and disorder.

I can't help but mention I find this bit of the exchange profoundly odd.  The things you've mentioned before and even here are, at least, real.  They're not pixies, or a pixie premised ideology.  These are the things that move you, compel you, flesh out your sense of purpose..but, at the same time, you don't think there's any meaningful difference between them and the idea that you should prostrate yourself before some non existent god....and there's something a god could say about that?

---

Sure. Not just do I need to eat, my wife and children are dependent on me to provide. But talking in terms of "providing" is far too simple.

I guess looking at this a bit like Maslow's needs - yes there are drivers at multiple levels, ranging from pure existence to higher ones becoming more selfish. But there is also an angle for most people which is purely about giving, empathy, wanting to improve things in general for themselves as well as other people that is not just about self. 

The answer in my mind is each person derives their own why. I'm sure Donald Trump's reason for getting up in the morning is very different to yours or mine.

I could agree with that.  We all either create or discover some purpose.  That's why I find the casual rejection of natural purpose in toto so interesting.

[Ferrocyanide]

Order is generally believed to be an organized state, as opposed to disorder, a disorganized state.  A popular example being a puzzle complete, and a puzzle in pieces.  Another could be a tree, and loose fiber.

The puzzle is an artificial object.
For a tree, why would that be considered as order?
I assume by loose fiber, you mean that is an example of disorder, but why is that disorder?

I was wondering about the whys of why outside of mortality and our attempts to evade it - since it was mentioned.

Do you mean why we say that asking Why questions doesn’t make sense and we should actually ask How?
I had given the example of:
How is the hardness of aluminium X?
Why is the hardness of aluminium X?

Yes, one could say that nature (a brainless thing) has given us those purposes. I don’t object to that.
In terms of designs, nature is the designer via the properties of matter/space.
Even if there are gods-aliens or alien gods, they exist in their own universe and their own universe designed them. The body of the god-alien is at least as complex as ours, their cells or whatever, is at least as complex as ours.
William Lane Craig recognized this argument and declared at some point that his jewish god does not have any components and is simpler than us. (I have to bring in theists into the conversation).

You being alive vs you being molecules scattered around is a great example of order and disorder.

I guess calling one order and the other disorder is a matter of convention, sort of how it was decided to call one type of charge positive and the other one is negative.

In the case of order, one configuration might be called order and the thousands of other configurations are called disorder. There is an imbalance.

I can't help but mention I find this bit of the exchange profoundly odd.  The things you've mentioned before and even here are, at least, real.  They're not pixies, or a pixie premised ideology.  These are the things that move you, compel you, flesh out your sense of purpose..but, at the same time, you don't think there's any meaningful difference between them and the idea that you should prostrate yourself before some non existent god....and there's something a god could say about that?”

We have to list the possibilities:
1. There are 1 or more god-aliens. They created us. He wants to give me purpose/job.

Me: I haven’t observed any of these gods and I don’t know what they want and I think no other human has as well.
In terms of evidence, there is no solid evidence that there are gods or that any human has spoken to any gods.
The scale tips to the side of ancient humans inventing gods and the stories that they tell us about them are inventions.

2. There are 1 or more god-aliens. They didn’t create us. He wants to give me purpose/job.
Me: My response is the same.

3. There are 1 or more god-aliens. They created us. He doesn’t want to give me purpose/job.
Me: My response is the same.

4. There are 1 or more god-aliens. They didn’t create us. He doesn’t want to give me purpose/job.
Me: My response is the same.

5. No gods. Only nature.
There is evidence that nature exists but it is a brainless thing. There is no way to have a conversation with it.

You had written “I'd add drinking coffee”
but how can we determine that is a purpose assigned by nature to you?

Was I able to properly answer you or did I miss something?

[The Grand Nudger]

Order is generally believed to be an organized state, as opposed to disorder, a disorganized state.  A popular example being a puzzle complete, and a puzzle in pieces.  Another could be a tree, and loose fiber.

The puzzle is an artificial object.
For a tree, why would that be considered as order?
I assume by loose fiber, you mean that is an example of disorder, but why is that disorder?

Like asking why a wheel is a wheel.  Are you actually having trouble here?  Order and disorder are the underlying premises of the second law of thermodynamics.  

I was wondering about the whys of why outside of mortality and our attempts to evade it - since it was mentioned.

Do you mean why we say that asking Why questions doesn’t make sense and we should actually ask How?

I'm responding to objections to purpose which round down to "that's just us inventing things because we fear death".  Well, sure, we do that, but that doesn't explain why (or how..if you prefer) it turns out that alot of ideas about purpose lead to us willingly giving up our lives.  

I guess calling one order and the other disorder is a matter of convention, sort of how it was decided to call one type of charge positive and the other one is negative.

In the case of order, one configuration might be called order and the thousands of other configurations are called disorder. There is an imbalance.

Yeah, the convention of giving observations terms so that we can discuss what we see in specificity.   That there are many more actual and potential disordered states than ordered ones, and that some processes create local order while increasing global entropy.  Like our metabolism - which breaks down ordered things into disordered components to maintain our ordered cells...which is the difference between you being alive and human, and you being dead and compost.

5. No gods. Only nature.
There is evidence that nature exists but it is a brainless thing. There is no way to have a conversation with it.

You had written “I'd add drinking coffee”
but how can we determine that is a purpose assigned by nature to you?

Was I able to properly answer you or did I miss something?

This category, 5, is the only category I'm entertaining when it comes to the possibility of human purpose and the validity of a given answer to human purpose.  I don't actually think that the rest are even possibilities.  Obviously, theists disagree, but I'm really not going to spend much time on the notion that some fourteen hundred year old god created a fourteen billion year old universe...because...frankly, even if it did, that wouldn't mean that an accurate description of human purpose had anything to do with these gods or that human purpose was exhausted by the set of god-purpose.  

I suppose we could say that nature assigns a purpose, and if it did, a study of the animal could yield insight on that purpose, but it does imply agency..which isn't something that you or I believe nature has in any meaningful sense.  With respect to natural purpose..it might be more accurate to say that we discover it or apprehend it.  I certainly wasn't born with any feeling of purpose, and I can remember a time not too long ago where I was still trying to figure out what it was, or what I was going to put my own effort into in the set of things we consider purpose.  I'm always looking, still..constantly reassessing, too.  Looking for better ways to serve that purpose and at least now and then doubting that I have it in me to accomplish it (and sometimes..even, to try).  

That's just my experience, though.  On the one hand I have this apprehension..and on the other,I find it difficult to believe that people assign no more or less truth value to their own ideas about the purpose of their own life than they do to things they believe to be false or, at least, don't believe to be true. None of my own apprehensions or questions have anything to do with gods whatsoever..and so, like objections to an answer based out of the fear of our own mortality, god-objections just aren't applicable.

I'm not wondering about..or even talking about, gods. Their only relationship to purpose in mere reality is as a narrative vehicle for descriptions of purpose. Those descriptions will either stand or fall on their own merits, regardless of the existence of the gods referenced.