Why Why?

[Ferrocyanide]

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.  

Yes, so calling a tree an ordered object, that is a convention.

The 2 nd law of thermodynamics does not deal with order. It deals with Entropy. In other words, it tells us about energy flow and how one type of energy converts to another and the reverse doesn’t happen. (There are some cases that are reversible).
For example, if a rock is at the top of the mountain, it has some Gravitational potential energy. It can role down the mountain, which means
Gravitational potential energy -> kinetic energy
kinetic energy -> heat and sound
sound -> heat

^^^^^That’s an example of a non reversible system.
I suppose you could state that the system goes from disorder -> order.

Another example is given here
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/thermo2.html

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 a lot of ideas about purpose lead to us willingly giving up our lives.

The question is, “Who says we have what purpose?”.
slartibartfast told us about

“My life doesn't have meaning otherwise
I won't feel fulfilled without having a purpose
I need to know what happens when I die”

My position is that the christian isn’t really talking about purpose(job, task, function). He doesn’t care about purpose at all. He is concerned about death.
In other words, that talk about purpose and meaning is smokescreen.

it turns out that a lot of ideas about purpose lead to us willingly giving up our lives.

How so?

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.

Roger.

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

There is a difference between a purpose given to you by an intelligent being compared to purpose given by nature.
For example, I might write a program and run that program. The component that executes the program is the CPU.
Why do I write a program? Probably because I am going to get some use out of it.

Why do humans make hammers? Because they want to drive nails into wood.
Why do humans make watches? To synchronize events, to measure time.

CPUs, hammers, watches have a purpose.

A human has a brain and it thinks. It is a data processor and it forms ideas, solutions to problems.

Nature is brainless. It doesn’t take any decisions but there are designs in nature.
Something like a planet or star has a spherical shape since it is liquid or gas or plasma and there is the Gravitational potential energy -> kinetic -> sound + heat -> heat
So, you end up with spherical planets and stars.
So, the properties of matter/space/energy leads to certain designs.

For life forms, there are multiple options. You can be a brainless bacteria, a brainless phytoplakton, a brainful elephant.
However, there is competition taking place among them. If that bacteria cannot seek food and use it, it goes extinct since it will eventually get damaged or will run out of fuel.
These lifeforms need to have the right set of properties to survive.
If they don’t, then you end up with a lifeless planet.

But i think you already know those ^^^^^ things.

I certainly wasn't born with any feeling of purpose

I think most human babies have emotions. They feel hunger, they feel like pooping, they feel temperature and all that. Those basic functions help the baby survive.

Those are the “purposes” that nature has given human babies.

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

Well, I can’t claim that what I described is the absolute truth.
It is hard to prove some of those things.
When it comes to people giving themselves a purpose, they use their emotions. They do what they feel like.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, so calling a tree an ordered object, that is a convention.

At the risk of insulting you, I think you're being pointlessly obtuse.  Is this because you have objections to the convention of naming things, or because you worry some other (probably god bothering) foot is about to fall?  If it's the latter, it's really not an issue in any of our discussions..as in between you and me, about order or purpose.  

Some nutter might take it and run with it, but who cares, neither of us are nutters, and nutters will run with literally anything.  There's no pre-empting that...because they're nuts. Yes, a tree is ordered.  Yes, a tree is organized.  Specifically with regards to the pile of it's constuent components laying around in processed or decomposed form somewhere.  So too, are we.  

Do I think that says something about any answer to the question of why or of purpose with regards to human beings in an exclusively natural context?  I do.  We're order machines.  Made of order, compelled to order, creating vast disorder to maintain what order we inherit and effect.  Palpably and viscerally enjoying that order and seeking to impose more of it in on and around everything we can see or touch.  

Even, yes, and especially...when it isn't there.  I think that's at least part of what we're for, what we're made to do, what purpose we serve...and it'd be a shame if it weren't, because it's not like we're going to stop doing it if so. We'd be a monumental waste of agency, in that event. It would also be a shame for a whole lot of other things, as us doing what we do is also a function that pertains to other creatures and other objects.

The question is, “Who says we have what purpose?”.
slartibartfast told us about

“My life doesn't have meaning otherwise
I won't feel fulfilled without having a purpose
I need to know what happens when I die”

My position is that the christian isn’t really talking about purpose(job, task, function). He doesn’t care about purpose at all. He is concerned about death.
In other words, that talk about purpose and meaning is smokescreen.

Well, that's not the question for me, as I don't limit purpose to just what someone tells us..and I'm not a christian or a theist or a committed deontologist of any kind.  The question for me is whether our objections to god-purpose, for example, really apply to non-god purpose..and whether the thorough rejection of purpose o why other-than-god-purpose or god -why as no more or less true than fairies is an accurate representation of facts in mere reality.  

Is it really true that every apprehension pof purpose, even those explicitly natural apprehensions of purpose, is no more or less true than the idea that the fae people paint the morning dew on every flower? That every single apprehension of human purpose is just flat out wrong?

How so?

Exactly the question.  If purpose, as it's been suggested, is a fiction that people manufacture out of a fear of death and a strong desire to avoid it..how is it that this purpose compels people to give up their lives?  To run at death, instead of away from death? 

Roger.

...............?  Right...and so, what exactly are we objecting to at the outset of your previous response commented on above?  The convention of naming, or the accuracy of the terms and observations which we apply that convention to?  If I say there is order and disorder and we are little order machines..is it the words, is it the fear of utility to some nut who sees utility everywhere in all things....or is it that the facts which those statements purport to report, to which we're objecting, are not..in fact...facts?

There is a difference between a purpose given to you by an intelligent being compared to purpose given by nature.
For example, I might write a program and run that program. The component that executes the program is the CPU.
Why do I write a program? Probably because I am going to get some use out of it.

Why do humans make hammers? Because they want to drive nails into wood.
Why do humans make watches? To synchronize events, to measure time.

CPUs, hammers, watches have a purpose.

A human has a brain and it thinks. It is a data processor and it forms ideas, solutions to problems.

Sure, the source of the purpose.  There's a convention for that.  Extrinsic and intrinsic.  Extrinsic purpose is what use you have to someone.  Intrinsic is what purpose you have as a consequence of the facts of what you are.  Sometimes parents have kids for the increased labor - but that's not all that kids are..and..sometimes...they don't provide the labor.  Preferring, instead, to chase other avenues of purpose, some equally extrinsic..but some, at least conceptually, intrinsic.  

Nature is brainless. It doesn’t take any decisions but there are designs in nature.
Something like a planet or star has a spherical shape since it is liquid or gas or plasma and there is the Gravitational potential energy -> kinetic -> sound + heat -> heat
So, you end up with spherical planets and stars.
So, the properties of matter/space/energy leads to certain designs.

For life forms, there are multiple options. You can be a brainless bacteria, a brainless phytoplakton, a brainful elephant.
However, there is competition taking place among them. If that bacteria cannot seek food and use it, it goes extinct since it will eventually get damaged or will run out of fuel.
These lifeforms need to have the right set of properties to survive.
If they don’t, then you end up with a lifeless planet.

But i think you already know those ^^^^^ things.

Do you think that there are extrinsic and intrinsic purposes for which a brainy creature, as opposed to a brainless creature, are better suited?  

I think most human babies have emotions. They feel hunger, they feel like pooping, they feel temperature and all that. Those basic functions help the baby survive.

Those are the “purposes” that nature has given human babies.

Mhm, without any real consideration of purpose and without the ability to even consider purpose, each of us is born with at least some things that you can describe as our purpose by sheer coincidence of biology.  As another one of the members of our boards likes to point out, we're complex recursive systems..so whatever purpose we're inherently born with is unlikely to describe the full set of purpose which we might one day attain....but even if that was all we had...it would still be purpose..and if so, then the statement "there is no purpose" is manifestly and self demonstratively false as a fact, on it's face.

Well, I can’t claim that what I described is the absolute truth.
It is hard to prove some of those things.
When it comes to people giving themselves a purpose, they use their emotions. They do what they feel like.

I'm unconcerned with whatever absolute truth is.  I was asking whether you felt like the things you described as your purpose were..in your own apprehension, on equal footing with ghost stories?

If the objections you have to god-purpose, in your own estimation, equally apply to your purpose? It's hard to see how they would, and I've never personally known anyone who acts like they think so. My question, my entire question, which I could couch in any context and by any convention, is whether or not the way we purpose-troll ourselves on these boards, for example..is a true statement of reality..or even our own private apprehensions of reality..or is it a consequence of the conflict between facts and god-bothering faith's doomed insistence on owning all fact?

Do you, or some of us, end up saying things we don't believe to be true, and maybe even things which aren't true, as an argument against god-assertions which are..themselves, untrue? I can't personally see why the question of why can't be answered by facts, and natural facts. I can't personally see why the question of purpose can't be answered by facts, and natural facts. I also see and respect that it's a fact (and a natural fact) that this may be a limit of my own imagination. I'm just crowd sourcing help for understanding what I do not, with respect to that.

I mean, I get it. God this, god that....god bullshit. I'm wondering about things outside of that, that are not god-things.

[Ferrocyanide]

At the risk of insulting you, I think you're being pointlessly obtuse.  Is this because you have objections to the convention of naming things, or because you worry some other (probably god bothering) foot is about to fall?  If it's the latter, it's really not an issue in any of our discussions..as in between you and me, about order or purpose.

No, you aren’t insulting me.
I have to question it. How was the decision made that a certain state is ordered and the other state is not?

The question for me is whether our objections to god-purpose

What do you mean by objection. Do you mean you don’t accept the purpose given to you by the god-alien?
Can you give some examples. Such as which god and what purpose do they give to humans?

For example, in the case of the jewish god, if the purpose for humans is that he wants humans to say to him “What a great god you are”, that’s not the kind of purpose I am interested in. It seems boring. It also suggest that that god is a narcissist, which is not a good personality trait.
That’s something personal. To me, it is a turn off.
To a christian, that is a turn on.

On the other hand, in the mormon version of things, if the jewish god says that my purpose is to be a god one day, that sounds more appealing.
So, to me, it looks like a turn on. I am interested in trying that out.

As for the purpose or functions that nature has given us. I don’t have a problem with eating some nice tasting food. You mentioned coffee. I assume you drink it since you like the taste.
On the other hand, some functions, like needing to suddenly run to the bathroom to pee, that’s not so great.

So, which purpose, that nature has given you, do you like and which do you not like?

Exactly the question.  If purpose, as it's been suggested, is a fiction that people manufacture out of a fear of death and a strong desire to avoid it..how is it that this purpose compels people to give up their lives?  To run at death, instead of away from death?

You seem to want to talk about atheists and not theists.
So, I will only talk about theists.
In the case of atheists, purpose is not manufactured out of a fear of death.
The purposes that an atheist assigns to himself, he does it because he likes to live, bc he finds life worth living.
He sets aside the fact that his life will end in the next seconds or next week or maybe in 100 y. He just does what his emotions lead him to.

****WARNING: The above makes it sound like I know every atheists, which I do not.

...............?  Right...and so, what exactly are we objecting to at the outset of your previous response commented on above?  The convention of naming, or the accuracy of the terms and observations which we apply that convention to?  If I say there is order and disorder and we are little order machines..is it the words, is it the fear of utility to some nut who sees utility everywhere in all things....or is it that the facts which those statements purport to report, to which we're objecting, are not..in fact...facts?

I did not see any problems with what you had said earlier, but to be honest, there is just a little something.
For example, a certain particle is said to have a positive charge and the other has a negative charge.
I feel like the word positive has no particular meaning. It is just a state.
We don’t call the negative one the “dispositive”.

One animal is the male. The other is the female. We don’t call the female the dismale.
Male and female are just different states.

So, what’s up with the words order and disorder? Why are there only 2 words when there are many ordered states?
I can just randomly type a few things here ----> 0100100101010001
and let me type something else -----> 0001010100011111
These are just 2 different states. They are just 2 different numbers and there are plenty more numbers.
How can we figure out which one is the disordered state?

Sure, the source of the purpose.  There's a convention for that.  Extrinsic and intrinsic.  Extrinsic purpose is what use you have to someone.  Intrinsic is what purpose you have as a consequence of the facts of what you are.  Sometimes parents have kids for the increased labor - but that's not all that kids are..and..sometimes...they don't provide the labor.  Preferring, instead, to chase other avenues of purpose, some equally extrinsic..but some, at least conceptually, intrinsic.

Roger.

Do you think that there are extrinsic and intrinsic purposes for which a brainy creature, as opposed to a brainless creature, are better suited?

Sure.
For example, certain yeast have the ability to convert glucose to ethanol and CO2 in the absence of oxygen.
It is said that it is possible that by producing ethanol, there is an added benefit. It kills off the competition.
Also, as the concentration of ethanol goes up, certain yeast get damaged. What are left are fast ethanol producing yeast that can also survive a rising conc of ethanol.
This is something intrinsic.
It helps the yeast survive.

For example, camels are well fit to survive the desert, the heat + lack of water.
For humans, they make a good vehicle.
This is something extrinsic.
Humans have repurposed camels for their own needs.

As another one of the members of our boards likes to point out, we're complex recursive systems

Why is he calling humans recursive systems?
Which part is recursive?

I'm unconcerned with whatever absolute truth is.  I was asking whether you felt like the things you described as your purpose were..in your own apprehension, on equal footing with ghost stories?

I think the things that have described so far are things that are accepted by psychologists, scientists from various fields and theists.
In other words, they have a foundation in science and some of it is just basic observation.
Since the theists already accepts that nature exists, that there are laws of physics and so on, he accepts the biochemistry that is going on in the human body.

Even if the scientist is a theists, he has to appreciate how science works and understands that it is well established, he understands the value of evidence.

Stories about gods are not founded on observation.
They are exactly that : stories.

Some of the things that I have said, I have already told them to christians. For example, I told them that we are emotional machines and that we are all survival machines and that this leads to deciding what is right and wrong which is the foundation of our morals. In other words, moral rules exist because we have emotions.
None of them disagreed.

I can't personally see why the question of why can't be answered by facts, and natural facts. I can't personally see why the question of purpose can't be answered by facts, and natural facts.

Other people say that nature has intrinsic properties, matter/energy/space has certain properties. I agree with this.
They also say that why question should not be asked since there is no intelligence behind it and instead, how is the proper form.

The main difference is that the god-alien has a brain and nature is brainless.
So, you could ask the god “Why did you do X?” and “How did you do X?”. A god has a brain and takes decisions.
With nature, you can’t have a conversation. Nature does what it does due to intrinsic properties. There is no decision making.

Then, there is the fuzzy area of what counts as intelligence.

[carlos256]

good good