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#1
Dec 07, 2011, 11:19 AM
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Quote:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/colle...e-have-purpose Last edited by DocJohn; Dec 07, 2011 at 03:09 PM. Reason: Edited to comply with guidelines. |
 arcangel, Gus1234U
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#2
Dec 07, 2011, 12:37 PM
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The "purpose" of life: if you look at what life does most distinctly, it creates more like itself. Reproduction.
Quote:
__________________
Now if thou would'st When all have given him o'er From death to life Thou might'st him yet recover -- Michael Drayton 1562 - 1631 |
| arcangel
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#3
Dec 08, 2011, 04:33 AM
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I am not sure if reproduction can be described as a purpose or simply a function of life.
Purpose implies a greater consiousness or higher power directing matters. Life forms can individually have purposes, driven by either instinct or in our case rational. Life as a whole, though, simply the result of a random interaction of organic molecules. |
| advena
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#4
Dec 08, 2011, 09:46 AM
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I don't agree with all his presuppositions. For instance, why must god be alive in order to be an agent? It seems he is using his definitions of words to make some of his arguments. I understand that this is what philosophers do when crafting an argument, but in this case it wasn't totally convincing to me. It was a thought provoking piece of writing otherwise and thank you for sharing it.
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#5
Dec 08, 2011, 04:14 PM
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I've never understood why people get into such a conundrum concerning the question of whether or not there is a purpose to life. Would not the very lack of inherent purpose in life give you reason to create one for yourself?
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| Anonymous32463, Feiticeira, pachyderm
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#6
Dec 16, 2011, 02:41 AM
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Going with his theist line of reasoning, the purpose of life would be to create, not life itself, but anything the life form chooses to create, or destroy; that is, rather the purpose is simply to act. How did life, or the theist god, originate? The original genesis of this theist god wouldn't be any more teleological than an atheistic origin of life. But life itself, once it exists, does have a purpose to act that is not necessarily biological, and is not instrumental since each lifeform has free will to disobey its parent lifeform. Even a lifeless hammer may be used differently than its creator intended.
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#7
Dec 16, 2011, 08:12 PM
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Okie, well from a teleological point of view I suppose this is a valid argument, but the presumption that there are only two kinds of purposes is IMHO a flawed premise. So we have no biological purpose, and we have no instrumental purpose, but for humans there is the possibility that existence proceeds essence and you give life purpose by doing things that are meaningful for you. It's like self-creation, because no one else can live our lives for us.
The meaning of life is the meaning you give it, it's made apparent by you actions. Or the meaning of life is 42 
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| Willcat
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#8
Dec 17, 2011, 02:33 PM
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i tend to agree with Feiticeira: life has the meaning one gives it. ipso facto - life has no inherent meaning. all that arises passes away.
__________________
AWAKEN~! |
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