I'm not sure about this. They may lack the aforementioned blessing, but it doesn't follow that the purpose is defined for them, whether by some outside agency, fact or condition, or by something internal called instinct... there is some variation (for instance, a vixen may establish her own den and family, or remain to help raise her mother's new kits), and there is the possibility of purposelessness (say, that of a cage-bred animal released into the wild). There are also the familiar pitfalls of anthropomorphization.
That's a good point. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the relative value of purpose, as well as the different kinds thereof, has been given to them, but that still partly falls to what you're saying, as well. They can reason (in as far as they reason) about actions (the first level, so to speak), but not about concepts such as reason themselves (the second). I might ask about what the nature of that purpose is (and how "fundamental" it has to be), but that would diverge from the subject onto ontology.
I think the reason that questions of purpose become either trivial or problematic when applied to animals is because our hierarchy of concepts (with purpose on top) does not translate to their behavior. For instance, if you switch to the concept of role, rather than purpose, suddenly the behavior of animals becomes considerably more comprehensible. (Parenthetically: It is easy to reduce role to purpose, but it's also easy to reduce purpose to role, particularly for animals. You can imagine an alternative conceptual hierarchy in which purpose is below role in importance, and you can make a case that such a hierarchy once prevailed over women, slaves and children.)
Rather than that role can be reduced to purpose or vice versa, it seems that they're both shades of the same thing: they're links of meaningful direction to either an action (purpose) or to a way of being (a role). By direction, I mean that they say "this is better than that", and by meaningful, that the reason or impact is not spurious (as such, carries "meaning"). Is that, too, a hierarchy? It sounds like it is, but the root component is common to both.
While I'm here, what do you mean by a "false purpose"?
Say you hold a very high standard of purpose: it has to be given to you by the universe, otherwise it could just as easily be invented. Then a false purpose is something which is invented (i.e. does not satisfy your stringent requirement, whatever that requirement is), yet appears to pass. Or more simply put: say there's a meaning to life - and you convince yourself of something else. That other is a false purpose.
The definition would also hold if "purpose" itself requires a certain standard in order to make sense. I don't know if it does, but the standard doesn't have to be subjective, it could also be objective. Going in that direction, we'd probably return to ever greater standards not being "good enough", and eventually to the entropic problem we've talked about earlier (in this version, in the semblance of "no purpose can be true because all my actions are sooner or later worn down by entropy in the form of time").
Finally, to return to the earliest question: what can give purpose its needed weight? I do not know, but I think the question has an empirical answer.
How could we find out, then? If it has an empirical answer, it should be possible.
If my answers feel growly or curt, that's not the intention... but since I lost my previous reply, I had to write quickly and so might have summarized too much, cut a bit too close to the bone. In any case, I did not intend to be rude towards you.
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branchandroot
Re: Purpose
Date: 2009-11-07 07:29 pm (UTC)I'm not sure about this. They may lack the aforementioned blessing, but it doesn't follow that the purpose is defined for them, whether by some outside agency, fact or condition, or by something internal called instinct... there is some variation (for instance, a vixen may establish her own den and family, or remain to help raise her mother's new kits), and there is the possibility of purposelessness (say, that of a cage-bred animal released into the wild). There are also the familiar pitfalls of anthropomorphization.
That's a good point. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the relative value of purpose, as well as the different kinds thereof, has been given to them, but that still partly falls to what you're saying, as well. They can reason (in as far as they reason) about actions (the first level, so to speak), but not about concepts such as reason themselves (the second). I might ask about what the nature of that purpose is (and how "fundamental" it has to be), but that would diverge from the subject onto ontology.
I think the reason that questions of purpose become either trivial or problematic when applied to animals is because our hierarchy of concepts (with purpose on top) does not translate to their behavior. For instance, if you switch to the concept of role, rather than purpose, suddenly the behavior of animals becomes considerably more comprehensible. (Parenthetically: It is easy to reduce role to purpose, but it's also easy to reduce purpose to role, particularly for animals. You can imagine an alternative conceptual hierarchy in which purpose is below role in importance, and you can make a case that such a hierarchy once prevailed over women, slaves and children.)
Rather than that role can be reduced to purpose or vice versa, it seems that they're both shades of the same thing: they're links of meaningful direction to either an action (purpose) or to a way of being (a role). By direction, I mean that they say "this is better than that", and by meaningful, that the reason or impact is not spurious (as such, carries "meaning"). Is that, too, a hierarchy? It sounds like it is, but the root component is common to both.
While I'm here, what do you mean by a "false purpose"?
Say you hold a very high standard of purpose: it has to be given to you by the universe, otherwise it could just as easily be invented. Then a false purpose is something which is invented (i.e. does not satisfy your stringent requirement, whatever that requirement is), yet appears to pass. Or more simply put: say there's a meaning to life - and you convince yourself of something else. That other is a false purpose.
The definition would also hold if "purpose" itself requires a certain standard in order to make sense. I don't know if it does, but the standard doesn't have to be subjective, it could also be objective. Going in that direction, we'd probably return to ever greater standards not being "good enough", and eventually to the entropic problem we've talked about earlier (in this version, in the semblance of "no purpose can be true because all my actions are sooner or later worn down by entropy in the form of time").
Finally, to return to the earliest question: what can give purpose its needed weight? I do not know, but I think the question has an empirical answer.
How could we find out, then? If it has an empirical answer, it should be possible.
If my answers feel growly or curt, that's not the intention... but since I lost my previous reply, I had to write quickly and so might have summarized too much, cut a bit too close to the bone. In any case, I did not intend to be rude towards you.