andbna said:
Lets say I forgot I left it in my chair and sat on it. Did the resultant computations it carried out have any purpose? No, there was no purporse bhind those computations.
Was there any purpose in sitting in the chair? If so, then sitting on a calculator, that you left on the chair, and so is part of the chair as far as you sitting on a chair is concerned, is part of that purpose.
What if the chair "included" a sharp knife, and you bent it, as you sat (on the chair+knife), or blunted it? No purpose to this "event"? No connection? Bending a knife by sitting on it accidentally is purposeless? Bleeding is without purpose?
You have to
use something, or interact with it in an intentional way, for the purpose
of that use to exist. If the calculator "accidentally" calculates something, it's not connected to the purpose of using a chair, but it's part of the outcome, the result of intentionally sitting on the chair+calc. The result of sitting on a chair is that the chair deforms a bit. The calculator also got "deformed" a bit. Or the knife.
andbna said:
I would say the baby gained nothing from waving the calculator,
I would say that's an incorrect conclusion. Babies gain a whole lot by interacting with things - they learn about the shape and taste of things at first.
Whatever you "give" to an infant (say < 12 months), will contribute to its learning about the world -so the baby would not "gain nothing". Not at all.
andbna said:
I am focusing soley on how the tool is being used, not how it was meant to be used. If it is used, but there is no purpose behind it's use, then that instance of use is purposeless.
So if you stand on a rake, and the handle lifts up and hits you on the head, that's purposeless? What does "no purpose behind its use" mean?
If you
use something, then that thing
has a purpose. How can using a tool (even the "wrong way") be without purpose?
andbna said:
A book has a purpose: to store information, regardless of whether or not it gets read ever.
What if the book is lost in the middle of a jungle? Or converted into a pile of ashes and vapour?
Where is the "store" of information, if no-one reads it?
I can discern the purpose of the tiger, but that does not prove that I can discern the purpose of life.
...because oen componant of life has an identifiable purpose, does not mean that life itself hasa purpose.
But you've only seen
some of the "components", how can you draw the conclusion that
all of the "components", have no purpose?
If what you've seen so far (and you can only imagine, or project an idea that there are heaps more) are purposeful organisms. how do you
avoid the conclusion that "Life (as all the lifeforms I've ever seen so far) behaves purposefully"?
You can't make any other conclusion at all. You can only base it on what you know, not what you imagine,
Like Einstein's theory, there is no proof it's the "correct" view. But so far, every event measured to intentionally test it, has supported it.
I know that doesn't mean there is no example of a contrary observation (we may not have seen it yet), but the observations we have is all there is, therefore we tend to believe Einstein.
When we find something alive, that doesn't behave, then we can say "there's a form of life that has no purpose (does not exhibit purpose)". That would allow a conclusion that Life has no purpose. Although a single example isn't exactly a slam-dunk. And I really can't imagine such a lifeform - something alive that doesn't do anything?
What you mean is "I can discern the purpose of the tiger, therefore I can discern that it is another purposeful lifeform, like all the others I've seen. So that means Life is purposeful, as far as I can tell". Proof has nothing to do with it.
