Factinista
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« Reply #15 on: September 19, 2007, 07:49:06 AM » |
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If the universe had a purpose then it would be nessicary for someone to create it for that purpoese. So if you believe in some Deity or designer then the answer is yes, if not, then most likley no.
That doesn't mean you can't give you'r own life purpose. You have consciousness, so far we don't think the universe does.
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daedalus 2.0
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« Reply #16 on: September 19, 2007, 02:35:30 PM » |
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I had a rather mystical thought. Since we are part of the universe, and we have purposes (self-defined as they are), and other living beings are part of the Universe (and have THEIR self-defined purposes), we could look at the Universe as have a purpose if we could somehow take the sum total of the purposes of everything living and come to a result (perhaps 42? :-)) That is, the purpose of the Universe is made up of whatever is part of the universe that has a purpose, like our appendix doesn't have a purpose, but it is part of us and so it's purpose is to be a sub-set of our purpose. Our Special Purpose.  |
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\\\\"SUCK IT, JESUS!\\\\" Kathy Griffin
\"Hitler burns Anne Frank for a day, and it\'s Evil.
God burns Anne Frank for eternity, and it\'s Just.\"Anon
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Abraxas
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"You do not speak for the rest"
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« Reply #17 on: September 19, 2007, 03:07:38 PM » |
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Our Special Purpose.  Tyler Durden would disagree. |
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Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like its from Neptune.
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- Hunter S. Thompson
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daedalus 2.0
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« Reply #18 on: September 19, 2007, 05:07:09 PM » |
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I was thinking more along the lines of Steve Martin as the "The Jerk".... |
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\\\\"SUCK IT, JESUS!\\\\" Kathy Griffin
\"Hitler burns Anne Frank for a day, and it\'s Evil.
God burns Anne Frank for eternity, and it\'s Just.\"Anon
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Gojira
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« Reply #19 on: September 19, 2007, 05:58:27 PM » |
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I was thinking more along the lines of Steve Martin as the "The Jerk".... Maybe thats the purpose of the Universe, to find all of our special purpose. |
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Our democracy has created an environment of indecision at times of impending crisis.
If life is easy for you, then you aint livin.
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luckyxstar
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« Reply #20 on: September 19, 2007, 10:48:13 PM » |
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I use to swing between feeling it's a bugger and feeling it's a gorgeous joke. So, has the universe a purpose? Who cares. If it had, we wouldn't know; if we knew, we would be wrong; if we where right, it would suck; if it didn't sucked, we wouldn't be a part of it; and if we were a part of it, it couldn't be anything else but a joke... As my new signature goes: Don't take life too seriously; nobody lives to tell... 
The purpose of the universe, is just to exist! It is just there, nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure according to some ancient philosopher, who probably noted that there is a natural disorder to the universe (entropy) and it takes work to put things in order. In the case of the universe: time is doing all the work, and as time goes on, it is becoming more orderly. But one of the contra-effects is that the sun or suns at which many things orbit, give life, force order by gravity and restrict time to days, is actually limited to a life span. Therefore it is not progressing nor regressing it is a simple existence at which time falls upon itself. |
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\\"The universe is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.\\"
- I♥Huckabees
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2112
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« Reply #21 on: September 20, 2007, 06:49:18 AM » |
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I think that what happens within the universe is not random, evolution would have taken much longer if it were completely random, but everything seems to have a purpose. A good recent example brought to my attention would be: A worm that infects ants is a classic example of another host manipulator. As the worms being carried by the ant develop, one of them makes its way to the ant's brain where it manipulates the ant's nervous system. Suddenly, the ant behaves in completely uncharacteristic fashion. At night, it leaves its colony and hangs on the tip of a grass, waiting to be eaten by a sheep. If it does not, it returns to its colony only to resume again its journey at night to the tip of a grass waiting to be eaten. Once eaten by a sheep, the worm would have succeeded in its manipulation, and would grow inside the sheep's stomach, its intended host. http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Sickest-Medical-Maverick-Discovers/dp/customer-reviews/0060889659I would say, the virus somehow knows what to do to get to the sheep, but maybe it was just random. As far as the ultimate purpose of the universe, I think all of the life and the tangible universe is just to balance the intangible that we will experience when we die. So I suppose I believe it is balance, if that is a 'purpose'. Otherwise, I don't think there is one, and if there is a creator, I don't think he/she can necessarily know every minute detail of what occurs within the universe. |
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Gojira
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« Reply #22 on: September 20, 2007, 11:07:33 AM » |
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I use to swing between feeling it's a bugger and feeling it's a gorgeous joke. So, has the universe a purpose? Who cares. If it had, we wouldn't know; if we knew, we would be wrong; if we where right, it would suck; if it didn't sucked, we wouldn't be a part of it; and if we were a part of it, it couldn't be anything else but a joke... As my new signature goes: Don't take life too seriously; nobody lives to tell...
The purpose of the universe, is just to exist! It is just there, nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure according to some ancient philosopher, who probably noted that there is a natural disorder to the universe (entropy) and it takes work to put things in order. In the case of the universe: time is doing all the work, and as time goes on, it is becoming more orderly. But one of the contra-effects is that the sun or suns at which many things orbit, give life, force order by gravity and restrict time to days, is actually limited to a life span. Therefore it is not progressing nor regressing it is a simple existence at which time falls upon itself.  Whoa. I feel enlightened. I havn't had this feeling since I saw this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=P4oAHPqeKSM&mode=related&search=Applaud. |
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Our democracy has created an environment of indecision at times of impending crisis.
If life is easy for you, then you aint livin.
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freethinker
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« Reply #23 on: September 22, 2007, 09:00:03 AM » |
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The very phraseology of this question implies a positive response is required.
If given a completely random set of events most people will find a pattern to explain not only a purpose but a cause and likely outcome. This is what humans do. We look for sense in senselessness ,we look for patterns in randomness, we look for the finite in infinity. It is how we are hard wired. It is largely why we are as successful as we are as a species. Just as people will find "faces" in a burled table top or animals in cloud formations we look for purpose in the disorder of the universe we can know.
Given our intrinsic need for purpose and our creative imaginations we will no doubt find it anytime or anywhere we look. The result of this kind of inquirey will always bring a reason to be. The thought of not finding a purpose for our existence is far to disturbing for most to bear.
The answer, to this question, lies more in how we are than in why we are.
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Yes we can ...and now we will...
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IamMe
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« Reply #24 on: September 22, 2007, 12:08:06 PM » |
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I had a rather mystical thought. Since we are part of the universe, and we have purposes (self-defined as they are), and other living beings are part of the Universe (and have THEIR self-defined purposes), we could look at the Universe as have a purpose if we could somehow take the sum total of the purposes of everything living and come to a result (perhaps 42? :-)) That is, the purpose of the Universe is made up of whatever is part of the universe that has a purpose, like our appendix doesn't have a purpose, but it is part of us and so it's purpose is to be a sub-set of our purpose. Our Special Purpose. I assume that when whoever it was said does the universe have a purpose it meant some kind of objective, external, ulterior purpose not the sum total of our petty dreams of success. What you said there is the nice way of saying the universe has no purpose. |
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\\\\"Anarchism is the ideal to which all societies should approximate\\\\" - Bertrand Russell
If you strike me down I shall become more dead than you can ever imagine.
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Callum
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« Reply #25 on: September 23, 2007, 03:00:00 AM » |
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The purpose of the universe, is just to exist! It is just there, nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure according to some ancient philosopher, who probably noted that there is a natural disorder to the universe (entropy) and it takes work to put things in order. In the case of the universe: time is doing all the work, and as time goes on, it is becoming more orderly. But one of the contra-effects is that the sun or suns at which many things orbit, give life, force order by gravity and restrict time to days, is actually limited to a life span. Therefore it is not progressing nor regressing it is a simple existence at which time falls upon itself.
I don't know how to put this any more politely, sorry, but I couldn't disagree with you more. Third Law Thermodynamics simply states that entropy increases. the universe DOESN'T get more orderly it gets more disordered. It it this increasing entropy that gives us the unidirectional nature of time - eggs smash, they don't unsmash; suns explode, they don't unexplode; temporarily ordered matter becomes disordered - people die and decompose. The universe doesn't have a 'purpose' to exist - its initial conditions will either ensure its continued existence ad infinitum or its eventual collapse - but 'it' doesn't 'know' what will happen any more than a falling stone 'knows' whether it will hit a solid or fluid end. And you can't have purpose without intent and you can't have intent without belief/desire. Somebody reckoned the instant after its creation saw the universe at maximum entropy - maybe, we have no good theories there. But Inflationary Cosmology proposes that after its great expansion - say one Planck duration after gravity became a repellent force - the new spacetime fabric was at its greatest ORDERED state - i.e. its LEAST entropic. |
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Major Zee Lee
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« Reply #26 on: September 23, 2007, 03:39:43 AM » |
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I recall thinking to myself, that we human have a tendency to see a purpose (an intent) in whatever flows agaisnt the stream of entropy. We just don't use enough the ability to see the bigger picture of things going to hell that provide the means so a few things, for a while, go against the stream. Us included.
No purpose in reversal of entropy. Even a broken watch will be right twice a day. Provided the hell of cataclisms needed to produce everything around us (our planet, our blood, the iron in them, caused the extremely violent death of a massive star millions of years before our own sun was born), it is quite clear that going up the stream of entropy is unusual but can be expected by mere chance jsut as a de-construction of de-construction itself, to speak so.
Sometimes entropy destroys itself -for a while...
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« Last Edit: September 23, 2007, 03:41:33 AM by Major Zee Lee »
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Do not take life too seriously; nobody lives to tell.
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Gojira
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« Reply #27 on: September 23, 2007, 07:46:13 AM » |
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The purpose of the universe, is just to exist! It is just there, nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure according to some ancient philosopher, who probably noted that there is a natural disorder to the universe (entropy) and it takes work to put things in order. In the case of the universe: time is doing all the work, and as time goes on, it is becoming more orderly. But one of the contra-effects is that the sun or suns at which many things orbit, give life, force order by gravity and restrict time to days, is actually limited to a life span. Therefore it is not progressing nor regressing it is a simple existence at which time falls upon itself.
I don't know how to put this any more politely, sorry, but I couldn't disagree with you more. Third Law Thermodynamics simply states that entropy increases. the universe DOESN'T get more orderly it gets more disordered. It it this increasing entropy that gives us the unidirectional nature of time - eggs smash, they don't unsmash; suns explode, they don't unexplode; temporarily ordered matter becomes disordered - people die and decompose. The universe doesn't have a 'purpose' to exist - its initial conditions will either ensure its continued existence ad infinitum or its eventual collapse - but 'it' doesn't 'know' what will happen any more than a falling stone 'knows' whether it will hit a solid or fluid end. And you can't have purpose without intent and you can't have intent without belief/desire. Somebody reckoned the instant after its creation saw the universe at maximum entropy - maybe, we have no good theories there. But Inflationary Cosmology proposes that after its great expansion - say one Planck duration after gravity became a repellent force - the new spacetime fabric was at its greatest ORDERED state - i.e. its LEAST entropic. The Universe has always had ORDER amongst it. Because of the new definition of time, we have come to believe that at instances of infinite probabilities, amongst this order is chaos. However, this distinction that our universe is in complete chaos, yet has this behavior of order is what boggles us all. We say it's god. We say it's just random probability. I say it's cosmic evolution. The point: We don't know and until we prove why electrons zip in and out of existence then we will never know. What I do know: I can prove that it isn't God. I can prove that it isn't random probability. (I am going to get huge flack for this, bring on the smiter's) It is the evolution of the Kosmos. That the universe's overall purpose is to transcend and include for that which is old and new. ^^Taken from the teachings of Ken Wilbur^^ |
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Our democracy has created an environment of indecision at times of impending crisis.
If life is easy for you, then you aint livin.
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Callum
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« Reply #28 on: September 23, 2007, 08:07:39 AM » |
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The Universe has always had ORDER amongst it. Because of the new definition of time, we have come to believe that at instances of infinite probabilities, amongst this order is chaos. However, this distinction that our universe is in complete chaos, yet has this behavior of order is what boggles us all. We say it's god. We say it's just random probability. I say it's cosmic evolution.
The point: We don't know and until we prove why electrons zip in and out of existence then we will never know.
What I do know: I can prove that it isn't God. I can prove that it isn't random probability. (I am going to get huge flack for this, bring on the smiter's)
It is the evolution of the Kosmos. That the universe's overall purpose is to transcend and include for that which is old and new.
^^Taken from the teachings of Ken Wilbur^^
Again, I do not have the pleasure of understanding you. I believe I have a good grasp of english (even american english!) and also a pretty good academic record in matters like this - but "the universe's overall purpose is to transcend and include for that which is old and new" is meaningless nonsense. The posters who suggest that human mental structure projects order onto the universe are probably close to right - but we need to realise that the duration of humanity is an infinitisimally small. Take a well-known analogy for entropy: War and Peace has (lets say) 1,000 pages. There is only one perfect ordering for those pages, shuffle them once and there will still be great chunks which are ordered, but the disorder will have increased. Shuffle another twenty times and the disorder is much more. But there may still be sections of pages in the right order. Shuffle a million times... it is even possible that a few pages that were disordered return to 'order'. The fact that we can discern order in out tiny scope and vague focus is no proof that order exists or that entropy is decreasing. (I discussed this with my Dad, who immediately took on his location as 'a counter-entropic eddy in spacetime': at any point in spacetime local order can increase or decrease, but overall the direction is one-way). I note that your messiah has put up a good self-promotion on wiki. You are of course entitled to your view on this shambolic rubbish - as am I. |
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Gojira
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« Reply #29 on: September 23, 2007, 09:15:26 AM » |
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Ok. Your right. I should not write statements that would have no meaning to anyone else but me. However, please do not call it rubbish when we all are in the same boat of trying to discover what exactly makes the universe work.
It terms of defining its purpose you are saying that there is no purpose because out of the inordinate amount of chaos in our universe, our perception of what is happening during this chaos has given us the inclination to perceive with our mind that there is some sort of order. I agree with you.
Looking at the universe from a grand perspective definitely warrants the idea for one to believe that we are just a blip in the existence of everything else. I agree.
You have made me think critically about why I am accustomed to Wilbur's teachings, what he has to say about the Universe and what it means on the more grandiose scale that you have illustrated in your post. Wilbur's usual discussion is really on humanity's role in its own existence but when defining the universe's purpose he simply says that there is more than just probability at work here. The formation of our universe has a driving force to evolve. A need to transcend its former counter part.
I do not deny the things that science and meta-science has given to us in discussing such things as the purpose of the universe. However, we can become very bogged down in trying to determine just exactly what it is and miss the opportunity of trying to understand something new. I hope I have written something that is close to being understood, considered English and that we can continue a discussion on the Universe, and maybe find some distinctions as to why there is such a difference between the idea of probability and fate.
Hopefully then we can transcend what we already know, and then understand something we did not.
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« Last Edit: September 23, 2007, 09:17:01 AM by Gojira »
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Our democracy has created an environment of indecision at times of impending crisis.
If life is easy for you, then you aint livin.
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