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From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: THE PURPOSE OF LIFE Defined
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Date: Thu, 29 Dec 94 16:10:26 GMT
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In <blaine-2812942318390001@prevost.islandnet.com> blaine@IslandNet.com (F. Blaine Dickson) writes:
>In article <3cr06m$ds0@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>, roose@ix.netcom.com
>(Richard Roose) wrote:

>> A purpose is a means by which a group of humans 
>> can be collectively motivated to expend their individual efforts and 
>> individual resources on a single common objective.   humans have banded
>> together, united by a 
>> common purpose, willingly, to accomplish grand objectives.

>Why must humans band together to accomplish great objectives? I think most
>accomplishments are individual oriented. And why must it be collective? It
>is an individual decision first that requires a person to partake in any
>collective endeavor, not the other way around.   

Well, it's a question of level of analysis, really.  One of the biggest
problems in philosophy of the social sciences, in my opinions, is feeling
that EITHER "The individual is for the community" OR "The community is for
the individual."  These exist on different levels of analysis, and it is
much more appropriate to see the individual existing for the individual and
the community existing for the community.  People frequently do not band 
together for the purpose of "accomplishing great things" as Roose has 
suggested, and yet there is an emergent level at which a society of people
will be functioning, as described on the collective level, to maintain and
grow at that collective level.  It's really a question of emergence, which has
become much more popular since the demise of logical positivism and 
reductionism.  The other direction some sociologists go is to deny ANY link
between levels (i.e. Niklaus Luhmann), which also seems counterintuitive,
while social structure do seem to emerge from collective behavior, even if
the motives on the collective level can't be mapped onto motives at the
individual level.

It's like a traffic jam.  Traffic jams on highways tend to move backward,
although each car involved in at at any point in time is only moving
forward.  Different properties for different levels of analysis.

>> Without motivation, humans, like the adult great apes, are too 
>> intelligent to waste their energy or their resources on anything.  
>> Therefore, if we humans desire or intend to accomplish anything greater 
>> than picking the lice off of each other, we must have a purpose to 
>> motivate us.  

>Picking lice off each other is just as valid a purpose as any other.  

Not only that, but somehow Roose is assuming that it is BETTER to, for
example, create television sets and get in holy wars than to rid others in
the community of pests.

>> Simple organisms, which include all life forms on 
>> Earth except Homo Sapiens, function and act according to the dictates of 
>> their genes.....

Not even remotely true.  Any organisms with nervous systems learn, thus
producing behavior specific to their individual histories of experience,
not having to do with genetics.

Plus, your measurement of "simple" is very strange.  Spiral nebulae are
very complex in their own way, and aren't even alive.  Science doesn't have
a chance of understanding how dogs' brains work, and you call them SIMPLE?

>>  They come into existence, mature and reproduce as directed 
>> by the biology of their makeup.  They have absolutely no choice in any 
>> aspect of their existence.

I suppose you (Roose) know this for a fact, having been a non-human?  Or
perhaps you've never seen a pet dog looking back and forth between the
door outside and the food bowl.  If you think that that is not choice-making,
but somehow what humans do IS, I'd really need to see a justification for 
such dichotomous thinking.

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

