Title:

Purpose in General; Lifes Purpose in Specific: An Inhuman(e) discussion

PROPOSITION: Sense of Purpose:
There is a mental tendency to assume that events and processes lead to anticipated ends and that objects are meant for use is based upon the mental inherent sense of purpose. The above mentioned mental convictions would not be possible without the inherent sense of purpose. This inherent sense of purpose is a part of our mind and can be understood as one of the tool with which our mind makes sense of the transitions in our surroundings. So it may be said that sensations, specially perceived related events, are organized in the frame of inherent sense of purpose. Thus this sense of purpose makes our perceptions purpose-oriented. It plays the central role in creating a directional worldview, with respect to purpose, in our minds. Thus our thoughts also tend to be purpose-oriented because our brain and thus our way of viewing and analyzing the world are purpose-oriented. Thus purpose is a human way of observing the universe. It is not the way that universe is. It is purely subjective, and there is no indication or proof that its objective counterpart exists or should exist. Thus the attribution of quality of purpose to any objective phenomenon (like the statement, that there is a purpose of universe) is as meaningless and empty as that there is not one, because purpose is just a human concept based upon the inherent sense of purpose. (In order to understand this completely, reflect that purpose is only a subjective phenomenon, it is neither present nor absent objectively. Purpose is a

blank objectively. If we say that there is no purpose in universe, for instance, this statement implies that the idea of purpose exists, which is completely baseless assumption. Objectively Purpose is just an unintelligible non-entity) Inherent sense of purpose needs to be distinguished from concept of purpose which is described below

CONCEPT OF PURPOSE:
The concept of purpose is dependent upon and a result of inherent sense of purpose. Most simply, Purpose is the intended aim of a process; or of a series of events; or of ones actions; or of some object. The concept of purpose is based upon inference from our experience and perceptions. That quality in our perception of experience which provides as basis for this inference is the result of inherent sense of purpose. Therefore, purpose (as this word appears in our thoughts) is an abstract conscious concept. This concept is essentially subjective because it is based upon our inherent sense of purpose.

EXPLANATION/JUSTIFICATION:
So the question arises, what is the justification for proposing the existence of a sense of purpose in our minds. There is obviously no question about the claim that concept of purpose exists in our minds. So is this concept, upon which the lingual term purpose is based, in turn based upon an inherent sense of purpose? It certainly seems so. We can rule out the possibility that the concept of purpose is a purely empirical one by considering that there can be nothing in experience which will grant this concept if there were not a sense of purpose making the experience seem so. You may argue that when we view some series of events then we may analyze them by the logic that the former events in series were performed for latter ones. You are right we do make think in like manner, but this for in above sentence, in-validates your objection because this for could not have been in sentence without a sense or concept of purpose already existing. In other terms, as the purpose is not a quality which (even if it existed) could be observed or conceived by a mind having no notion of it, so it is established that a

sense of purpose exists which enables us to formulate a concept of purpose.

APPLICATIONS/RAMIFICATIONS: PURPOSE OF ACTIONS:

Whenever performing or viewing actions, we have a conviction that they are for specific ends. When analyzing objectively, on basis of our previous discussion, a more rigorous analysis would probably that actually we are attributing purpose to these actions rather than observing one in them. It may seem to us that there is a purpose objectively e.g. maintaining homeostasis as a result of various activities of living organisms, but actually these are not the purposes but effects of these activities. It is our inherent sense of purpose which makes us apply concept of purpose to this phenomena.

VIEW OF LIFE IN ABSENCE OF PURPOSE:

It is important to mark out and clearly understand the perspective in which life (generally as well as life of an individual, however here we will discuss only generally) is placed as a result of above-mentioned proposition: On the basis of principles of homeostasis and abovementioned proposition, we can formulate a definition of life in following way: Circumstances and sequences of events result in such a set of conditions which lead to self-regulating (and more importantly) self-sustaining and, maybe, self-progressing cycle, This cycle of processes is life. Thus life is a cyclical chain of events; it is a process. So life is such a dynamic cycle in which certain processes lead to others which lead to others and so on in such a way that the property of its being a cycle persists. It must be considered a cycle in a broad or loose, if you will, way. For one it does not exactly replicates in all details but it certainly rhymes strongly, secondly it may be more accurate to consider it as a Mega whirl with Smaller whirls in it, having more whirls and so on. It is a dynamic, ever-changing cycle.

It must be borne in mind that this definition is constructed such that it fits the features of life, as we know it, and makes them consistent with our new view of purpose. Its significance is that it is objective, philosophically consistent and fertile as it leads to insights into the topics of purpose of human-life, a new Perspective of living and dead and so on. This definition does not conform to biological or putative view of life. To understand the above discussion consider the statement made by a person after reading this Ah! I realize now that life has no objective purpose. This sentence would have two mistakes 1) Any objective statement about purpose made thus is meaningless. 2) And the discussion about definition of life was made from the premises that any objective purpose is NOT. DEFINITION OF LIVING AND DEAD: If one were to define alive and dead in accordance with this view of life, there can be different ways to go about it. One of them is, The term alive may be applied to all the physical matter which is directly a part of the process (being animated by it), in whatever phase it may be. Similarly that matter which is not a part of such a process is, for time being, dead.