What is the reason for Human existence?
-
- Posts: 101
- Joined: December 9th, 2014, 6:51 am
- Location: UK
- Contact:
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
First I would like to ask whether Human existence, or any existence, requires reason
Can existence exist with no reason?
Can you imagine an existent state not based upon reason?
I know there are some that believe that the universe and existence begins from almost nothing and then
evolves into a logical state with Man at the top of the food chain defining all its logic and meanings.
But you still must ask yourself - Where and when did the reason become manifest?
And could the universe have ever existed if there was no reason for it
So here we are with numerous sciences, religions and philosophies to define the current world
- seems to me though, that without a primal reason backing the existent state, there would be
no existent state - Another words the reason for Human Existence, and for Existence itself
is REASON - at the primal level reason is the driving force of all existence
- LuckyR
- Moderator
- Posts: 7991
- Joined: January 18th, 2015, 1:16 am
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
Well, none of us were consulted before the universe existed to document the reason, therefore by definition if there's a reason (which is a pretty big leap) it is a post hoc rationalization of a "reason".UniversalAlien wrote: ↑February 8th, 2019, 7:36 am Let me re-analyze the original question " What is the reason for Human existence?"
First I would like to ask whether Human existence, or any existence, requires reason
Can existence exist with no reason?
Can you imagine an existent state not based upon reason?
I know there are some that believe that the universe and existence begins from almost nothing and then
evolves into a logical state with Man at the top of the food chain defining all its logic and meanings.
But you still must ask yourself - Where and when did the reason become manifest?
And could the universe have ever existed if there was no reason for it
So here we are with numerous sciences, religions and philosophies to define the current world
- seems to me though, that without a primal reason backing the existent state, there would be
no existent state - Another words the reason for Human Existence, and for Existence itself
is REASON - at the primal level reason is the driving force of all existence
In addition some hear "reason", and think "cause", I assume both you and the OP mean: reason.
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
For the record I am the OP.In addition some hear "reason", and think "cause", I assume both you and the OP mean: reason.
In the last couple of years I have become fascinated by the philosophical statements of Max Planck, Noble
Prize winner and one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics.
For example this is one of my favorites:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
― Max Planck
The thing is though - How do you define consciousness? - That is one of the big issues on another post here
on this forum that has been going on for many years:
"Can a man-made computer become conscious?"
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19&start=3345
I don't believe there is a solid, irrefutable definition of consciousness that all would agree upon.
What do we really mean by consciousness? - You can find many meanings and interpretations.
But let's replace the word 'consciousness' in the Max Planck quote given above and see what happens.
"I regard Reason as fundamental, I regard all that exists as derivative from Reason. We cannot get
behind Reason. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates Reason."
- UniversalAlien
Of course you might say that Reason, like consciousness, is open to interpretation
- Still as a fundamental, it would seem to me that reason, and the ability to reason, is the fundamental
first - consciousness then might follow.
As far as cause goes, thiests might like my view - But let me be clear, I'm not postunaling a causal God
concept, even though my view allows the possibility - I'm just saying that unless we have reason
first - nothing can happen, nothing can follow.
- sebam83
- New Trial Member
- Posts: 2
- Joined: March 28th, 2019, 2:15 pm
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
-
- Posts: 107
- Joined: October 11th, 2013, 10:48 am
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
" The reason for human existence is what it has evolved to be........."Pelegrin_1 wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2019, 10:43 pm The reason for human existence is what it has evolved to be, and from there what each of us make it to be, individually and perhaps also as the human collective. There's nothing more than that, and to assume or imagine that there is is simply anthropocentric fantasy.
And just what has it evolved to be And why
-
- Posts: 107
- Joined: October 11th, 2013, 10:48 am
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
That's up to each person's interpretation, I suppose. And to be clear, I mean... what each person's interpretation of what the reason has evolved to be, Not "what the reason for human existence is" or better, 'was', because there never 'was' any preordained reason. Just what we have evolved to make it to be.UniversalAlien wrote: ↑April 6th, 2019, 4:39 am" The reason for human existence is what it has evolved to be........."Pelegrin_1 wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2019, 10:43 pm The reason for human existence is what it has evolved to be, and from there what each of us make it to be, individually and perhaps also as the human collective. There's nothing more than that, and to assume or imagine that there is is simply anthropocentric fantasy.
And just what has it evolved to be And why
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
Pelegrin wrote:Pelegrin_1 wrote: ↑April 6th, 2019, 10:35 pmThat's up to each person's interpretation, I suppose. And to be clear, I mean... what each person's interpretation of what the reason has evolved to be, Not "what the reason for human existence is" or better, 'was', because there never 'was' any preordained reason. Just what we have evolved to make it to be.UniversalAlien wrote: ↑April 6th, 2019, 4:39 am
" The reason for human existence is what it has evolved to be........."
And just what has it evolved to be And why
"......because there never 'was' any preordained reason......."
That 'may' be true - But can you prove it? - Can you prove that existence, Human or otherwise, is not based
upon reason - Either as a specific reason or as part of some design pattern possessed by the Universe?
I've done some research and found that even a few Atheists believe in Intelligent Design - For example
one might say all of Science is a type of Intelligent Design as it follows perceivable and logical rules that
rarely ever change.
So how can you know for sure if Man, even without the existence of a a creator, could still be here as part
of a higher purpose that science may reveal as it continues to study both Man and the Universe he is part of
“The goal is nothing other than the coherence and completeness of the system not only in respect of all details, but also in respect of all physicists of all places, all times, all peoples, and all cultures.”
― Max Planck, The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck and the Fortunes of German Science, with a New Afterword
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”
― Max Planck
- Sy Borg
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15154
- Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
Through humans, the Earth itself currently spreading its influence to other worlds. Every living grouping, no matter how small or large, is doing the same thing - developing inwards and pushing outwards. It's a funny old world.
Next question.
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
i agree and is reflective of what I was saying,Greta wrote: ↑May 24th, 2019, 6:02 pm The drives to grow and spread one's influence are found in microbes, in individual animals, in animal colonies, in ecosystems and in individual humans. Certainly those drives are obvious in the human groups that currently oppress us! Those drives are just as obvious in cities and countries.
Through humans, the Earth itself currently spreading its influence to other worlds. Every living grouping, no matter how small or large, is doing the same thing - developing inwards and pushing outwards. It's a funny old world.
Next question.
The next question might be - what is the source of this?
I know in debates I've gotten into with people, obviously knowledgeable people, about Evolution, many have the
strong opinion that it is source less - Don't want to venture a guess as to why it is occurring {except for survival of
the fittest} and often resent any concept that tries to give it meaning.
Its like they so dislike the concept of Intelligent Design so strongly because it is often used by religions
to justify a creator, and they especially dislike any concept that might even imply a creator is possible.
And yet from Scientific American in 1847:
And where must we look for this fountain but to the great store-house of nature — the innumerable and diversified objects there were presented to our view give evidence of infinite skill and intelligent design in their adaptation to each other and to the nature of man.
Quotes source:Oxford scholar F.C.S. Schiller wrote as early as 1897 that “it will not be possible to rule out the supposition that the process of Evolution may be guided by an intelligent design.”4 The term was also used by John Tyndale in 1874 in an address given to the British Association for the Advancement of Science.5 Prominent 19th-century scientists held similar views, including even Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-developer with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection. By the late nineteenth century, Wallace came to believe that natural selection acting on random variations could not explain a number of things in biology, especially the development of the human brain. He concluded that “a Higher Intelligence” guided the process.
https://evolutionnews.org/2014/06/on_the_origin_o_5/
And the 'Reason for Human Existence' remains part of the conundrum.
- Sy Borg
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15154
- Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
Developing inwards and pushing outwards is all about persistence. Being ordered increases persistence, eg. all things being equal, a solid asteroid will last longer than a loose, unorganised collection of rocks of the same mass. Thus, anything that becomes ordered in such a way that it increases its persistence in reality will tend to be seen more often over time, especially as more ordered and persistent things again emerge.UniversalAlien wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 1:17 ami agree and is reflective of what I was saying,Greta wrote: ↑May 24th, 2019, 6:02 pm The drives to grow and spread one's influence are found in microbes, in individual animals, in animal colonies, in ecosystems and in individual humans. Certainly those drives are obvious in the human groups that currently oppress us! Those drives are just as obvious in cities and countries.
Through humans, the Earth itself currently spreading its influence to other worlds. Every living grouping, no matter how small or large, is doing the same thing - developing inwards and pushing outwards. It's a funny old world.
Next question.
The next question might be - what is the source of this?
With this dynamic, Over time one would expect ever more zones of high organisation amongst ever more chaotic surrounds.
I might be one of them. ID is just creationism rebadged.UniversalAlien wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 1:17 amI know in debates I've gotten into with people, obviously knowledgeable people, about Evolution, many have the strong opinion that it is source less - Don't want to venture a guess as to why it is occurring {except for survival of the fittest} and often resent any concept that tries to give it meaning.
Its like they so dislike the concept of Intelligent Design so strongly because it is often used by religions to justify a creator, and they especially dislike any concept that might even imply a creator is possible.
However, I agree with you that wondering about how and why is worthwhile.
For instance, I gave an answer above about the source of all this, but it still left open questions about the source of the stuff itself, in itself. Personally, I see the universe as a living entity that's in the process or maturing and organising itself. I wouldn't call it "God", though, because it has bugger all with the human-focused imaginings of the Middle Eastern Bronze Age.
God and ID are such a miserable and feeble anthropomorphic concepts compared with the grand reality. To find God, just look down and up, and in the mirror. Look anywhere. Our God is the Earth. It contains all of human intelligence, and technology, and the minds of all other species, and the order behind plants, microbes and geology. It contains all these things and more, more than we have ever imagined and are still to learn about. That's godly enough for me.
The living entity that is the cosmos, on the other hand, is far, far more again than the silly man with an attitude about female hominids in power, intimacy between hominids of the same sex and killing non-viable hominid foetuses. The processes of life are inevitable in the cosmic jungle, where only the persistent survive. Why they are inevitable is the tough one. Why do the laws of physics work the way they do? What is the significance of patterns?
- detail
- Posts: 171
- Joined: June 1st, 2019, 1:39 pm
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
by two different people differently although the question is the same question. The same argument is valid for the word reason, what is reason.
Should you know something in epsitemic logics or just believe something in doxastic logics or do you want an imperative like in ITL logic or deontic logics. This is all containing the word reason. The word reason , does it just mean a justification or a logical basis for the inference . The reason would be then the laws of physics and the beginning inertial condition of the universe. Is reason more and there should be a metaphysical and moral justification for the extreme impertinence for example of my existence , this is by far more difficult. I would like to see a discussion of setting the signature of commonterms of philosophy on the basis of extended modal logics like doxastic and epistemic logic, but nobody feels the same . Is there a reason for this ? Who knows ?
- Mark Moseley
- New Trial Member
- Posts: 4
- Joined: June 17th, 2019, 11:39 am
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
Assumption: "God" is "Love"
Assumption: The most loving action you can take is to create as much new recurring love as you can.
Conclusion: we're here to learn how to love each other. Maybe the Mormons are right that ultimately this means we need to become like "God" in that we will create creatures, and train them somehow to love each other, and then train them to take over from us, etc, etc, etc.
- UniversalAlien
- Posts: 1596
- Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
- Contact:
Re: What is the reason for Human existence?
'REASON' - reason itself is the reason - A continuous ongoing process of ordering all that exists into
a state of order - An opposition to disorganization and chaos.
Existence itself depends on order - And order is established by reason.
The reasoning Human mind is fundamental to all that exists.
Nothing exists without it being perceived by mind - And for now the only mind we can prove is Human.
Without Human Existence there is no perceptible existence - there is nothing, an impossible state.
Therefor the the reason for Human Existence is to maintain all that exists
and define its order.
- UniversalAlien
[OP, original poster]
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
2023 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023