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Author | Topic: What led you to God? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
Robin says that a car has purpose, but that a human does not have purpose A car has an objective, formal purpose. Humans have subjective purposes. All subjective purposes are in the long run arbitrary. One might say, my purpose in life is to help poor people. Another might say, my purpose in life is to turn all corners into curves, because curves are more beautiful than corners.These two purposes are both equally subjective in the long run.
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lfen Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Robin,
Well, can you relate purpose to children or the caring for children? lfen
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Well, can you relate purpose to children or the caring for children? It's another subjective purpose. Take your pick.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Who is to say that the formal purpose of that car is to get from A to B, and not simply to spin tires really fast? I'd have to wonder if the inventor of the car himself would even be able to list a single formal purpose. This makes no sense to me. It seems obvious to me that the formal purpose of a car is to propel people around from place to place.As I said before, one might devise all sorts of other purposes for a car, but none of these are the formal purpose. You could use it as a decorative item. Young boys could use it as a place to hide out and smoke. You could use it as a music-maker and never drive the thing at all. You could use it as research project on toxic emissions. You could use it as the subject of a poem--"Ode on a Chevy." These are all personal purposes, not formal. This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-18-2006 10:03 AM
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
websters writes: 1ob”jec”tive adj 1 : of or relating to an object or end 2 : existing outside and independent of the mind 3 : of, relating to, or constituting a grammatical case marking typically the object of a verb or preposition 4 : treating or dealing with facts without distortion by personal feelings or prejudices ” ob”jec”tive”ly adv ” ob”jec”tive”ness n ” ob”jec”tiv”i”ty \'b-'jek-"ti-v-t\ n2objective n 1 : the lens (as in a microscope) nearest the object and forming an image of it 2 : an aim, goal, or end of action sub”jec”tiveadj 1 : of, relating to, or constituting a subject 2 : of, relating to, or arising within one's self or mind in contrast to what is outside : personal ” sub”jec”tive”ly adv ” sub”jec”tiv”i”ty \-'jek-"ti-v-t\ n I suppose that it is debateable whether the purpose is entirly within ones own mind or whether it arose outside of the mind. This message has been edited by Phat, 01-18-2006 09:13 AM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Why should that matter? Dying and rotting in the ground is something I would most desperately like to prevent, but I cannot. So, while I'm sitting here, I think I should make the most of my time. Well, that's perfectly sensible. I'm telling you what seems to me the fact about the nature of human life. Our lives are ephemeral, of no more significance than the howling wolves, or for that matter, the fly we just swatted. I'll tell you in what sense this fact matters to me: I'm not interested in maintaining a view of human life that is laced with sentimentality.
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lfen Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Robin,
Are you using "purpose" as synonymous with "function" as in use?
It seems obvious to me that the formal purpose of a car is to propel people around from place to place. Humans use things, even other humans. You are wanting humans to have been designed by something else to be used for some purpose this something else has? Why? Why can't humans have their own purpose(s)? I'm really not understanding what this discussion is about, or why or where the problem is. lfen
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jar Member (Idle past 423 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
What is the purpose of a stick?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Are you using "purpose" as synonymous with "function" as in use? That's right.
You are wanting humans to have been designed by something else to be used for some purpose this something else has? It's not a matter of what I want. I'm just stating what seems to be the nature of human life. We have no objective purpose in living. We have purposes that we make up--that's all.
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AdminPD Inactive Administrator |
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lfen Member (Idle past 4707 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Robin,
Emotion and sentiment are a part of the function of the human brain. They are part of our experience, of the way we view life. I suspect only sociopaths are capable of holding a viewpoint that doesn't contain something of sentimentality that is to say are capable of not caring about anyone or anything else in the world. Have you read any of U.G. Krishnamurti? lfen
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.5 |
One might say, my purpose in life is to help poor people.
We could test that, by observing your behavior. If we discover that you are the CEO of a corporation that makes its income by ripping off poor people, we would have excellent reasons to dispute that it is your purpose.
A car has an objective, formal purpose.
Here is how to determine the purpose of a car. Start the motor. Put the car in gear. Then jump out. Now watch the behavior of the car as it carries out its purpose. After that test, I think you might agree that a car has no purpose. It has a use (for us), but not a purpose. What you are calling a "formal purpose" of the car is really your purpose for the car. It isn't the car's purpose at all. Humans don't have a formal purpose (as you use that term), only because we don't have purposes for other people. There were times in the past when it was common to have purposes for other people. But, thank God, slavery was abolished and we don't do that any more.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Lfen writes: Are you using "purpose" as synonymous with "function" as in use?
quote: Lfen: You are wanting humans to have been designed by something else to be used for some purpose this something else has?
quote: What you are saying is so clear and logical, why doesn't anyone get it? And you DID say it better than I did, in fewer words. More than once.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Subjective purposes (or what I called lower-case plural purposes), are determined by ourselves or by the thing itself.
Cars don't have subjective purposes. Objective purposes (or what I called capital-P Purpose), are determined by the maker of the thing, including human beings IF we have a Maker, and IF He had a reason for making us rather than just tossing a bunch of nuts and bolts together, or making a chemical soup to see what it could do. RR is right about the objective Purpose of cars. Yes, their use is their formal Purpose, or their objective Purpose. What they were made for. If we have no Maker, he is also right about there being no formal Purpose or objective Purpose for human beings. We have only our varied subjective purposes. This message has been edited by Faith, 01-18-2006 01:03 PM
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
I suspect only sociopaths are capable of holding a viewpoint that doesn't contain something of sentimentality that is to say are capable of not caring about anyone or anything else in the world. I'm not talking about "not caring." Of course one cares about other people and about one's activities. A sentimental view of human life is one in which one adopts a certain belief because it makes one feel good (or bad, for that matter), or one slurs over what human life is really like with vague, pleasant-sounding comments, or one ignores what human life is really like completely. By "human life," I mean human life as a whole, not the life of this or that person.
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