The fallacy of purpose
Often times I hear folks claim that the deepest questions of humankind are “Why are we here?” or “What is our purpose?” This is a bit frustrating for me, because I think it starts the whole conversation off with a terrible misconception that has historically left people thinking backwards about how the world and nature actually works.
I think purpose is something that is assigned by humans. It works differently depending on the thing being discussed, so let me explain. First of all, purpose implies design. If you’re talking about a hammer, it has a clear purpose. It was designed by humans for the express purpose to drive nails. A wrench was designed to turn nuts and bolts. A car was designed to transport people over roads which were designed to connect cities which were designed to house people in structures that were designed to provide shelter and warmth, and so on. All of these things were designed by humans and have a specific purpose (or purposes). For the majority of people living in urban areas, it’s hard to walk around and see things that weren’t designed by humans for specific purposes. That’s the normal mode of perception.
Because of this normal perception mode — many people work backwards when they encounter new things. For example, if you were to pick up a tool you had never used, you would inspect it with the notion of purpose in your mind to figure out what it was for. You might pick up a ruler and correctly surmise that the markings of distance were designed for measuring the length of other objects. If you didn’t figure it out, there’s a good chance that someone around you could explain. This applies to anything — not just tools. It isn’t difficult to imagine (or remember) a time when someone said “What is that for?!!” about an object they didn’t recognize. You also hear this about art pieces, which can easily perplex. Humans naturally ascribe purpose to things in order to understand how they work. This assignment of purpose also implies a designer.
Now picture a walk out in the wilderness. A person may be quick to say that the purpose of a tree is to provide shade, or perhaps to provide fruit or leaves for animals and insects to eat. They might say that a bee’s purpose is to spread pollen amongst the flowers. They might even say that a mountain range’s purpose is to provide high enough ground for the snow to fall and melt into the rivers and streams to flow for the fish in lower grounds. It goes on and on. This is entirely backwards thinking.
In reality, the only things in the world with a purpose are the things we design for a purpose. All other cases are just observations about cause and effect, and are in fact observations about the nature of things. Trees provide shade, thus animals are able to survive out of the heat of the sun. Bees spread pollen as a byproduct of their own feeding process, and the plants benefit by breeding. Mountains are high due to tectonic forces, and lower air pressure allows moisture to freeze and consolidate into streams. The streams exist because of the higher elevation water source. The fish are in the streams because they extract oxygen by breathing water and have been able to survive there.
Natural selection has tuned these processes over many many years, so what we see today is what has worked well enough to continue the cycle. Processes that have not worked well for those involved are no longer around, or are on their way out of existence. Many processes have worked over the years, and many tweaks have occurred in those processes, providing higher efficiency or outright failure. There are mountains of evidence supporting this. This is how nature works — today and for the many billions of years that we know about.
There is nothing in nature that implies a designer — aside from human perception assuming there must be one. Some people believe there is, others don’t. The fact is that neither is implied by the reality we live in. Nothing at this point in scientific understanding is so far from our grasp that we must turn to the supernatural. This wasn’t always the case in human history (duh), but now in 2014 it certainly is. There are many people today that don’t understand current technology and science well enough to make this statement comfortably.
So what about humans? What is our purpose?
Simply put, we don’t have a purpose. We’re just here on this tiny dot in the universe that we call Earth. We have successfully survived and adapted over many millions of years to still be here today. Our ancestors looked less similar to us the further back you go in time, but they are still ancestors. There is no guarantee by anyone or anything that we’ll be here forever. Humans could become extinct like so many species have before over the ages.
This notion is terribly upsetting for some, and understandably so. If you grow up your whole life believing that you have a purpose without ever contemplating the assigner of that purpose, then you’re due for a big shock when you learn the truth. Some people assume that without a purpose, we can’t live full and interesting lives. I disagree. You can live whatever type of life you choose to live, taking into account your available resources and time. The type of life you choose to live will have a lot to do with your upbringing and values — most of which you’ll instill from your parents and family group. If you were raised to be a good person, you’ll be a good person. If you were raised to be a bad person, you’ll be a bad person. Resources and time are not equal for everyone, but that’s just part of being alive here on Earth.
That in a nutshell is the fallacy of purpose — the assumption that we must have one to be here. We don’t, and that’s perfectly okay.
This obviously raises many more questions, such as “Is there a master designer?” or “What distinguishes good from bad?”, and I will address those topics in future writings.
Next essay: The master designer
