Useful

Interesting thread.

What does science have to say about human purpose?

While rhetorical it does highlight the challenge I see to your definition of "useful".  I think most people believe purpose to be a useful concept even if the ardent scientific materialist asserts it to be a nonsensical.  Similarly, love, beauty, and various things folks would put under a broad heading of "spiritual".  Again, none of these things seem to be explained by science so does this make them things that are not "useful"?

So bringing these back to the supernatural, to "God", to Buddhism, etc it seems to me your definition is narrow and rather drab (if you will).

What question do you have about “human purpose” or “love” or “beauty”? Science has interesting things to say about all those, but you need to be more specific about what you are asking. 

Linda

This is a forum where ones postings are not private certainly you know someone may respond.

When one opens their eyes a sees how draconian nature treats life including human life they should see there is no purpose of the kind you have in mind. And if one wants to learn the purpose, book a trip to the African Savannah with only the clothes on your back. I assure you you will find the purpose of life quickly.

Myriads of people have lived through the types of draconian existences you may have dreamed up from your comfortable desktop and found or confirmed "purpose".  Exactly in conflict with what you are asserting.  I'm sure many have come to the conclusion you have reached without running naked on the African Savannah.

Does science have something conclusive to say as to who's right?

I'll allow that your position may be correct.  Can you allow that it may not be?  (This gets back to your complete lack of intellectual integrity and the deep mystery as to why you even frequent this community.)

What question do you have about “human purpose” or “love” or “beauty”? Science has interesting things to say about all those, but you need to be more specific about what you are asking. 

Linda

I'll restate the question I asked in the post to which you replied:

What does science have to say about human purpose?

What question do you have about “human purpose” or “love” or “beauty”? Science has interesting things to say about all those, but you need to be more specific about what you are asking. 

Linda

I'll restate the question I asked in the post to which you replied:

What does science have to say about human purpose?

Well, maybe the place to start is to name the field of science that studies: love, feeling purpose and emotions.   

 Affective Science

Affective Science at Stanford University emphasizes basic research on emotion, culture, and psychopathology. To do this, we use a broad range of experimental, psychophysiological, neural, and genetic methods to test theory about psychological mechanisms underlying human behavior.

https://psychology.stanford.edu/research...ve-science

Science doesn’t confine itself to material or physical causes. It only appears to do so because the products of science have turned out to be “material” and then “physical”. What I think that science confines itself to is ideas which are useful, and that objections to various “supernatural” ideas come about because they aren’t useful. 

Linda

The work product of studying natural communication is information science.

How useful are telephones, computers and digital broadcasting?  How useful is Boolean logic?  A hardware tech should confine herself to the material aspects of electronics.  Should a software programmer, I doubt they will get much fixed.?  

It turns out the the products of science have run-over the idea of a materialistic universe.

Well, maybe the place to start is to name the field of science that studies: love, feeling purpose and emotions.   

https://psychology.stanford.edu/research...ve-science

I think the source of purpose Silence has in mind won't be satisfied by materialistic science. They are looking for that immaterial external spiritual source it seems. But Silence may surprise us an be ok if that purpose is found by scientists. We'll see what they have to say.

Myriads of people have lived through the types of draconian existences you may have dreamed up from your comfortable desktop and found or confirmed "purpose".  Exactly in conflict with what you are asserting.  I'm sure many have come to the conclusion you have reached without running naked on the African Savannah.

Does science have something conclusive to say as to who's right?

I'll allow that your position may be correct.  Can you allow that it may not be?  (This gets back to your complete lack of intellectual integrity and the deep mystery as to why you even frequent this community.)

I frequent this forum to see if people actually empirically discover something.
I most certainly do allow that you may be right and me wrong. Count how many millennia people just like you have asked with absolutely nothing to show for all their efforts. I'm pessimistic there's something in your favor to be discovered.


I've not dreamt (fabricated as you're implying) harsh realities of life it's people like you that close their eyes to that reality and hope.

Count how many millennia people just like you have asked with absolutely nothing to show for all their efforts.

Who says there's nothing to show for their efforts?  For many, it seems, "everything" has been shown via their efforts.  I have met a lot of people in my lifetime who have a self professed and strong grasp of "purpose" and find it the most useful thing in their life.  (Again, I'm coming at this discussion through the definition of useful and not useful that Linda put forth.)

I've not dreamt (fabricated as you're implying) harsh realities of life it's people like you that close their eyes to that reality and hope.

"People like me"?  lol.  Ok.

I think the source of purpose Silence has in mind won't be satisfied by materialistic science. They are looking for that immaterial external spiritual source it seems. But Silence may surprise us an be ok if that purpose is found by scientists. We'll see what they have to say.

I found this response from a Steven Simon (Associate Professor of Political Science, and Coordinator of Program in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law at University of Richmond) to the question:

What is the purpose of our existence from the scientific point of view?

Since Newton, and especially in more recent times, scientists have not tended to think of "existence" as having a purpose.

Through medieval times, Aristotle's world view, fused with Christianity, was the dominant world view. Aristotle had seen the world teleologically, meaning that things in nature had a purpose (final cause) towards which their actions were directed. Rocks fell because it was in their essence to seek the center of the Earth. Human beings sought happiness (eudaimonia) through fulfillment of their nature or essence as intelligent, social, and political beings.

Newton (and other Enlightenment "natural philosophers") upset the Aristotelian world view by conceiving of things as acting, not in pursuit of purposes, but according to mechanical laws. Newton's physical laws caused a crisis in philosophy (which has still not been resolved). If human beings were things in the physical world, and physical things acted according to inexorable laws, what did this mean for human freedom, thought, morality, and spirituality?

While key particulars of Newton's theories have been overturned by intervening scientific developments (such as his view of space as absolute), the fundamental insight that things act according to mechanical laws (and not in pursuit of purposes) has become deeply embedded in scientific thought. Most scientists today simply do not think in terms of things in the physical world (including human beings) as having an essential purpose.

At least, they don't think in those terms in connection with their role as scientist. Some, of course, do believe in things that don't strictly speaking fit within the dominant scientific view of the world. There are various ways that one might seek to reconcile views about religion or morality with a scientific world view. That, however, is a big topic for another day.

Now, it's naturally true that individual organisms may have a "purpose," in the sense that we can understand an animal as "seeking" food. But contemporary science would understand that entirely through the lens of physical, chemical, and biological laws. The idea of a "purpose of existence" in some larger, metaphysical or moral sense, is a category that contemporary science simply does not recognize.

I found it interesting on this topic as I am unaware of any science that is taking on this direct question.  Reactions from the community?