Useful

I see from your reply to a post of Steve's that you are referring to a sense of purpose. If you go to Google Scholar and put "sense of purpose" (with quotes) into the search box, it will give you an example of some things science has to say about human purpose.

Linda

I did a search using Google Scholar. I pretty sure that's not what Silence is looking for. What Silence has in mind is how does humanity and he in particular fit into the grand scheme of transcendent non material existance.  From his reply to you it seems I'm on the right track.

You've altered my question Linda and I'm not sure why.  I asked what science has to say about human purpose not a 'sense of purpose'.  I see what you did there which I find pretty entertaining (nice materialistic reduction there).

I was hopeful someone here could provide a summary of what science has to say on the question.  A direct link to something relevant would be welcome as well.

Human purpose - and in my opinion; any purposeful activity of living things - has not been well explored by science until recent years.

About 50 years ago - a half-ass semantic term called teleonomy - was coined and an adapted version pushed by E. Mayr.

It excluded purpose as teleology - and looked at it as  "systems operating on the basis of a program of coded information".  And while this makes little philosophical advancement toward a better understanding of purpose - it did open the door for information science to parse "how it works".  I am linking a thesis that will be not helpful as a summary.  However, it is a wonderful look at how purpose can be measured, documented and analyzed by science.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bziebart/publicat...iebart.pdf

 Definition 1.1 (Taylor, 1950). Purposefulness is defined as follows: There must be, on the part of the behaving entity, i.e., the agent: (a) a desire, whether actually felt or not, for some object, event, or state of affairs as yet future; (b) the belief, whether tacit or explicit, that a given behavioral sequence will be efficacious as a means to the realization of that object, event, or state of affairs; and (c) the behavior pattern in question. Less precisely, this means that to say of a given behavior pattern that it is purposeful, is to say that the entity exhibiting that behavior desires some goal and is behaving in a manner it believes appropriate to the attainment of it. (Taylor, 1950)

I have not read this in full, or am I able to follow the math, other than at a very general level - but the key tools of information science get listed.  The chapter on information causality - is one I will have to read and study in the the long- term.  Here is the list of key words:

 Keywords: Machine learning, decision making, probabilistic modeling, maximum entropy, inverse optimal control, influence diagrams, informational revelation, feedback, causality, goal inference 

Another place to explore is the Templeton folks, who ran a contest for essays on purpose.  Here is a more recent effort.
https://www.templeton.org/grant/human-pe...-questions

You've altered my question Linda and I'm not sure why.  I asked what science has to say about human purpose not a 'sense of purpose'.  I see what you did there which I find pretty entertaining (nice materialistic reduction there).

That wasn't "materialist reduction" (I am neither a materialist nor a reductionist). That was an example of what I was describing in the OP. Science takes an approach which is "useful", so in order to address something vague (what does science say about human purpose), it starts by asking questions whose answers will be useful (in the way I outlined in the OP). So you say that you have met many people with a self-professed purpose (apologies for substituting "sense of purpose"). Science would ask, "where did this self-professed purpose come from, what gave these people the idea of this purpose?" "In what ways does it benefit individuals/communities/humanity?" "Is it true?" etc. The search I suggested answered some of these questions.

It may be that you had something different in mind. I hoped that by offering some specific examples, you might clarify what you were looking for (especially if my guess was wrong). 

Nonetheless, while I hate these types of homework assignments when the discussion is at such high levels (I find it dismissive and often an indicator that the responder doesn't have much to say on the topic directly), I did as you advised.  The top hits:

• Link to a paper "Sense of Purpose" published in "Nursing Standard" that is behind a firewall
  

• Link to a book on higher universities role in society or its institutional "sense of purpose"
  

• Link to a paper in the Journal of Management Development on the sense of purpose in a business setting
  

• Link to "Therapeutic alliance in couple and family therapy: an empirically formed guide to practice"
  

I stopped wasting my time after the first four links.

I hoped that you could skim through and pick out any which were relevant to what you were asking. I'm not sure why you stopped, since the fifth link, and the following links, seemed relevant to the questions I posed above (How  a sense of community contributes to a sense of purpose, The development of purpose during adolescence, A path to purpose for young adults, The relationship between health and a sense of purpose). Is any of that relevant to what you are looking for? If not, could you be more specific? 

I was hopeful someone here could provide a summary of what science has to say on the question.  A direct link to something relevant would be welcome as well.

I think that would require a book, at the very least. How long did it take to skim the first four google results - 5, 10 seconds? It will be difficult to satisfy your request if more than 10 seconds of reading was too much to ask of you.

Linda

I did a search using Google Scholar. I pretty sure that's not what Silence is looking for. What Silence has in mind is how does humanity and he in particular fit into the grand scheme of transcendent non material existance.  From his reply to you it seems I'm on the right track.

But, would you agree that science would start by asking, “what gave you the idea of the grand scheme of transcendent non material existence?” and then go from there in terms of discovering humanity’s role in that idea?

Linda

Human purpose - and in my opinion; any purposeful activity of living things - has not been well explored by science until recent years.

About 50 years ago - a half-ass semantic term called teleonomy - was coined and an adapted version pushed by E. Mayr.

It excluded purpose as teleology - and looked at it as  "systems operating on the basis of a program of coded information".  And while this makes little philosophical advancement toward a better understanding of purpose - it did open the door for information science to parse "how it works".  I am linking a thesis that will be not helpful as a summary.  However, it is a wonderful look at how purpose can be measured, documented and analyzed by science.

Thanks for the post; and the spirit of it.  Seems you are following the point I have been trying to articulate.

However, it is a wonderful look at how purpose can be measured, documented and analyzed by science.

Not sure I follow this at all. In order to even begin, purpose must be defined. You give an example of how individual people have suggested that it may be defined.

How does the opinion of someone equate to science?

But, would you agree that science would start by asking, “what gave you the idea of the grand scheme of transcendent non material existence?” and then go from there in terms of discovering humanity’s role in that idea?

Linda

I would. But how would one understand the mind of a prehistoric culture? 
Of some relevancy perhaps. https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...tone-snak/

Not sure I follow this at all. In order to even begin, purpose must be defined. You give an example of how individual people have suggested that it may be defined.

How does the opinion of someone equate to science?

Also part of my question/point regarding this notion that science is able to study all things defined as "useful" and why I think the term should be more specifically crafted (i.e., useful in scientific terms means something different that useful in a broader/layman's terms.)

I would. But how would one understand the mind of a prehistoric culture? 
Of some relevancy perhaps. https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...tone-snak/

I don't think this is some kind of holdover from 100,000 years ago. These ideas seem to be ongoing.

Linda

I don't think this is some kind of holdover from 100,000 years ago. These ideas seem to be ongoing.

Linda

I misread your question in a past tense way. Yes, it would be possible to ask. We could start with children which has been researched to see how magical thinking first manifests.  Back to my misreading. It would be interesting in the least to see how our early ancestors developed symbolic ideas > spiritual ideas > religious ideas. If we only had a time machine.