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Originally posted by bbarrSo you can create your own purpose in life?
No, I can imbue my life with purpose in virtue of the choices I make, the values to which I subscribe, and by acting with integrity. You labor under the misapprehension that purpose is such that it can only be imbued from a force external to a life.
If you think that your purpose is to buthcher a few million humans, who is going to stop you?
Originally posted by dj2beckerTaking things from a biological perspective, humans differ from other animals (and animals) primarily in that humans cannot breed with other animals (and animals).
That answers my question.
Now for the next question:
What differentiates a human from an animal and plant material?
Do you think it is wrong to kill a fellow human being? Why? What's the difference between killing a human being and squishing a bug?
From a social psychology perspective, humans have developed a society unlike any other (that I am aware of) as humans create tools for use by large groups of other humans. Those few other species which fashion tools, do not seem to do so with the forethought that humans do (or potentially with much greater forethought).
"Wrong" is a human social construct; essentially, in a human society, what is "wrong" is what the majority of humans in a given society would dislike or punish a member of their society for doing.
There are some near-universals, such as killing a fellow human, which make sense: given that a group of humans are functioning as a unit, clearly the members would like for the group to continue functioning. Therefore, behaviors should support the future-functioning of the group; allowing members to kill each other will not support that. Nextly, a human which has reproduced clearly does not want that effort to be wasted, and therefore will go to great lengths to protect its children. Finally comes the need to personally survive; without feeling a need to survive, a being will not survive unless something else forces it to do so.
Bugs are a minor impedence to our survival, and do not directly further it. Therefore, killing a bug may help, but has only a minimal chance of hurting.
There is the difference.
Originally posted by dj2beckerOther humans, who do not want to be butchered, and the society those humans are part of, which as a collective works toward survival.
So you can create your own purpose in life?
If you think that your purpose is to buthcher a few million humans, who is going to stop you?
"Create your own purpose"... hmmm. I would have to say that since science avoids the question of purpose, and we were exploring scientific explanations, this isn't an appropriate question.
However, since it was posed, a relatively strong social theory of why religions exist is pretty much that: to give people purpose, and to provide an answer to the unknowables of the world, because humans have a natural desire to know the answers to every question they think of.
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Originally posted by dj2beckerit means you are an accident and therefore you have no purpose.
[b]This does not follow. What do you mean by a "purpose in life" anyway? This seems to me like another phrase which sounds profound and means nothing.
If evolution has no purpose, it means you are an accident and therefore you have no purpose.
Nothing differentiates humans from animals except that "human" is more specific than "animal ir lives to save their young for example.
Thus does not follow. Evolution has no purpose.[/b]
That doesn't follow either. If accident then no purpose...doesn't work.
So should lumberjacks be hanged?
I don't think so. Trees don't suffer or experience pleasure as far as I can tell.
Thus does not follow. Evolution has no purpose.
That makes no sense. First, 'this' is misspelled. Second, I never mentioned a purpose. Third, I didn't use an if-then idea, so there's nothing following anything else in the sense of your objection.