What is our purpose?

[Syne]

Not all second generation wealth is as you describe. 30% of rich families retain their wealth in the second generation...as Trump seems to have done.

iow, 70% of rich families lose their wealth in the second generation. That's pretty bad. Guess wealth determines very little in terms of natural selection.

At least in the US, class mobility is very high...both ascending and descending. Success determines fitness.

Where did I claim "wealth = quality people"?

So being a quality person has nothing to do with being wealthy. That's what I thought. Thanks for confirming that.

Again, success (one measure of which being wealth) is metric of quality. But congratulations on winning your own straw man.

Jeez, some people really need whatever affirmation they can eek out.

And? That seems to only affirm that competition does play a role between individuals, populations, and species. Only taxonomic class doesn't include this mechanism. And should it? Do taxonomic classes directly compete? O_o Or is it only individual species of different classes that may compete for things like available resources?  

There is little evidence that competition has been the driving force in the evolution of large groups such as, for example, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.

I'm pretty sure that we are mammals.

Again, since you apparently didn't bother to read the post you quoted, should it?
Does a lack of taxonomic class competition tell us anything about individual, population, and species competition?
Or are you just going to ignore the point again?

What if Life as a separate entity does not care who wins or loses, the more offspring the better. It's all about quantity. Remember we're talking purpose here. The purpose for a life form is a little different than that of life. But if you ask me, life as an entity cannot get enough of life forms. Be they brainless or intelligent, doesn't matter.

Life itself is not an entity...it doesn't have the capacity to "care" about anything. "The more the better" ignores things like the carrying capacity of an ecosystem and predator/prey/available resources that keep populations in check. Life only exists as life forms.

Aw gee, I so like it when my imagination can run wild. Overheard in a sales office far far away...... 'Well we have the Earth size model available but it has a limited capacity, only a gazillion life forms per aeon'

I don't think anyone would argue that you can only have as many life forms as food supply permits. I wonder if it's actually possible to hit maximum capacity because one life form is always eating another. I can't imagine the planet population reduced to one life form but then if we all share one primordial soup common ancestor then that would mean somewhere along the line we munched on our own kind just to survive. In some way, aren't life forms still doing it? Life ain't nothing without evolution, IMHO.

Yeah, carrying capacity is more about resources than space...except insofar as resource production require space.

[Zinjanthropos]

Just thinking, if we have a purpose then I imagine so does everything else. I think if that's the case then I should be able to break it down even further, all particles have a purpose. I'm talking about the smallest particles that exist. Can I take it back more to include an event such as the BB as having a purpose? I'm sure that theists might say that leads us back to a god. Did god makers precede, and so on in reverse.

Don't you ever wonder when you look at the Hubble deep field pics, I know I do, at what's the purpose of all that? I think it pushes our little purpose to the brink of worthlessness, that's if we even have one.

[Syne]

Infinite regressions are logically useless and argumentatively fallacious.

I think the vastness of space exists to provide a fertile backdrop for possibilities. After all, could people dream up things like aliens seeding our planet with life if we had proven all the stars were only lights on a sphere relatively close to us?

Purpose can only ever be assigned. Even the survival purpose of evolution can only be deemed such by sufficiently intelligent beings. To all other species, it's all just chance.

[C C]

Just thinking, if we have a purpose then I imagine so does everything else. I think if that's the case then I should be able to break it down even further, all particles have a purpose. I'm talking about the smallest particles that exist. Can I take it back more to include an event such as the BB as having a purpose? I'm sure that theists might say that leads us back to a god. Did god makers precede, and so on in reverse.

Don't you ever wonder when you look at the Hubble deep field pics, I know I do, at what's the purpose of all that? I think it pushes our little purpose to the brink of worthlessness, that's if we even have one.

If what's signified by "purpose" is intention or a psychological disposition, a guide or planning of actions, then obviously "stuff" in general lacks such. But an artifact like a shovel was designed to serve a function -- it has a purpose in that way assigned to it by inventors with mental processes.

"Purpose" might be figuratively abused in a deterministic context to refer to a final state or several "destinations" along the way in which non-living objects are simply carried by physical tendencies, forces and principles of physics rather than being manipulated by desires and deliberative thought. But that's again what would be a potential resident of definitional malpractice.

- - -

[confused2]

Purpose can only ever be assigned. Even the survival purpose of evolution can only be deemed such by sufficiently intelligent beings. To all other species, it's all just chance.

I kind'a saw that but couldn't see what I was seeing. We're allowed to choose our purpose. Not just allowed but there is nothing in the Universe apart from reality, stupidity and bad luck to prevent us from doing it [choosing a purpose].

[Syne]

Yeah, intelligence provides options...including more choice and significance.