On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 2:28 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Why does feeling have to have "purpose"? The universe as a whole does >> not have "purpose" unless you believe in a certain kind of god. >> > > Let us imagine that we have a deterministic theory of everything and it has > started at time zero with given initial conditions. Then it is possible to > state that the purpose of that initial conditions was to reach the state > that we have now. Otherwise, why exactly these initial conditions have been > employed? One could definitely imagine that the theory of everything starts > with some other initial conditions (also with some values of fundamental > constants, etc.). > > In my view, the same event can have purpose or not depending on how you > describe it. Say a mechanical system develops itself according some > Lagrangian. There is no purpose. Yet, if you remember about the variational > principle, then the trajectory minimizes some functional and this could be > considered as the purpose of the trajectory. Well, this is a word game but > then you have also to make your definitions to justify your statement. It's possible to define "purpose" to mean "whatever happens" but I don't think that's what Craig meant. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
