Does the universe have a purpose? By Neil DeGrasse Tyson...

[Humanist_Activist]

[nikto]

1. The purpose of the universe...

Is to make money for the richest 1%.



Just look around for the proof.

[1monster]

2. Hmmm... Mr. Tyson seems to have made the same mistake as those who believe

their religions are supreme -- equating the universe with humanity.

If the universe does have a purpose, humans are just one in trillions to the nth power of factors that are a part of (or perhaps an unintended by-product of) that purpose.

I don't pretend to know the whether or not the universe has a purpose any more than I pretend to know the "mind" of God or whatever power is invovled in "the universe."

The human mind is simply too puny to comprehend the universe in all its exreme vastness.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. You got it! But, he's going after a mass market...

raised on that human-centric view of things.

Note he didn't make much of higher dimensions, either. Or try to get anyone's head around the idea of infinity-- or what would be beyond the end of the universe. Or what would be here if there was no universe...

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. That's strange - a lot is explicitly saying it's not about humans

Here's the text:

Anyone who expresses a more definitive response to the question is claiming access to knowledge not based on empirical foundations. This remarkably persistent way of thinking, common to most religions and some branches of philosophy, has failed badly in past efforts to understand, and thereby predict the operations of the universe and our place within it.

To assert that the universe has a purpose implies the universe has intent. And intent implies a desired outcome. But who would do the desiring? And what would a desired outcome be? That carbon-based life is inevitable? Or that sentient primates are life's neurological pinnacle? Are answers to these questions even possible without expressing a profound bias of human sentiment? Of course humans were not around to ask these questions for 99.9999% of cosmic history. So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.

...How about human life itself? If you are religious, you might declare that the purpose of life is to serve God. But if you're one of the 100 billion bacteria living and working in a single centimeter of our lower intestine (rivaling, by the way, the total number of humans who have ever been born) you would give an entirely different answer. You might instead say that the purpose of human life is to provide you with a dark, but idyllic, anaerobic habitat of fecal matter.

So in the absence of human hubris, and after we filter out the delusional assessments it promotes within us, the universe looks more and more random. Whenever events that are purported to occur in our best interest are as numerous as other events that would just as soon kill us, then intent is hard, if not impossible, to assert. So while I cannot claim to know for sure whether or not the universe has a purpose, the case against it is strong, and visible to anyone who sees the universe as it is rather than as they wish it to be.

http://www.templeton.org/purpose/essay_Tyson.html

[Xipe Totec]

3. The purpose of the universe is to wonder if there is a purpose to the universe. nt

[wildeyed]

5. This view makes me much happier than the religious view.

Trying to think about how small and insignificant I really am chills me out when I am too wound up. I just think, Hey, you know what, it really don't matter. I mean REALLY doesn't.

[Starboard Tack]

6. Of course the universe has a purpose. It is the purpose.

Purpose is what we are all about, what everything is about and how it all interconnects. It is not dependent on any deity. Its purpose is infinite and is infinitely evolving. It has no beginning or end. Purpose is the reality of being.

[cleanhippie]

7. While I tend to agree, you have just insulted 3/4 of the planets population

by contradicting what they have been told/taught is their purpose.

[Starboard Tack]

8. How have I insulted anyone?

Everything that exists is part of the infinitely evolving purpose of the universe. That includes humans and all their belief systems. If anyone feels insulted by that, then I will be happy to discuss it with them, for no insult is intended.
Purpose is not about being right or wrong, it is not about reason or logic or beliefs. It is about the essential nature of all existence.

[cleanhippie]

10. "It is not dependent on any deity."

You've made a declarative statement that directly contradicts the deeply held beliefs of most religious believers in this planet.

[Humanist_Activist]

15. The universe had a beginning, that much we know, it also has an end, in the Heat Death.

You could argue that we give the universe a purpose, one that we define, that is centered on us by default, and that others give it purpose depending on their perspectives. But this purpose is subjective, and basically, outside of the sphere of influence our species currently has, the rest of the universe wouldn't and can't care about it.

[Starboard Tack]

16. Well, what we call the universe had a beginning, I agree

But whatever existed before that moment was already there. I guess I should've said existence itself has no beginning or end, only transformation.
The purpose of existence is existence itself, and everything that exists has its own purpose within the whole.
Everything is born of something else and will continue to be ad infinitum. Only the form changes.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. no.

We project onto our perceptions all sorts of nonsense, including purpose and meaning where there is none. The universe just is.

[hrmjustin]

12. Yes it does have a purpose.

[Humanist_Activist]

13. Really? And on what basis do you make that assertion?

Please bear in mind that my answer is "I don't know."

[hrmjustin]

14. I just feel that. it really is just hope.

[struggle4progress]

17. And tune in next week for another edition of "Horrid Philosophy from Good Scientists"!

Mr Tyson originally heads in the right direction by discussing the ways we use the word "purpose," and I expect that if he had continued on that path he would have concluded that the question is somehow meaningless: it makes sense to say "So-and-so's purpose in doing this-or-that was such-and-such" -- but it is a grave error to assume "purpose" is some definite quality any object might possess

If I say The purpose of my glasses is to help me see things better, the purpose does not really reside in the glasses but in the owner, and perhaps more generally in the retailers and manufacturers and designers -- for what really hold true are a complex of sentences such as My purpose for having glasses is to help me see things better or The optician's purpose for having glasses is to provide them to other people who want them for purposes of seeing things better &c

But having started fruitfully down this road, poor Mr Tyson promptly strays from it into vast rhetorical swamps, where every word is presumed to have a meaning even after all referents are stripped away, and so he begins to treat the question Does the universe have a purpose? as if such a thing as abstract "purpose" actually existed and as if we ought to be able to produce a clear answer to such a muddy question

In fact, there does not seem to be any scientific theory of "purpose." We do not know in what units "purpose" would be measured. We have no theories about whether "purpose" is conserved, or whether it can be synthesized from more fundamental building blocks in accordance with some nice algebraic law. There are no known instruments for detecting "purpose" when it exists or for predicting the physical effects of some fleeting "purpose" with a very short half-life

Such straight-forward observations, sadly, have not prevented Mr Tyson from engaging in the most popular technique of bad rhetoric: namely, phony quantification. Yes, he actually attaches numbers to meaningless sentences, in a futile effort to attach some sense to them! Aaargh!

[stone space]

18. Purpose? Beauty, elegance, and geometric symmetry, and for God sake, try to avoid that ugly fuzz!

Our god is a young god, still in elementary school. Our universe is an art project. All of the child gods in the class have to create one, since it counts as 35% of the grade.

The universe is graded on beauty, elegance, and geometric symmetry. Creating such a universe is a daunting task, since the child gods must fine tune the physical constants and laws of the universe to acheive this, which is quite difficult, expecially for gods as young and inexperienced as our own.

The problem is this: Under almost any set of initial conditions, eventually a sort of fuzz (which we call life) will start growing within the universe. This ugly fuzz often will evolve to the point where it can perform large scale engeneering feats (building wormhole subways, etc) which will eventually affect the large scale geometric structure of the space-time continuium of the universe, thereby distroying the underlying beauty, elegance, and symmetry of the universe, and resulting in a low grade for the ugly art project.

The child-god who created our universe did his level best to create a universe where this fuzz could not evolve. He tried his best to fine tune the laws of physics so as to prevent the fuzz from messing up the universe. The god is watching its universe for any signs of our existence. Should he detect the existence of such fuzz as ourselves, he will of course distroy our universe and start over from scratch. (Our universe happens to be his 457th attempt.)

So, as far as the creation of life goes, it is unintentional, but very difficult to avoid, given the extremely delicate fine tuning of physical laws required to create a universe sufficiently sterile to have the beauty, elegance, and symmetry necessary for a good grade.

All that he can do is try his best, monitor the project carefully, and be prepared to start all over again should the need arise.

[LostOne4Ever]

19. I don't think it does

But that is actually a good thing for us. That means that we get to define our own purpose!