From: Simon McClenahan (peepsplat@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 07:41:03 MST
From: "Damien Broderick" <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au>
> At 09:49 AM 1/28/02 -0800, Lee wrote:
>
> >> LIFE creates and identifies purposes.
>
> >purpose requires an entity
> >capable of /desire/ and /free will/; such an entity must be able to
> >form goals that support its desires, and can therefore choose its
> >own purposes.
> A kidney gets built into a developing phenotype because that arrangement
of
> organized cells does a particular job acceptably well within a
metabolizing
> entity. It obviously has a *function*, then; and it would be perverse to
> claim that it doesn't have a *purpose*.
Please explain exactly what is so perverse about a kidney not having
"purpose". A kidney has a "function" most definitely, but you fail to
impress upon me that it has a "purpose". This whole argument is still bound
by the definition of "purpose", and hopefully we're speaking the same
language here. My definition implies self-intent from a sentient being.
> That purpose was not *intended* by the evolutionary accidents and sievings
> that built the kidney's constructional and operating code; there was no
> outside mind *desiring* it. But each kidney serves a crucial purpose.
And that purpose is to function for the outside mind's desiring, surely? A
kidney(s) laying in the bottom of a barrell serves no obvious purpose to me,
nor to most other sentient beings.
cheers,
Simon
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