Such a commitment, that's beyond our reach to go back on it, is what you're reaching for with "purpose". Is that close? — Srap Tasmaner

Once choice is gone, then not really a commitment any more, it seems to me, but instead a having been committed. I confess my original OP thoughts about "purpose" have been thoroughly poked with forks. I thought I had it nailed down, but very apparently not. I see purpose (now) as a settled state of mind beyond ordinary questioning about something significant, that serves to inform action or other beliefs, though flexible, if need be. I may have a rule about clean clothes, but if on a day lacking them, I won't go naked.

If that's the right analysis, that might explain why people are inclined to say that purpose comes from outside (from God, Nature, Aristotle, Darwin, whatever): either way you experience it as not up to you. — Srap Tasmaner

My own view is that the "outside" is often a convenient fiction, even excuse; that it comes from within and that the active agent is simply the individual himself.

But it does raise a question: what is this capacity to remove the steering wheel? How is this kind of commitment different from other choices we make and why do we do it? To what end? — Srap Tasmaner

In as much as removing the steering doesn't make sense (to me), there can be only speculation. And that as to what might make sense, given the lack of it. Edit: added: That is, removing the steering wheel not only means the car is no longer under control, but that it may be instantly out of control. One or other might make sense, but it's hard to see how they both together do.

God has to be real, — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you.
A constrained God is not one I'm accustomed to hearing about. The usual claim is omnipotence - God can do anything and everything, which if the author and creator of the universe we live in, he would pretty much have to be. But to be in reality is to have predicates, meaning that he is what he is and is not what he isn't. Which means there are things he cannot do or be, contradicting the claim. Or if infinite, then all things all the time, including what he isn't. So the claim of omnipotence, if he's real, leads to nonsense. And if constrained, then not God. But as an idea he is not, so far as I know, subject to those constraints.

As to any necessity for his reality - yours sounding like Anselm's - that is only a "proof" for those who already take that real existence as axiomatic. Reality is the realm of nature, and recall we put that to the question.

As to hearts, I have to own up to my ideas about "purpose" being pretty clearly not as clear as I thought they were, or would have liked them to be. However, I think I can distinguish between purpose and function. And so I would say that a heart has a function, and if you want to overlap the words in meaning so that in this case purpose means function, then it's too late for me to object. But so far as they differ in meaning, I do not think a heart (itself) has a purpose.

My reasons for always playing the king's gambit may have nothing to do with why you always choose vanilla. Would you ask if what I sometimes do is related to what you sometimes do? — Fooloso4

It's not the gambit or the vanilla, it's the always. And that's not reified in the finding; it's already there. And being there, subject to account. Whether the account itself interesting or worth the trouble a separate question.

The underlying necessity is the same: to keep living. The layer on top of that is: to live well. — Vera Mont

You seem to have covered this comprehensively. I'll add a top layer, to live ethically and morally - I think the two words mean the same thing, but both in case someone thinks they mean different things. A distinction that while the "lower" levels might be described as transactional, this top layer is not.

An example: charitable giving is imo a good thing, and certainly a sign of living well. One has the means to give, and enters the community of persons that do give. It arises to the next level by being anonymous giving.

Of course the charge against this is that it is still transactional, in that one is satisfied with and rewarded by oneself. And if true then true. But selfless giving is possible, and that is imo one expression of moral/ethical living above living well. This not against living well, because living well is a good in itself, but still the possibility for a higher good..

This is reductive reification. — Fooloso4

I understand the criticism. My effort here is not any sort of creation, but rather a looking to see what is there - on the working assumption that there is something there to see. The structure of the inquiry being, is-it, what-is-it, what-kind-of-a-thing-is-it, genus/species, quiddities; and the tools being the simple "why" and "what."

Thus if you always play the king's gambit, and I always chose vanilla, we can ask if in any way these are related, the "always" being the clue. And if related, presumably in some way by the "always," then there is a subject that might be pursued without any reification risked.

I think "purpose (in itself)" corresponds to Spinoza's conatus: everything necessarily persists in its being.
"It comes from" nature naturing.
"Its ground" is reality. — 180 Proof

Given, to be sure. But isn't there some aspect of yourself not merely given, but chosen and self-legislated? Maybe this way, that rules and principles are adopted by us - for our purpose here those by reason - and being themselves more magisterial than instrumental, arouse purpose which orders and directs action?

Cavil alert: maybe should be, "everything that (apparently) persists in its being necessarily persists in its being"? Or did Spinoza cover and account for that?

But let's try these: is God constrained in any way? Is He real? My point being that in belief in an idea, you can have what you want. But not in any reality.
— tim wood

How is this relevant? In reality, sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you do not. In what way do you believe that the constraints placed on human beings are related to the constraints placed on God, if there are any? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because you brought it up, and now refuse to answer simple questions. I'll try one more time: is God constrained in any way? Is He real? My point being that in belief in an idea, you can have what you want. But not in any reality.

We have duties and obligations, responsibilities and debts - all different, each resulting from a set of circumstances that are partly given (of the environment and a condition of survival) — Vera Mont

Agreed.

and partly undertaken by the subject for his or her own reasons. — Vera Mont

And to me, this the interesting part. In the first, one is driven, but in the second is one also the driver? That is, choosing for oneself how, when, why, and by what to be driven? And some of these no doubt rules and principles, but these seem passive/reactive, whereas purpose seems more active. And these also seeming to have a permanent or at least enduring quality, in that they don't apply particularly, but are instead general and give rise to particular self-direction.

About ol’ Sydney’s last act: where/how does he fit into your notions of purpose with it? — Mww

On a good day, if I do something, it is for a reason. If my effort is successful, it might be said I had achieved my purpose in doing it. In this sense purpose like a work order or chore or task, a thing to be done. So I may need to do my laundry and in accordance, set about getting my wife to do it. And to be sure, most of this done without any great reflection on my part.

If I do think about it, I recognize I have a standing purpose of never being in a position of not having clean clothes. Call it rule. And as a rule, interesting because like an officer in the military, it doesn't do anything itself, but gets others to do the doing. Or if not a rule, a principle. "Standing" implies already being in existence, but it doesn't have to be. Principles/rules/purpose can be adopted on the spot, effective immediately, and as "standing" available whenever needed.

Sydney, then, had chosen as a purpose that he should do a "far better thing...". And acted in accordance with that purpose. You and I might not have done as he did. But in terms of the story he would seem to have elevated and redeemed himself by action under a principle - with purpose, instead of perhaps if he had just lost a bet.

We are social animals. We crave... being valued. To that end, we take.... responsibility... for others as well as themselves. That requires no supernatural intervention. — Vera Mont

I buy it; I get it. But I doubt you would say that it's just a quid pro quo of doing and in return getting. I "hear" duty, and not as a consequence of accepting responsibility, but as ground for that acceptance. If so, that would be duty for duty's sake, being both a good example of what I call boot-strapping, and also entirely and deeply admirable. Maybe call it self-ownership of both halves.

Are you serious? Is it not the case that the purpose of an animal's heart is to circulate blood, and the purpose of sense organs is to sense, etc..? — Metaphysician Undercover

If you'd read the OP, you could not have failed to observe that this, your sense of purpose here, is not the topic, and so without relevance. And in passing since you claimed earlier that there could be no propose before purpose, I assume you also would hold that there can be no hearts until there was a heart. Which makes hearts hard to account for. But let's try these: is God constrained in any way? Is He real? My point being that in belief in an idea, you can have what you want. But not in any reality.

However purpose is understood, it follows from judgement alone, and for whatever a purpose is supposed to be follows from the kind/content of the judgement from which it is given. — Mww

Ok, but this would seem to cover everything from Sydney Carton's last purpose, to scratching an itch. I.e., imho, not at all to be dismissed, but also not over-valued.

Can we do purpose without first doing teleology on the one hand, or aesthetics on the other? — Mww

Will you share a laugh with me if I read this as,
"Can we do purpose without first doing purposiveness on the one hand and purposefulness on the other?"?

Invented or discovered? Neither: they follow implicitly and necessarily from that which is the condition for them, that being….a-hem…..predisposition in accordance with subjective moral law. — Mww

Hmm. There is in this a question of governance. No doubt inevitably I shall never exceed the limits of what I can or should be, but within, do I not have some choice, even free choice, to both discover what may be and to try to invent what is not yet? And if any at all, then all? And if I'm lucky, comporting with the imperatives, themselves creatures of reason?

Purpose is like the concept of cause and effect. It doesn't exist in the empirical world. It comes from the human mind i.e. imagination, desire, motives or will. It is psychological in nature. — Corvus

I agree, pretty much. By will and motive I infer you include reason, and I'd have preferred you left out "psychological" because I do not know what that means.

These are responsibilities I assume freely, of choice — Vera Mont

I should not have responded. If all the meanings of 'purpose' are eliminated from discussion, there's nothing left to discuss but God. — Vera Mont

I think with these you have landed both feet in the center ring. If it's God, then I hold that to be a matter of faith, which I hold to be personal, from the self and not from God but from an idea. That leaves the question as to why assume responsibilities. Not asking, but glad to read if you respond.

One of those Greeks advised us: "Know thyself.".... And that's why it makes more sense to say this sort of purpose is discovered rather than invented. — Srap Tasmaner

I think Socrates had more in mind, not so much to know himself so as to become who and what he is, but rather instead who and what he ought to be. And this the same as the navigator's admonition to know where you are, so that you can properly get about going where you're going.

I'll say one more little thing: I've always been attracted to Keats's.... the world is "a vale of soul-making". Through suffering we grow a soul, and thus become more fully human, more than we were when we were born. I think that's the idea, and it's interesting to cast that Greek idea in these terms -- it's the growth not of your body but of your soul, that matters. — Srap Tasmaner

A tasty notion! Mix a pound of Greek Paganism, philosophy, and science with a pound of Christian redemption through suffering, mix well, bake, and voila, a sweet and seductive confection - sorry, I'm just having some fun. But yours an admixture of things maybe better and more properly understood unmixed.

The Greek ψυχή*, psyche, is itself not so simple, and it becomes the Christian soul only after an extended time in the forge and on the anvil of Christian appropriation. In particular, I think the Greek sought and found improvement through both mental and physical development, absent suffering, while for the Christian, seeking out suffering,
"Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough, that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction." Donne, Med. 17. And this merely one of a series of echoes through Job, through Paul, et al, etc.

*From a hefty lexicon of the New Testament: "...but apart from other data, the fact that ψυχή is also a dog's name suggests the the primary component is not metaphysical."

Would you agree with me that teleology is an ancient attempt to make sense and that it is not of any great use today, nor since, say, Christians persuaded the world that God made nature? Or at least since Galileo?
— tim wood

Nope. — Wayfarer

You can look up τελός in a lexicon as easily as I can. And what I find there is unhelpful. 2300+ years ago it appears to have meant the presence of an assigned capacity to achieve an end, and with respect to that end, the end itself - but as a generalization, an abstract concept. Thus the τελός of a kitten to become a cat, a colt a horse, acorns oak trees. And I can see the value of this as an insight into the workings of nature, an assurance that your spring calf will become in time a cow and not a goat. And not so much an assurance, but a naming of what appears to be a universal process, growth, under the universal constraint of becoming what it is supposed to become and not something else.

Since most of us no longer need this explicit assurance, I conclude that telos today means something other than what τελός meant long ago, if it is to have any current utility. Can you say what that meaning is? .

Quite simply, God is the source of purpose.... When we come to apprehend the reality of God then all that purpose makes sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand reality as being the world we all live in, and also a set of constraints which things not of or in reality are not subject to. I don't object to beliefs, except when, as concerning things not of or in reality, the believer tries to place them into reality. And as God is supposed to be unconstrained, he cannot be in reality nor rationally supposed to be there. So the question to you, then, do you think God real, in the sense of being in reality?

And in terms of purpose - of any kind - can you point to or articulate any that do not come into being through a man's or a woman's speech or writing? Or, if God is the source of purpose, which come from Him?

But they will not find it, because purpose is given to things, not found in them....
So, in answer to your title, purpose is the use to which something is put, and comes from our intent. It is grounded in our intentional explanations for our actions, and has worth only in terms of those intentions and actions. — Banno

To things, I agree. But the purpose one gives to oneself, or accepts for oneself, that, it seems to me, must come from within, found or made - though maybe advised from without, thus perhaps correct to say self-given. And from us, for us, by us, for our own purposes as we value them. Fair enough? And may we say as well, boot-strapped? By which I mean valued because they are valued, any other value being derivative and incidental.

but something nearer the convergence of dharma and logos - that by discovering and being true to your purpose, you are doing your part in the grand scheme. — Wayfarer

We may be in agreement. This dharma/logos, whence?

As to telos, maybe that a separate discussion.

Quite simply, God is the source of purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right! And may I ask what God, and how you know? Because yours does appear to be a claim of knowledge. Or, if God simply a regulating idea - a creation of mind - then we may differ on details but not on substance.

What I would say, though, is that if you talk to anyone who is reputed to know about purpose, and how to help people find purpose, they will not follow your lead of "bootstrapping" or conjuring up purpose ex nihilo. The phrase itself is informative, "I am having trouble finding purpose," not, "I am having trouble making purpose." — Leontiskos

Good point, well said! But if not boot-strapped, then from what? Religion? Faith? Belief? Knowledge? Hope? Reason? That is, I disagree, and "finding" one of the great deceptions, often from those selling something. Purpose, then, has to be made, but no easy way to figure out how, or exactly what. . Ex nihilo because there is no other possible source - or do you know of such a source?

Not that I recall. — Tom Storm

You would recall it. But maybe you have it misfiled. I was a not-very-good hockey player, but I remember very well a quick basic play, a pass off the boards, I made that no NHL all-star could have done better: two seconds if that, almost half a century ago. So I invite you to think again.

Life provides these moments as opportunities, but I think in each is also a lesson.

My understanding of a tree has no influence on the universe or the existence of trees. Does thing-in-itself-as-it-is-in-itself mean anything? — Vera Mont

I think we're at cross purposes due to having different ideas of "purpose." And that would be again my bad. Maybe something more simple seeming. If not yourself, likely you can imagine someone wondering what the meaning and purpose of his or her life is, or life in general. To the degree they ask, they're asking for something, and when they stop asking, a reasonable conjecture is that they stopped because they no longer had a need to ask. What do you suppose they were asking for, and having stopped, what do you suppose they got?

As to the existence of trees, I claim there is no such thing as a tree, although there are plenty of things that appear to correspond to our categorical ideas as to trees, that we call trees, and those ideas efficacious (and deceptive) in terms of getting the world's work done. As to the universe, however, what is the tree but an temporary agglutination of a small amount of matter and a good deal of energy.

In the pre-modern vision of things, the cosmos had been seen as an inherently purposive structure of diverse but integrally inseparable rational relations — for instance, the Aristotelian aitia, which are conventionally translated as “causes,”

Hi. When I saw your byline I knew work was ahead. I'm inclined to think your citation of Dennet, without knowing his purpose or agenda, is a lurid "loading" of his arguments, the propositions of which are all at least, it seems to me, debatable. Anyway.

So, in the context of pre-modern philosophy, it was simply assumed that everything exists for a reason, and that this reason is discernable by nous, intellect. The philosopher, in particular, was one who discerned reason, but in the pre-modern sense, which included the telos of particulars, the reason why they came into being in the first place. — Wayfarer

Would you agree with me that teleology is an ancient attempt to make sense and that it is not of any great use today, nor since, say, Christians persuaded the world that God made nature? Or at least since Galileo?

However, you also ought to consider that purpose or intentional action also comes into existence with the very most primitive organisms, which act with purpose to preserve their existence. — Wayfarer

And if I call this an anthropomorphic attribution? The question is whether purpose across species is simply a matter of degree, being the same for all except perhaps in degree, or if a plain difference in kind. Even something as seemingly fundamental as hunger I would hold to be fundamentally different in lower and higher level living things - wouldn't you?

Maybe we should attempt, imitating the practice of good mathematicians, in finding a question somewhat difficult to pin down and answer, to take on a simpler version of it. Above I tried to say that my purpose is to be good (and not bad) and to be as perfect as chance will allow. But even with that, I have the question as to why that would become either a purpose, or even my purpose, thus strongly implying something primordial even to that. Suggestions?

How might we demonstrate this? — Tom Storm

I think the method is to keep asking until the answers hit an end or a loop. But not to be satisfied with easy first answers that any child knows can be overturned with a succession of whys. Have you ever had any moment of the kind of perfection, that you recognized as such, in which you knew there was no how or why or what for beyond it? Not necessarily any big deal, nor to be examined or analyzed, but simply to be remembered, appreciated, and as appropriate, enjoyed.

Isn't purpose contingent on culture and language....
Where does it come from? Being human, the act of making sense and having to make choices. — Tom Storm

Do you think the notion of purpose arises out of culture and language - and in terms of refinement it may well, or do you suppose that there might be something primordial, in the sense of an idea and not necessarily temporally, on which purpose is founded and out of which it arises.

And it strikes me that purpose might arise from negative considerations. I can imagine that both a cave-man and Jeff Bezos might both wonder at their purpose - and that transcending both culture and language.

Simply: No world, no mind(s).
But then, I'm no longer sure that you refer to "the world" not as the universe, but as some image or model that doesn't exist. — Vera Mont

Well, it exists, not as a thing but as an idea. Consider your experience/understanding/use/description of a tree. And what is that to the universe? All this is being just the point/problem of Kant's thing-in-itself-as-it-is-in-itself.

Purpose requires will — Vera Mont

Does it? It may require will to act on it, to actualize it. Unless purpose and action are indistinguishable - but that seems untenable.

Let's suppose you have neighbors that offend you. Why don't you shoot them? And I think there are most broadly two differing answers. The first that it would be wrong; you should not do it. And the other that shooting them would likely cause you more inconvenience than not shooting them, a very utilitarian, or pragmatic, calculation. I assume your answer would be the first, and there are lots of facile answers as to why. (And religion provides a convenient list and short-hand of such answers.) But how would that answer reconcile with "purpose?"

It seems to me your "purpose" is a mix of teleology, comprising both desires and will to actuate choice. If purpose implies choice, I don't think telos has much to do with it, as telos combines mainly final and formal causes - the what-it's-for and the "plan-to-get-there."

When I attempt to think about this, I come up with the imperative to do the right thing, as simply as possible. And the value of that? That one may achieve a kind of clear, consistent, and simple perfection that is, to my way of thinking, the best a person can do - and thus a peculiar kind of immortality, even as the actuality is not more than a moment. Purpose, then, the imperative to do the right thing, as best I can figure and do.

Sometimes, it is possible to get your ducks in a row. But when your ducks are in a row, you do not have your ducks and a row.....
There is no X such that X provides the rowness to the ducks, rather it is the relations between the ducks that sometimes has the form of a row; it is not an extra something in addition to the ducks. — unenlightened

Are they in a perfect row? Or an imperfect row? And we'll set aside for the moment whether they're ducks.

It's possible you mean something like, "They're ducks to me, and the formation they're in is what I find useful and call a row." And no law against that, but seeming not itself useful beyond your own specific and particular needs.

I think we can say with some certainty that whatever purpose is, it is not bootstrapped. It is something that precedes and goes before us; something that transcends us; something that beckons to us; something we participate in. It is not something we invent or produce; it is something we discover or encounter. — Leontiskos

Please make your case. Or, of your certainty, such as it is, if it is, may I have some? Or if you mean psychologically, then, absent further argument, I don't think it's a useful point. I'm old enough to have encountered and discovered value(s), but 1) those are particular, and 2) I don't see how to either generalize or abstract from that experience to purpose in itself.

I am skeptical that there is any one ultimate "purpose" — Max2

Me too. I take it to be a work-in-progress, and maybe it shall always be.

Nevertheless, I personally find that the most convincing answers to these questions are ones that, in addition to perhaps offering some ethical imperatives, recognize what we already find valuable and offer us ways to better manage these sources of value, as I find the case to be with Aristotle's works on ethics. — Max2

I've just ordered Nicomachean Ethics for a re-read after many years. Terence Irwin's 3d ed. gets the nod on reviews - we'll see. As to what we "already find valuable," I don't question for a minute that we do find things valuable, but I am at the moment digging to find out what that means, and what the foundations are.

Ultimate underlying meaning and significance is something only humans demand of anything.
They seek it in vain, so they make something up. — Vera Mont

Should I understand from your reply that you hold that there is no "ultimate underlying meaning and significance"? I happen to think there is, but only as a product of mind, thus not a thing in itself, and as product subject to refinement. And at the moment, probably a long moment, the refinement being the movement away from religion and into structures based on ethical considerations. Bad influences of science and technology, mixed with a limited utilitarianism, being imo a very great hazard.

Now, no doubt you do many things because you have to or want to, as do we all. And the question that flows from that is, is that all you've got?

No mind no world.
— tim wood
Exactly the reverse. — Vera Mont

Oh, I agree the universe was there before there were minds to consider it, but that wasn't what I meant by world. My bad if you thought it was. But at the same I suppose you would agree that our descriptions/understandings of the universe, that we - I - call the world, is no part of the universe itself, meaning that the universe is indifferent to meaning and understanding, being itself just that that is.

If the point matters, then you might expand? By "reverse" I do not know if you mean: "If world then maybe mind," which would be trivial, or, "If world then mind," which would not be trivial, but that I might ask you to support, somehow.

A lecture on the history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlK2mfYYm4U

Edit: Worth the watch.

Another interesting video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmCVoGc2IeY

An interesting video - perhaps a little dated - or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEzi0SMCu5A

If I can add to yours, a term in a classical syllogism is distributed when somewhere in the syllogism the important quality is said of all the members of that term.
Example:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Socrates is mortal.

Three terms, man/men, Socrates, mortal.
All men - men is distributed because something is said about all of them.
"Mortal" is not distributed.
Socrates is distributed, because something is said about all of Socrates - this is a little tricky, but not very tricky.

If man/men were not distributed, then it might read,
Some men are mortal.
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal.

And the problem with that conclusion should be clearly evident.

Syllogistic reasoning is not too difficult, although a little strange at first. Worth the effort of learning.

The argument arises from consideration of what could be or might not be - that is, from ideas that counter each other or seem to counter each other in some sense, but that neither of which is itself certain. The governing logic falls under Rhetoric - persuasion. And ingredients of good persuasion are the good character, good will, and good judgment of the speaker. And for at least 2500 years, and no doubt much, much longer, arguments have been made by people of ill-will, poor judgment, and bad character. And the best of these are the Sophists. Straw-manning, or straw-personing, and in the likes of MTGreen we can extend the "privilege" to women, is simply clumsy and back-handed sophistry, and the best they can do is to annoy and delay. Which is to say they are best completely ignored.

It is not clear how that fits the definition of paradox. — Lionino

Try a dictionary. You can start here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=paradox&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS976US976&oq=paradox&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCggAEAAYsQMYgAQyCggAEAAYsQMYgAQyBwgBEAAYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyCggDEAAYsQMYgAQyCggEEAAYsQMYgAQyCggFEAAYsQMYgAQyCggGEAAYsQMYgAQyBggHEEUYPNIBCDM0NDJqMGo3qAIIsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Unless I've missed it, I seem to be the only one (here) mentioning/remembering the hostages - the news reporting 129 still held. This latest edition of horrors, doesn't anyone else remember who set the stage ablaze and how?

a load of text to pretend you think deeply about this issue when your analysis doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. It's ridiculous. — Benkei

Nah. You're ridiculous.

Btw, this game takes little effort to play, offering little in the way of rewards. Why don't you try something substantive instead?

I'm suggesting that the anti-Jew/Israeli anti-Semitism of the Middle-East runs deep, like racism in the US, and consideration of the one, by one who knows it, may aid in understanding the other. Or do you think mere palliatives and superficial nostrums are the right medicine?

"What does it mean to divide by zero? In mathematics, this operation is undefined." — alan1000

Or maybe in this, as with many, contexts "undefined" is simply well-understood shorthand meaning don't do it for lots of good reasons.