Every "thing" is a pattern with a purpose. — Kaiser Basileus

In this, what does "is" mean?

"deconstructs to"

"purpose" as in a teleological actor?

"deconstructs to" — Kaiser Basileus

This puts a lot of torque on "is." One might argue that by the time you deconstruct a thing to a pattern, it no longer is that thing.

And it occurs to me to ask how you might handle a purposeless random pattern. As an example I have in mind the array of stars in the night sky. I don't mean it as a challenge, but rather as a suggestion that in the same way that if something seems to good to be true, it probably isn't, that if something - anything - seems simple, it probably isn't.

Purpose as in recognition, danger avoidance, interest (pass to consciousness), and so forth, in order of complexity - any human desire or purpose, etc.

The stuff that the attributes apply to is part of the pattern as much as the attributes, or to put it another way, the attribute of encompassing a certain area of space is an attribute the same as any other. In other words, The thing includes all that. The pattern is equally in the physical world and in our brains at the same time. We have a representation of it guided by our desires.

The least a pattern can be is aesthetically pleasing. That's enough of a purpose to recognise it, but by the time you're aware, it's already had the purpose of danger potential applied to it. Purpose begins in the subconscious. You only become aware of a well-vetted sub-set of things that your nervous system experiences.

Reality, like my formulation of metaphysics, is infinitely simple and infinitely complex. It can be expressed in a few words but could be studied for a lifetime. I like to think of it as the infinitely recursive meta-mobius of existence. :)

or to put it another way, the attribute of encompassing a certain area of space is an attribute the same as any other. — Kaiser Basileus

Sure, as an attribute, but you have left the thing behind. Definition time: what is an attribute? What is a thing? These wouldn't be necessary - at least so soon - but for your usage.

An attribute is a lower order thing used to compose higher order things.. A thing is a pattern with a purpose.

An attribute is a lower order thing used to compose higher order things.. A thing is a pattern with a purpose. — Kaiser Basileus

The pattern of the stars, mentioned above, is an accident of perspective in many cases, the stars themselves being vastly different distances from earth. The pattern, then, has nothing to do with the stars as thing or things, jointly or severally. In as much as the pattern is no attribute of the stars, what is it an attribute of, and lacking that, how do you call a pattern a thing?

This purpose that you claim patterns have: how, exactly, do they have it?

And what, exactly, makes a pattern a thing?

The first purpose is recognition, In the case of stars, we say "That pattern is easily recognisable and that's useful because it moves certain ways that help us navigate." Then we relate it to an animal or something to keep it memorable and help us communicate it. That's a cultural thing more or less. Anyway, the second purpose is danger validation, which also happens pre-consciously. Only if something is dangerous or if it then passes the next set of subconscious filters which is interest validation toward other purposes, do we notice it consciously. Purpose/meaning is a human invention itself for human purposes. It describes wants of every kind whether practical or otherwise. It just happens that we've been figuring out how to do it for millions of years so we're really good at it. Nothing makes a pattern a thing but our purpose. It's not a thing otherwise - it's undifferentiated stuff, even though it's physically identical either way.

Purpose/meaning is a human invention.. Nothing makes a pattern a thing but our purpose. It's not a thing otherwise — Kaiser Basileus

I think animals have an ability to recognize some patterns, in some cases maybe patterns we cannot perceive. With that not entirely relevant qualification aside, all this makes perfectly good sense. Let's go back to, "A thing is a pattern with a purpose."

Immediately two possible interpretations. 1) With the above in mind, this becomes 'a pattern-as-thing is a thing with a pattern-purpose. Or, more recognizably, 'some patterns are suggestive of a purpose.'

2) A thing, notwithstanding whatever it is, is also in addition and in some way, a pattern-thing. The difficulty here is that it mixes what a thing is with what it's for.

Yes, they do, but what that means to them isn't relevant to what it means to us. Things aren't a priori and we don't know how the animal thought process differs from our own. Presumably it's identical to a point, but that isn't relevant in discussing what things are To Us, for our purposes.

The purpose comes first. You want to recognise things to avoid danger and approach pleasure, by whatever definitions. That means you need pattern recognition (which is also, roughly speaking, the definition of intelligence and our ability to sense and work with higher-order patterns is what separates us from the animals.)

The thing doesn't exist "for all intents and purposes" until it has a purpose. :)