In the beginning there was simply a self-replicating process. There is not a whole lot to say about the details, because we still do not know how abiogenesis occurred. The formation and evolution of the first lifeforms is still unknown to us.

However it occurred in some way, and an object began to self-replicate. It didn't have a desire to live or think about self-preservation, it didn't even have a brain. It was just something that self-replicated via natural chemical reactions.

This self-replicating thing was a process. Many processes occur on planets that have a beginning and an end, like a storm or ice crystals forming and melting. But this process was able to keep on going via a replication process. Perhaps it continued doing this for days, months, years, or longer before anything else happened. But at some point, since there is only a finite amount of energy input into the system, it would not be able to continue to expand.

Since we don't currently know what exactly happened, this self-replicating process may have hit that boundary. Some random change(s) in the process occurred that were beneficial. It may have made the resulting replicators replicate more efficiently and started to more aggressively take up the energy, and the original self-replicators weren't able to keep up and were starved of energy.

But do keep in mind, that we have to be careful of the "pathetic fallacy". When I say "competing" that does not mean they were consciously trying to compete. And when I saw "aggressively taking up energy", that doesn't mean they experienced what we call aggression. It's like if someone says the "seas are calm" or the "wind is violent", that doesn't mean the seas actually feel the emotion of calm or wind is trying to be violent. We use this kind of emotional language all of the time to talk about things that do not necessarily feel emotion.

Nobody knows when lifeforms, these self-replicating chemical objects, experienced the feeling of "wanting to live". We do not know how physical matter generates experiences, to begin with. We do not know when lifeforms first had any "experiences" at all or became what we consider "conscious". We may use words that suggest emotion to describe such things, but that is just how we speak.

It is surprising that we have an antonym for "purpose" viz. "purposeless" - and yet we are baffled by our own lack of purpose. Surely, that we have the word "purposeless" implies some things don't have a purpose. Why then can't we be among the things devoid of purpose?

I suppose it is strange to think that something would occur without a purpose. After all, everything has a cause and it would be logical to conclude that that everything would itself eventually become a cause leading to a result, which could also be called the purpose. Why do stars exist? Well, due to gravity and the chemicals it is composed of. The purpose of stars? To us, it would be to release heat and light, to the universe it might be to become a blackhole, neutron star, or even to just use energy.

Time means movement, which means energy. If there was no purpose for energy, what would be the purpose of time? As such, we can impose a purpose on life, that is growth and maintenance in order to use energy. Unlike stars, life isn’t one-time-use in terms of energy. It actively seeks more energy for maintenance and finds ways to consume more energy by growing, while stars use up stored energy and die out. Perhaps the true purpose of life is to give more purpose to energy. Stars use up energy and last a long time, but at the expense of ridiculous amounts of chemicals in order to induce natural fusion. Life may achieve the same result as stars, using energy, but by relying on complex systems and reproducing for longevity. Growth and evolution is simply a way to further improve efficiency. You could even say that the objective of life is to assist stars in that purpose.

Kant, if my reasoning is anywhere sound enough, would disapprove of humans having a purpose, a purpose understood as a means to an end, especially if there's nothing in it for us and we're merely utility items for an all powerful being - god.

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower...".

It seems to me life is its own reason complete in itself both to and for itself. It's wrung out of nature - wherever found - as possibility realized. And at no point does it stop, nor a respecter of persons - or anything else. And we may someday learn that it is an inevitable consequence where possibility permits.

I like to see the world as a natural machine. While the machine itself might not have purpose, it works and the components making the machine each have a specific purpose necessary for the machine to function. The world is like a clock, the gears turn and work, but literally, the clock itself has no purpose. Humans can interpret the clock to have a purpose, but in the end it is a complex mechanical construct that does nothing but move a few of its parts endlessly. In this case, life would just be a part of the machine, with its own purpose in keeping the gears going, but overall the machine itself does nothing significant.

It is surprising that we have an antonym for "purpose" viz. "purposeless" - and yet we are baffled by our own lack of purpose. Surely, that we have the word "purposeless" implies some things don't have a purpose. Why then can't we be among the things devoid of purpose? — TheMadFool

"purpose" and "purposeless" are antonym's only because the rule of English states that the suffix, "-less" means "without".

So by the rules of the language, they are antonyms, not by what the words refer to, like "above" and "below".

The reason why people are baffled is because "purpose" hasn't been clearly defined. What does "purpose" mean so that we can then understand what "purposeless" means?

Purpose appears to be relative. A purpose can be given, though some creations could have been made with clear purpose in mind. Even in those cases, the very same creations could be used for a different purpose. In that case, a purpose is any result that can be caused by the subject in question. To say something is truly purposeless is to say something has no result or effect. Referring back to my machine world analogy, that would make the purpose of the world “work.”

The reason why people are baffled is because "purpose" hasn't been clearly defined — Harry Hindu

I thought people already passed that waypoint; after all the difficulty seems to be not the definition of "purpose" but actually that it (purpose) is missing in our lives.

A purpose doesn’t imply that something was created on purpose. Things that just happen to exist by chance can still be put to a purpose, or serve a purpose.

A purpose is just what something is good for. So asking what the purpose of anything is, is asking what good can come about because of it.

That of course depends on some understanding of what makes something good in the first place. Or rather, is the same question in the most abstract: asking what the purpose of anything is ultimately leads to asking what the purpose of EVERYTHING is, or in other words, what is generally good?

Purpose should not be confused with cause, which has already been adequately explained for life in this thread.

After all, the universe would be just fine if it was composed of a bunch of rocks and clusters of random simple chemicals. — Braindead

Fine according to who or what? How would it be less fine with just empty space? Or as it is today?

Moreover, purpose per theory of evolution- whatever you happen to give it. Per your context though, a non-living chemical cannot have 'purpose' rather 'desire' or 'will' as humanly understood. It just happened because it could happen ie. was possible. So it did. Going along with the nonsense however, as I'm sure many atheists subjectively do in thiest threads, which I'm sure is appreciated, the effort rather. And resisting the urge to embed a 'South Park evolution' video. It's pretty elementary really. Some single celled organisms became more efficient, became something bigger, that's basically it, repeated as often as you will.

There are two main views of evolution. With intelligent design and without. Without. Little more than consumption and its efficient conversion into energy for purposes of self-sustanence. With. You can begin to see a larger picture. On land, flies and their larvae and other scavengers remove dead organic matter, increasing space and preventing disease, arguably. Worms till the ground increasing nutrients. Bees pollinate flowers ensuring they are plentiful. Plants inhale carbon dioxide and release oxygen that larger animals, who ironically or perhaps tragically if you're one of those, graze upon. Larger animals eat those and in turn give us something to eat. In the sea, algae being a plant does the same. It, usually, cleans. Is eaten by krill. Which is in turn eaten by other fish and whales. Without posing the obvious question of did this all happen by chance. It's just something to ponder.

I thought people already passed that waypoint; after all the difficulty seems to be not the definition of "purpose" but actually that it (purpose) is missing in our lives. — TheMadFool

I'm asking where the waypoint you passed is. If you can't define it, then how do you know you passed it?

A purpose doesn’t imply that something was created on purpose. Things that just happen to exist by chance can still be put to a purpose, or serve a purpose.

A purpose is just what something is good for. So asking what the purpose of anything is, is asking what good can come about because of it. — Pfhorrest

Excellent. So a purpose is a manifestation of some goal?

I'm asking where the waypoint you passed is. If you can't define it, then how do you know you passed it? — Harry Hindu

Isn't this like asking who Rama is after having finished reading the Ramayana?

Check out the adaptive dissipation theory by Jeremy England and others.

Very basically I think it is that matter can organize itself to dissipate heat more effectively under certain conditions and this might be a framework for understanding how life started.

I understand that life is simply the result of evolution, but there is a reason to everything and that is what the issue is. We can debate purpose, but in the end purpose is meaning given by sentient beings to a reason behind a phenomenon and any reason can be interpreted as a purpose. When I say the universe would be fine without life, I mean that there would be no noticeable detriment to the universe if life never existed. In that case, why life? What possible reasons are there for the evolution of life from simple chemicals? This is where the debate is and without solid evidence we can continue to take our passes at what the reason or reasons could/can be.

My pass was that the universe simply called for an energy consuming component in order to do something with energy, a byproduct of time. When I say the universe called, I mean that the universe naturally produces uses for any existence, basically cause and effect, thus with energy came life.

I understand that life is simply the result of evolution, but there is a reason to everything and that is what the issue is. We can debate purpose, but in the end purpose is meaning given by sentient beings to a reason behind a phenomenon and any reason can be interpreted as a purpose. When I say the universe would be fine without life, I mean that there would be no noticeable detriment to the universe if life never existed. In that case, why life? What possible reasons are there for the evolution of life from simple chemicals? This is where the debate is and without solid evidence we can continue to take our passes at what the reason or reasons could/can be.

My pass was that the universe simply called for an energy consuming component in order to do something with energy, a byproduct of time. When I say the universe called, I mean that the universe naturally produces uses for any existence, basically cause and effect, thus with energy came life. — Braindead

Purpose is certainly related to causality as people use the term to refer to the reason behind a phenomenon, or the cause of the phenomenon, and to the final cause, or effect, or the final state some process is trying to attain or become.

Either way, it's like you said, the starting line and finish line are both arbitrary. The Big Bang is just as necessary to life as the Earth is. But there would be a noticeable detriment to the universe if life never existed. The universe wouldn't be the same from the beginning.

I'm not saying that the universe was designed for life. If it were I'd think that life would be much more predominant in the universe than it is. It isn't designed for anything. It just is a certain way, and life is one of the many, many amazing and complex features of the universe.

What I am saying is that the universe is deterministic. It is a certain way and present states determine subsequent states. With an expanding space and matter/energy dispersed unevenly across it and billions of years of time, you are bound to get more unique and more complex configurations of matter/energy over time via causation. I think that we've only begun to touch the surface of all the different types of configurations that are out there, and their discoveries will bring into question our understanding of what life actually is, or how we define it. Think of what happened to Pluto.

Purpose is an anthropomorphic projection of one's own goals onto the causal process that has no goals. It just is a certain way that is determined by prior states and will determine subsequent states. Any particular focus on any particular cause or effect as the reason or purpose of some other cause or effect is arbitrary. They are all necessary in a deterministic universe. They are all part of the defining nature of the universe. This universe wouldn't be this universe without life or any of the other features it has.