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Does the Universe Have a Purpose?
- noonespecial 18y agoIf the universe is entirely defined within its own context (which I believe it is) then it is its own purpose.
- anigbrowl 18y ago¯\(º_o)/¯
- russell 18y agoThe physical scientists lean towards maybe, maybe not, while the humanitarians, theologians, and life sciences types lean towards yes. Personally, I think multiple universes explain everything.
- Herring 18y agoYou'd think it'd give them pause that people actually studying the universe are so likely to say no.
- ekiru 18y agoPhysicists, astronomers, and astrophysicists - 3 Yes or most likely yes(the link to Paul Davies' essay lists his answer as "Perhaps", but in the essay, he consistently argues in favor of the universe having purpose), 2 No or most likely no. Chemists - 2 No, although de Duve's essay does not seem to disagree with finding a greater meaning in the universe, but merely with the terminology of the question. Humanities and social sciences - 2 Yes. Theologians - 2 Yes. Computer scientist - 1 Yes. It seems to me to be inaccurate to claim that the physical scientists tend towards uncertainty. None of them express uncertainty in their essays answering the question. They are fairly evenly split between belief in purpose for the universe and lack of such belief, however. Your judgment about the theologians, social scientists, etc. leaning towards yes is much more supported by their answers, since they all did say something which is equivalent to yes.
- vinutheraj 18y agoI don't think a sample space of 12 people, however eminent they are, isn't enough to make a general statement like this. Sorry!
- ekiru 17y agoOf course not, but if one does make a generalization based on this small sample as the person I was replying to did, one's generalization should agree with the data.
- ram1024 18y agothe universe itself has no purpose, that would imply that SOMETHING intended it to be this way. however, humans find their own purpose in living (in the universe) so it serves that purpose for us.
- rms 18y agoThe uni/muiltiverse is a computer, I believe that our universe is a subset of higher dimensional universes populated with matter and energy, so it seems very possible that the computational capacity of our universe is of some use to whatever matter and/or energy is populating the higher dimensional universe. I refer to these entities as our Higher Dimensional Overlords.
- dryicerx 18y agoIn other words, our universe is a map-reduce... it explains everything!
- mynameishere 18y agoDo ultravague questions have a purpose? There's a question I can answer. Define "purpose". I'm going to the store to buy some eggs. There's a purpose. Is the universe trying to get some eggs? If so, mission accomplished.
- jjs 18y agoThat's quite a heavy burden for one person. What if the store is closed?
- pohl 18y agoI take 'purpose' to be a 'reason' or 'justification' for being. Therefore the question presupposes a reasoner or justifier, which one might assume to be a creator who needs a reason or justification. So 'no'. ;-)
- shaunxcode 18y agoLuckily the universe has a meta-object-protocol and an ability to modify it's own abstract snytax, so to speak.. thus it's purpose can be dynamically redefined at run time. While creating much confusion it's also really freaking cool. I personally don't believe in an afterlife beyond garbage collection but who's to say what that freed memory will make room for??