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buybuydandavis comments on The Relation Projection Fallacy and the purpose of life - Less Wrong
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If we're naming fallacies, then I would say that this post commits the following:
The Linguistic Consistency Fallacy: claiming, implicitly or otherwise, that a word must be used in the same way in all instances.
A word doesn't always mean the same thing even if it looks the same. People who worry about the purpose of life aren't going to be immediately reassured once you point out that they're just missing one of the relata. "Oh, silly me, of course, it's a three-place relation everywhere else, so of course I was just confused when I was using it here". If you ask people who are worrying about the purpose or meaning of life, "Purpose for whom?", in my experience they tend to say something like "Not for anyone in particular, just sort of "ultimate" purpose". Now, "ultimate purpose" may well be a vague concept, or one that we get somehow tricked into caring about, but it's not simply an example of people making a trivial mistake like leaving off one of the relata. People genuinely use the word "purpose" in different (but related) ways.
That said, the fact that everywhere else we use the word "purpose" it is three-place is certainly a useful observation. It might make us think that perhaps the three-place usage is the original, well-supported version, and the other one is a degenerate one that we are only using because we're confused. But the nature of that mistake is quite different.
If you think I'm splitting hairs here, think about whether this post feels like a satisfying resolution to the problem. Insofar as I still feel the pull of the concept of "ultimate purpose", this post feels like it's missing the point. It's not that "ultimate purpose" is just a misuse of the word "purpose", which, by the Linguistic Consistency Fallacy, must be used in the same way everywhere, it's that it's a different concept which is, for various reasons, a confused one.
FWIW I think "2-Place and 1-Place Words" is a bit dubious for similar reasons. Both this post and that make the crucial observation that we have this confusing concept that looks like it's a good concept "partially applied", but use this to diagnose the problem as incorrect usage of a concept, rather than viewing it as a perhaps historical account of how that confused concept came about.
Like I said, sort of splitting hairs, but it makes all the difference if you're trying to un-confuse people.
I don't think so.
He's pointing out that the concept of purpose entails an agent with the purpose.
We don't explicitly stating context for words all the time. But for words like purpose, people haven't just dropped context, they don't even understand the context, and think that their projections have singular meaning, and argue with other bozos suffering under the same confusion about a different singular meaning.
Meanwhile, when two people who understand the full context of the concept have dropped context, they may miscommunicate at first, but have no problem clarifying their commnication - they just identify the full context in which they're speaking. "I mean Joe's purpose for his life." "Oh, I thought you were talking about my purpose for my life. Nevermind."
As for the guy talking about "Ultimate Purpose", the OP points out that the concept of purpose entails a agent with that purpose. If by your own statement "it's not anybody's purpose", then you're not really talking about a purpose at all, and are just confused. The OP can show them the way out of their confusion, but there's not guarantee they'll take the way. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think.
I'd claim that there is a distinct concept of "purpose" that people use that doesn't entail an agent with that purpose. It may be a pretty unhelpful concept, but it's one that people use. It may also have arisen as a result of people mixing up the more sound concept of purpose.
I think you're underestimating people who worry about "ultimate purpose". You say they "don't even understand the context", as opposed to people who "understand the full context of the concept". I'm not sure whether you're just being a linguistic prescriptivist here, but if there are a whole bunch of people using a word in a different way to the way it's normally used, then I'm inclined to think that the best way to understand that is that they mean something different than that, not that they're idiots who don't understand the word properly.
Nobody is calling anyone an idiot here, brilliant people can be confused too.
I think it's a feature of the brain to confuse new language with the originally intended concepts. We wouldn't have most of philosophy without this feature.