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buybuydandavis comments on The Relation Projection Fallacy and the purpose of life - Less Wrong Discussion

67 Post author: Academian 28 December 2012 04:14AM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 28 December 2012 07:33:24PM *  19 points [-]

Suppose I find a piece of strange-looking code on my computer and ask, "Does this code have a purpose?" The following seem to be reasonable possible answers:

  1. Yes, it was written to serve some useful function.
  2. No, it's a functionally null piece of code that the programmer forgot to remove.
  3. No, it seems to be the result of some kind of copying error.
  4. Yes, it's a backdoor deliberately inserted by a previous intruder.
  5. No, it's a security vulnerability that the original programmer accidentally created.

The following do not seem to be reasonable answers:

  • a) Yes, it's an accidental vulnerability whose purpose for an attacker is to use it to hack my machine.
  • b) Yes, its purpose is for me to show off my testing/debugging skills to my boss.

It seems that at least in some cases when I ask "Does this thing have a purpose?" the kind of answer I'm looking for includes "someone deliberately created it" but excludes "it's valuable for someone". If "Does life have a purpose?" is like this, whether or not other people value my life wouldn't to be relevant to answering it.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 29 December 2012 11:28:15AM 0 points [-]

The following do not seem to be reasonable answers:

They seem like reasonable purposes to me.

It seems that at least in some cases when I ask "Does this thing have a purpose?" the kind of answer I'm looking for includes "someone deliberately created it" but excludes "it's valuable for someone".

To me, the purposes of a thing are all purposes that purposeful agent have for the thing. What purpose does X have for Y? Among those questions, you can always ask "What purpose does the creator of Y have for Y?"

If "Does life have a purpose?" is like this, whether or not other people value my life wouldn't to be relevant to answering it.

It's irrelevant because you have a purpose for your life (presumably), so any additional purposes for your life are superfluous to the question - we've already concluded that your life has a purpose by noting your purpose for it.

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