Text of a speech I gave at the Unitarian Universalist Temple in Hinsdale, IL on August 30, 2009.
Here’s the audio-file:
Purpose

Introduction
Good morning… My name is Scott Thompson, and am, among countless other things, an atheist. OK, we’ve gotten that out of the way…

It took me many years to get to this point, well, I don’t mean THIS point specifically, because I just left home this morning…. It took me years to go from being a Southern Baptist with fundamentalist-tending parents, to being an atheist and an agnostic.

I could talk about that journey – , the philosophical compromises, the internal cognitive dissonance of the tug-of-war between mysticism and science the Gollum/Smeagol-like arguments with myself (and I’m not saying which side was who)… I could talk about that, but I won’t.

I could talk about how one can be both an atheist and an agnostic – the one a disposition, the other a decision – but I won’t get into that either. I could talk about how atheists are generally despised, but not as rare as one might think. But that would take us too far afield.

Since I only have a few minutes with you here today, I thought I’d saunter confidently right up to the BIG QUESTION, wrestle around with it for a bit, and see what happens. The question, of course, is, “What is the meaning of life”? More specifically, someone might ask me and my fellows bereft of supernatural beliefs, “How can YOU find meaning in life,” often followed by a prepositional phrase such as,

• if we’re all nothing but dumb atoms?
• if we’re not special in the universe?
• if everything ends for you with death?
• If you have no higher calling for which to live?

Allow me to explain, at least from my own point of view.

We all seem to be on a constant search for meaning. Not just the meaning of our lives, but, the meanings of nearly everything we see or consider, either in person or through books, tv, the Internet, etc.. Some seek meaning in symbols on a cuneiform tablet from ancient Babylon, in the cores of ice drilled from Antarctica, in the little twinkles of starlight from distant Suns. We all seek the meanings of our social interactions at work or home, or here, with these meaning-full people.

Perhaps we seek meaning in tea-leaves, in the planet’s paths through the zodiac, in tossed dice, or a randomly selected passage from one of these interesting books.

Or maybe sheep’s entrails… I was going to show a picture of those, but decided against it, so I have for you these nice flowers instead. Perhaps some try to find meaning in flowers (she loves me, she loves me not…).

Each of these quests is an example of a search for cause and consequence. We human beings are fantastically good at learning, including making stupendous jumps from the specific to the general. We’re also good at recognizing that if one thing happens after another, perhaps they’re linked. Together, these capabilities are a tremendous help at navigating through life, but they can lead to big problems of overgeneralization or superstition. Still another problem arises in situations where we see a particularly significant effect; we look for a correspondingly significant cause. Even more to the point, when a effect affects human beings in a significant way, we often cannot but help seek a similarly significant human, (or even super-human cause). We seem to have a yearning to ascribe intelligent, intentional action to many (or for some, any) things that impact human beings.

Consider the seasons; they have a significant effect on humans, to the point of life-and-death. Early societies, imbued with the same compulsions toward explanation, were convinced that gods controlled these powerful effects. Now, nearly everybody who makes it through fourth grade learned (whether they remember or not) that the seasons arise from the constant tilt of the Earth’s axis as it whirrs about the Sun. Those season-gods are long gone.

Consider other human-impacting events: a tornado, a horrific tsunami, or the plane-crashes of September 11th. Consider a person’s life-threatening slip on or fall through the ice. Consider global warming. Consider a disease or a plague. What is the cause of these things, what is their meaning? If one subscribes to a point of view similar to my own, most of them are pure acts of chance – but that’s so hard to believe when the pain is so vast and injures us so deeply. Surely there’s a higher purpose, some vast cause commensurate with the calamity. If we remove those profound causes, aren’t we left with meaningless trivialities?

Isn’t it even worse to consider the scale of human malfeasance required to somehow warrant such tragedies?

Human-kind has found patterns in the whirring of the Earth, the fall of an apple, those tree-rings and ice-cores and flashes of starlight. These patterns or regular motions, similar shapes and repeatable processes have led to discoveries of laws of nature. This is a great picture of the fields of study and relationships between them involved in the on-line publication library of one scientific journal publisher.

But what of “purpose”? What can science tell us of that? Where is purpose, in this picture? It’s related to the question “why”. Quite some time ago, science stopped asking “why” and restricted itself to questions of “how”. People, however, still ask “why”. These kinds of questions ask about the intentions associated with past events. We also ask about “should”. How “should” the world be? What kind of government, taxes, waterways, climate, school subjects, and television programs “should” we support in the future? These are called “normative” questions – questions about what “should” be the norm; and addressing them requires a capacity for envisioning the future melded with a set of preferences about it. When we apply those same ideas to past events, we are asking why did THAT outcome occur? Who had the intention or purpose or desire of making it happen just that way? Sometimes these kinds of questions are ctitical to our survival, yet because they’re so easy to ask; because it’s so easy to assume all events had an intentional cause, we use the language and ideas sloppily.

Imagine a freeze-frame picture of a baseball zooming along in flight. One might ask, “what is the purpose of this thing.” We might assume our wayward baseball is in the middle of some hotly-contested game. We might further, and quite reasonably assume, that the pitcher believes the purpose of the ball is to fool the batter into swinging errantly, though the batter might think its purpose is to sail high out over the bleachers. The spectators see the baseball as an integral facilitator of institutionalized and safe inter-tribal warfare. OK, maybe not, maybe they just see it as an excuse to get out and enjoy the day. Yet the team manager, or sponsors may know its purpose is to sell tickets, or hot-dogs. All these people look at this same small thing, and invest it with their own intentions, or the intentions they suppose others possess.

That is a key feature of “purpose” – it must necessarily presume intention: SomeBODY must mean, or expect, or want or predict some future outcome. Purpose, and why questions in general, require purposeful thinking, and thinking is a rare thing in the universe… just look at most prime-time television.

Now think about a hammer. What is its “purpose”? Obviously its most common use is to pound in nails, so it’s reasonable that this function is the most common purpose from the perspective of a typical weilder. But, couldn’t it be used as a paper-weight? Or to break a glass, weight a rope, or to help measure the height of a building (one might think of three quick ways to use it thusly). What then, is its “purpose”? The people who made it believed its purpose to be attaining an income. Where do we stop, which purpose is “best”, or “right”? Any?

Here’s a tricky one- think now about an apple. Imagine its purposes: Apple pie, apple-cider, an impromptu baseball. Or maybe just a way to feed bees, or to get more apple trees into the world. Maybe the apple’s best purpose was to have fallen on Isaac Newton’s head.
When we start talking about the purpose of natural things: an apple, the planet Neptune, a spotted kestrel or a tectonic plate – we quickly run into problems. There are surely uncountable ways that people, with their capacious imaginations and complex needs can use some natural things; but this implies a purpose obtained from a person, not the thing itself.
Here’s a slightly more complex but quite insightful example: Imagine a soda bottle being shaken vigorously or dropped. Now suppose I pierce it with a sharp object, say a pen. You can all picture the fizzy mess that ensues. Yet consider this question: What’s the purpose of the hole in the bottle, or the fizzy soda. The aerated froth will rush and bubble out the hole, but is it the purpose of the soda to do so? Is the purpose of the hole in the bottle to provide an escape route for the agitated liquid? Yet the carbonated beverage acts like it “wants” to leave the bottle, and it “finds” the hole.

This is an example of a natural system transitioning, or evolving into a much different state of being, when acted upon by a set of constraints (in this example, the walls of the bottle and the hole, and differences in gas pressure). Scientists often talk about physical systems “wanting” to be at rest, or “wanting” to spread out. I caution you – do not imagine they mean something like human wants (or, as the case may be, aversions) when they use such language. Personally, I believe such language is sloppy, because it leads too easily to confusion. It’s too easy to confuse natural processes involving precise or chaotic flows of energy and matter, in dynamic situations – with squishy feel-good language about the system’s “wants” or “needs” or “preferences”. From there, it’s the slightest jump to talk about said system’s “purpose”.

Let’s reserve the term “purpose” for intention, and talk about everything else as optimized outcomes of some simple (say, gravity) or complex (say, natural selection) processes involving matter, energy and information. Or, to put it differently, we may talk about the intentions of people, or we may talk about the events and processes in the natural world. Insofar as humans can affect these events and manipulate these processes, we can rise above the status of victims of chance and become masters of choice and the garaunteurs of our own future. We are the inheritors of billions of years of chance and selection of the complex processes of life, optimized to the ever-changing environment of Earth. But we can now escape that cycle of blind chance, and determine our fate.

Due to time and topical constraints, I’m not going to get into a discussion of evolution and natural selection per se, nor the debate pitting mystical creation against purely natural emergent processes and forms. I’ll grant that most people believe in some kind of divine intentional creation, even if it’s as benign as a “guiding hand” or some kind of cosmic spark-plug to get the engine of evolution going. Let me short-cut the discussion by stating that “purpose” or “design” requires an intelligent entity proposing, intending or designing. If for the sake of argument, you consider my position that there are no super-natural “purposeful entities”, nor natural ones with powers way beyond human capabilities, where does that get us in a search for the meaning of life?

Well, for a start there’s baseball. No, really… My thirteen year old neighbor is manic about the sport, and his dad isn’t far behind. Of course, he also loves history, especially presidential history. His sister loves horses and making up stories. His little brother loves sorting and counting and building. Their mother loves being the best mother in the world – and photography. They all like board-games, and picnics, and watching their garden grow. They find purpose, and meaning, in the thousands of decisions and priorities, hobbies, friends, obligations and possibilities that life lays out before them. As do I with my life, and as do my friends. And, I suspect, as do you.

One of my favorite lyrics from my favorite band says, “The point of the journey is not to arrive.” I suppose you can guess why it’s a favorite of mine.

BREAK

Carl Sagan once persuaded NASA to have the Voyager spacecraft look over its shoulder as it shot toward the far reaches of the solar system, and take a snapshot of Earth. At that moment, a feeble sunbeam, having traveled about four billion miles from our Sun, glinted off the camera (recall that the Earth is “only” 93 million miles from the Sun). There’s the Earth, a tiny little shimmer, barely discernable as an azure speck. It’s captured in the image like a dust-mote in a sunbeam. Carl called it a “Pale Blue Dot”, and wrote a book by the same name about it.

We live in a stupendously, awe-inspiringly, mind-bogglingly, super-gargantuanly huge universe, and that’s just counting the parts we can see. Our solar system, huge though it is, is tiny compared to our galaxy, which is one of many billions strewn like scattered sand-grains in the heavens. Not only is our universe full of kajillions of astonishing real things, from quarks to quasars, and black-holes to big bangs; there’s a great chance it contains alien intelligent life and many other undiscovered wonders. Our very own planet, our pale blue dot, has such fascinating things as marmosets and mangrove swamps, economies-of-scale and paleo-linquistics, organic light-emitting diodes and deep-sea anaerobic biomes, and on, and on, and on. Not only those things, but our world is full of an endless set of possible imaginary things or great interest, from the formal imaginings of mathematicians, to the fanciful wonderings of novelists, computer-game designers, quilt-makers, landscapers, painters and singers. All these dreams of beautiful minds, shared among ourselves to improve or enrich our journey through life.

Perhaps you’re feeling marginalized, trivialized or diminished by the tiny dot of our world compared to the vast tapestry of reality. That’s unfortunate. How big must one’s ego be in order to need to feel relevant to the whole universe? Flip the problem around, and recognize that the universe, or some captivating portion of it, can be relevant to you. You, in turn, can be relevant to those who need you, who learn from you, who love you. And, in the off chance you’re not a “people person”, just go out and satisfy your insatiable curiosities, which too often get stifled after childhood. I could talk about our education system, but I won’t… Anyway, go learn, explore, think, enjoy, and if you feel like it, share. Just be like Hippocrates and don’t hurt anybody along the way. Oh and by the way, in this Universe so vast it defies our attempts to grasp it, by far the most incredibly complex and fantastic object known is that clump of gloppy grey matter sitting there between your ears. Now that’s special. I could talk about how unfortunate it is that too many of us choose to feed our brains an information diet of dregs and dross… but I won’t.

Speaking of brains, you may have heard of the “multiple universe theory”. Here’s a new twist on it for you: Try to think of everything you ever done, or seen, been or dreamed. Imagine how long would be the list of everything you know or believe or hope. In a very real way, the whole Universe is represented by a vast complex collection of ideas and memories within your own mind. Sure, the universe is quite literally real and “out there” somewhere – able to be subjected to observation and experiment, but everything YOU know about it is here, in this room with me now and right there, between your ears. OK, whirl your perspective around and consider that each other person here, not to mention the seven-billion or so on this planet also has a whole universe in their own head – a universe sometimes significantly similar to yours, sometimes profoundly different. It’s the similarities that let us communicate, and the differences that lead to creativity. Though sometimes our incompatible views of the world lead to conflict.

I offer these small snippets of the universe’s grandeur for you to consider. Hopefully, it whets your appetite for the amazing beauty and possibility in the world around you, whether your gaze alights on a drop of water, a dapple of sunlight, another person, a map of the world or a picture of the universe. Reality overflows with wonders already known and completely undiscovered. Perhaps discovering more about one or more of these things will invigorate your life, as it has mine, with a child-like appetite for understanding and knowledge.

Maybe instead, or in addition, you’re one of those people more captivated by making a difference, than by exercising your own creativity or skill in a solitary manner. A multitude of problems await your adroit hands, from global-warming to famine, asteroid-impacts to futures-market melt-downs. From cancer to schizophrenia to Alzheimer’s to safer automobiles; better education and efficient waste disposal, environmental advocacy and a billion other worthy causes. Perhaps for you, “making a difference” means voting, or running for office, or being a teacher or doctor, or a good parent or a best friend. Perhaps you just want to make people a little happier by making them laugh, or playing baseball for them, or feeding them well – or showing compassion. If you don’t do these things, who will?

If you can’t rely on a supernatural Mr. Fixit to tell you what to do, or to make everything all better, then that puts the responsibility squarely on your shoulders – and mine. My god – Talk about “purpose”… Good day.

Sunday, September 6th, 2009 @ 1:35 pm Towards a New Liberalism
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