28th May 2006, 12:09 AM
I wouldn't anthropomorphisize anything beyond what's needed to explain it. So that in mind, continuation of a species is in the best interest of anything that wishes to keep going, and so if anyone has it in their minds, aside from what genetics is programmed with, that their purpose is to make another life form, then so be it. Nothing wrong with that. I'm merely saying that purpose seems a strong word to apply to it. It's just physics, and purpose is just something people with the mental strength (or weakness if you see it that way) to come up with it deal with it. The majority of animals I've seen are content just to live. It's us that get all depressed and obsessed with "purpose" in life. Not that I don't think of that myself, I'm hardly above it, I'm just trying to point out that "purpose" is a process of the mind. But then again, if you define purpose as whatever something happens to do, like a river flowing, then sure, reproduction is almost every life form's purpose (excepting those that don't and just go extinct). That's just not the webster's definition of the word. I gues it comes down to the inaccuracy of saying "a cow's purpose is to be eaten". Sure, a lot of then are hearded and we have assigned that fate to them, but it is a bit much to say "that is it's purpose" without adding "that we have given it".
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)