Volume 2, Issue 2 
2nd Quarter, 2007


Hybriduality and Geoethics

Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.

Page 3 of 7

The Purpose and Definition of Life

The 17th century philosopher from Holland, Baruch Spinoza – considered by many to be Jesus-like in his humility – discerned that what makes life important is also its very purpose. Spinoza observed that “God can ask nothing of man which is contrary to nature,” and then further observed that every creature in nature is primarily motivated to seek pleasure (e.g., eat) and avoid pain (e.g., not be eaten)[7] .  Consequently, discovered Spinoza, the purpose of life is to seek pleasure and to avoid pain.


Image 6 - Mother Theresa

Nowadays we often associate the word “pleasure” with hedonistic pursuits, but Spinoza explained how true pleasure requires new achievement. In other words, doing the same old thing is not increasing pleasure, and will eventually become the pain of boredom. Achievement of pleasure means developing one’s capabilities (including, but not limited to, sensual and epicurean pursuits) and taking pride in one’s contribution toward making the world a better place. In the parlance of physics, pleasure would be called “positive delta” phenomena, meaning it was the increase in beneficent achievement, not the preexisting level of such achievement that really constitutes pleasure. 

Achievement of pleasure means developing one’s capabilities (including, but not limited to, sensual and epicurean pursuits) and taking pride in one’s contribution toward making the world a better place. In modern English, the term “satisfaction” (or perhaps the psychological term “self-actualization”) is closest to the quest for “blessedness” that Spinoza deduced to be the purpose of life.  To be satisfied, self-actualized, or possess blessedness, one should make ever more contributions to the order of the universe.  Yiddish
has a good word for Spinoza’s conceptualization of the purpose of life – produce “nachas.”  Roughly translated, producing “nachas” means giving a kind of pleasure that arises from someone improving themselves, others, or the world in general.  This is what Spinoza would say is the purpose of life, because this kind of order-building is what the universe is all about.

The restless and curious mind will ask “why is the purpose of life to increase the ratio of pleasure-to-pain?”  The inquisitor may fairly comment that “I can see that this does, in fact, occur, but why does it occur?  If this is the intent of the universe, why does the second law of thermodynamics that of ever increasing disorder in the universe, point in the opposite direction?”

The answer to the first question is that the universe is designed so that increasing the ratio of pleasure-to-pain is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Things that feel good (meaning generate true satisfaction), get done more, and things that feel bad (including boredom), get done less.  Consequently, the purpose of life is to feel good (i.e., pursue satisfaction).  There are only two other ways the universe could have logically been designed:  (1) painful things could feel good, in which case those phenomena would quickly disappear from reality in self-immolator activities, such as suicide, or (2) whether something feels good or bad at any point in time could be a random occurrence – a reality of pure chaos no matter what.  
[T]he purpose of life is to increase pleasure and to decrease pain because that principle works best at propagating itself. By choosing the seek-pleasure, avoid-pain approach, the universal design selected for rationality and success.  Indeed, from an evolutionary standpoint, the seek-pleasure, avoid-pain approach may have simply edged
out alternative design principles that worked less effectively at propagating themselves.  In short, the purpose of life is to increase pleasure and to decrease pain because that principle works best at propagating itself.

Why the universe would be designed to favor order on the one hand (evolution), and constantly drift toward disorder on other hand (thermodynamics)?   Every good teacher and trainer knows that the best progress requires continual challenge, and hence to grow beautiful order one needs the ferment of disorder.  Or, in the words of the great philosopher


Image 7 - Heraclitus

Heraclitus, living some 2600 years ago in Greece, “the mixture that is not shaken, decomposes.”  We can place our bets on what will happen first:  intelligent (re)ordering of the universe, atom-by-atom, to escape the fate of thermodynamic entropy via a more subtle comprehension of physics, or the loss of all matter,

[I]ntelligence will manipulate physics to save the universe, and thus escape its own extinction. and energy to randomness, empty space and endless time.  Given that we already understand the game plan, and still have at least nine-tenths of this universe’s life ahead of us, the smarter bet seems to
be that intelligence will manipulate physics to save the universe, and thus escape its own extinction.  For example, all the forces of disorder on the earth have not stopped the planet from becoming an ever more ordered place via our ever better understanding of physical sciences such as materials engineering.  Dams don’t change the laws of hydrology, but they manipulate them to escape the brute force of their uncontrolled application.   On a vastly grander scale, intelligence can do the same thing with the laws of physics.  Yes, our little earth in our little time is but a small piece of the puzzle.  But if our accomplishments here are a portent of things to come, intelligence will ride thermodynamics, not vice versa.

It is said that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.  This means that a developing embryo (ontogeny) reveals, stage by stage, the evolutionary history of that being (phylogeny).  But it is also true that the evolutionary history of a being enables one to predict its future development.  Consequently, it is also true that phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny. 
The cosmic fruits of tomorrow are in the earth seeds of today.
Now, think of the future development of the universe as our to-be ontogeny, or “destiny,” and the historical development of order on earth as
our phylogeny, or “reality.”  We then may say that phylogeny prefigures ontogeny, or more simply, that reality prefigures destiny.  In other words, what we see a little of we will eventually see a lot of.  The cosmic fruits of tomorrow are in the earth seeds of today.

Life accomplishes its purpose by creating order out of disorder, and forging fairness out of random chaos.  Of course life often fails to make the world a better place, and often makes it a worse place.   Nevertheless, reality would be much worse if all were left to the mindless fluctuations of the environment.   Without life, there would be no pleasure in the universe.  Of course, there would also be no pain, but the course of evolution has been to increase the ratio of pleasure to pain in the world.   This is the universal purpose that was discovered by Spinoza.

Footnote

[7] Spinoza, B. (1957), Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, reprinted in Gutman, J., ed., Hafner: New York.

 

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next Page>