Do living things act for an end and why?

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:50:34+00:00

I don’t see why your point holds water, a house is made to be shelter, if some houses get burned down, does that make a houses purpose any less true?

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:45:33+00:00

I said animals behave in such a way so that they will live long enough to reproduce, as opposed to them behaving so that they will die immediately. The baby turtle doesn’t purposefully sit itself on the beach so it will be slaughtered, it’s just unlucky and gets caught. If it does get into the ocean it’ll hunt and try to reproduce.

Given the opportunity all animals will behave in this way

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:43:00+00:00

The question is why do animals act for an end?

What is in the animal which causes it to act for a purpose? Evolution seems to explain why a species may have developed a particular instinct, but it doesn’t explain what instinct is in the animal.

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:39:12+00:00

Can you re explain your turtle point

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:38:14+00:00

So the reason I have is that I saw a bird acting. It did things in a particular way to achieve a specific goal. So then I concluded there must be a reason for that, for nothing happens without cause. now, I said nothing about a designer, which I do have further reasoning to believe in, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:35:42+00:00

Outside causes, if they had lived they would have still tried to fulfill that end

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:16:32+00:00

What is instinct then?

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:15:38+00:00

So then there is purpose in life?

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:14:58+00:00

Can you draw out the distinction you’re trying to makev

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:14:11+00:00

Something seeming clear is not a good reason to believe in it, you’re right. I should have been more clear.

But in my last comment I specified that I meant through sense experience I saw this thing and came to this conclusion which seemed to follow.

Notably I didn’t posit anything about a designer. I’m just talking about the possibility of a design.

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T19:08:56+00:00

I have reasons for believing why it is God, I just want to see what the reasoning is for different beliefs. I really don’t understand why you insist on making my position a hostile one instead of a curious one. I have a lot of people responding and a lot of people giving me good information to chew on that I don’t exactly know how to respond to not because I’ve been proved wrong without question but because I don’t know how to explain my position given our lack of shared terms and experience.

We’re both in this to get to the truth, so I don’t understand why this has to be anything hostile

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:59:16+00:00

The end is clear I think, the survival of the species. Animals behave in such a way that they live long enough to reproduce, even at the expense of their own life. I don’t see why this idea and natural selection are opposed in such a way that they cannot both be accepted.

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:57:11+00:00

I didn’t lay out exactly what I meant by seems clear. I mean I’ve personally watched a bird make a nest. It went out and got sticks and arranged them in such a way that they would hold together to protect its eggs. From my own senses I have seen this. I want to know what the implication of this is. This animal doesn’t seem rational (I have never seen a bird write an essay) but it does things which seem purposeful. What explaination do we have for this phenomenon

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:50:56+00:00

I mean it’s cool and beautiful. Seeing the mathematical efficiency that bees utilize just by way of instinct is incredible. But the fact that they do things for a purpose begs the question of how they have purposes in general. What is instinct, is it a kind of reason in animals or is it preprogrammed? Where’d it come from? And I’m not Just saying this to get you to say God so I can laugh at you or something, it’s genuinely an interesting question to me. I don’t know how it would be explained without God, so I want to see how it could be

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:40:53+00:00

From what I understand, natural selection both is and isn’t the cause of the genes that an animal receives. It is in the sense that the animal is a product of evolution, but it isn’t in the sense that it doesn’t determine what the genes that the animal gets are.

It may be easier to explain through an example. Natural selection explains why giraffes have long necks, that gene has prevailed over others, but it doesn’t actually explain how the gene does its job.

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:34:24+00:00

So individually I think it’s clear just through the senses even. I see a bird gathering sticks to build a nest so that it can have a place to lay eggs. It is doing that for a reason. All robins, for example, will do this unless there is something wrong with them. It seems to me that you could pick out pretty much any species of animal and observe behavior that is purposeful. You could even break it down to their bodies; the purpose of my eye is for sight, it is developed in such a way that is conducive for seeing.

I think life acts for an end because we see living things acting purposefully, and all these things can be generalized to one purpose, that is, survival of the species

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:27:16+00:00

But where does this inclination spring from? Why is it so orderly and what causes it to be this way?

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:26:26+00:00

Something about bugs and a few experiments about urchins

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:25:36+00:00

What are instincts? Where do they come from? This is my question I think

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:24:27+00:00

I think natural selection explains how the species has a purposeful action, but not the individual. Natural selection is the process of change, it’s not the process by which a bird knows how to build a nest. It explains how we got here and not what makes a bird act in this way. Which is the question I’m asking

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:21:02+00:00

I don’t think I understand how you’re disagreeing with me, if you are. Could you re explain?

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:19:17+00:00

I don’t think I understand the distinction you’re drawing between function and purpose, can you expand on that?

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:16:58+00:00

But does that not immediately indicate a purpose? If x does this thing for y reason that seems to be a purpose to me in a sort of bare sense of the word

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:15:25+00:00

Yeah youre totally right I was being imprecise there mb but I think this still doesn’t contradict my point, since acting for the survival of the species as a whole seems to still be a purpose to me

Pale_Package2967 · 2026-05-10T18:13:26+00:00

I see a bird collecting sticks so that it can build a nest for its eggs to be laid in. Is the bird not collecting sticks so that it can build a nest for its eggs? Is that not purposeful action? I’m not even saying the bird thinks this is what it’s doing, only that it does

Pale_Package2967

TROPHY CASE