The Human Purpose

Analysis 5: A Mind for Design

With the development of artificial intelligence and computing, age-old questions resurfaced, renewed. If these machines could be intelligent, what can we then conclude about the human brain? A materialist position, attributing all corners of the infinitely malleable and structurally complex human mind to basic, physical, cerebral processes, sends chills up many spines. Why would it? What does the development of computer science, bolstered by the rapid development of cognitive science in the late 20^th century, mean for our project?

A slight digression is in order. Much of the development of ideas for this site will progress in the following way: a new situation or structure is introduced, and it then acts as a filter for the different fundamental premises that each of us may have adopted with (and by) our gut intuitions. So, whether you are coming into the questions surrounding human purpose with religious baggage, or whether your gut says that we’re organic, soulless machines, you will (hopefully) be able to analyze the given topic through your lens, and see how your base-premises fare. The goal is that by passing pre-established, relative premises through these topics, views will become challenged and thus refined, whilst being exposed to otherwise forgotten, competing positions. With this in mind, we return to the filter at hand.

Gut-level problems many people have with A.I. concern whether or not a computer can be conscious. With this we step into worms spilled long ago, still writhing. What is consciousness? What is a soul? What is the relationship between consciousness and the soul, if any? The literature on this subject is robust, and growing, and the results could be more poignant than we may want to know, or accept. As cognitive science peers deeper into the lowest levels, the base structures of thought, it creates a symbiosis whereby developments in studies of the brain guide A.I. systems, while A.I. developments shed light on unanswered mind questions. Where will, and can, this lead?

If our brains are in fact computers, and consciousness and all those other “human” properties fall prey to our reductions, then the human purpose shifts, squirms, and adjusts. Our purposes, and perhaps even our Purpose(s) could be seen in a different way; base-level processes and systems; difficult to grasp, but by near-inconceivable complexity, not divine inaccessibility.

If the prospect of a computer with a soul seems preposterous, and the possibility of a conscious computer offensive (if not terrifying), then your likely ammunition resides in the (so far) failure of artificial intelligence to behave with indisputable consciousness. We have come a long way, but there’s much road left to travel. No language program consistently and thoroughly passes the Turing Test, whether you think its results indicate intelligence or not. If the belief is that computers will never get there, then this is one long waiting game; the fear of the proof is the price paid for eluding its burden. Somewhat ironically, it comes down to a matter of faith.

Regardless, the study of computers and artificial minds could very well prove useful in discovering more about our minds, by both notable similarities and differences. And knowing more about the human mind can only help answer how it builds, interacts with, and perhaps ultimately forms the human purpose.

The arrival of computers (to those watching) brought the adrenaline surge of a cutting-edge existence, catching whiffs of something big cooking not too far away. Perhaps the smell is alluring because it is familiar and thus reassuring, like fresh-baked bread. Maybe we are trekking a great distance to revisit and thus understand something most essentially nearby. Or maybe we’re building bigger and bigger ladders to try and reach the moon.

References / Further Reading:

Consciousness Explained, by Daniel Dennett

Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I., by George F. Gilder

The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, by David Chalmers

Fragments of Consciousness, David Chalmers’ blog

A Mind for Design

Arguably the first modern, general purpose computer was created by German Konrad Zuse in 1941. Later, John William Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr. created ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer), a mammoth (ten feet tall, a thousand square feet, weighing thirty tons) device between 1943 and1946 at the University of Pennsylvania. Soon after computers, “artificial intelligence” was born.

The Logic Theorist, considered to be the first instance of artificial intelligence, was developed in 1955 by Newell and Simon, running their program on the JOHNNIAC computer created by John von Neumann. The expression was coined in 1956 by John McCarthy, who organized a summer research project called “The Dartmouth summer research project on artificial intelligence”. In 1958, McCarthy created the LISP programming language (LISt Processing), still widely used in artificial intelligence programming today.

We have seen A.I. creep more and more often into mainstream media, and our lives. A famous chess duel between man and machine. A Spielberg film about a robot child built to behave as a human. Assembly plants that construct cars with great precision, and greater speed. Automated phone services, allowing people to book plane tickets by speaking, not to a person, but to a series of appropriately choreographed recordings. Although artificial intelligence has been developing for fifty years, debates persist regarding just how far we’ve come, and whether or not we’re even on the right track. What are the right conditions under which we are to decide if a computer is in fact intelligent? And does it need to be intelligent in the same way that humans are, to be of any worth? Can a computer be conscious? Does whether or not it can matter?

One of the first tests for intelligence was created in 1950 by Alan Turing, the famous British mathematician whose major achievements include being considered the father of modern computer science, and having cracked the seemingly uncrackable German ENIGMA code during World War II. His A.I. test originally involved an interrogator typing in a conversation with a man or a woman via teletype, and being told he has to guess the sex of whoever was on the other side. Turing argued that if a computer could be substituted for either the man or woman without the interrogator noticing, then that computer could be considered intelligent.

Over the last decades, the test has been misinterpreted, modified, and simplified to its common form: if you can’t tell the difference between a computer and a person (in a separate room, of course), the computer has passed the Turing test and can be considered intelligent. Despite the unquestioned brilliance of his mathematical work, his philosophy is much disputed. Two common criticisms of the Turing test are first that it’s too hard to pass, and second that even if a program could pass the test, that fact alone would not confirm intelligence, as the result could have been plausible on the surface but lacking a suitable, robust mechanism (often referred to as the Hollow Shell argument).

References / Further Reading:

The Essential Turing: Seminal Writings in Computing, Logic, Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, And Artificial Life, by B. Jack Copeland

Analysis 4: Beastly Brains

In the introduction, I made clear that this project was meant to bring to light the Purpose of humans as distinct from other animals. Why do we make such a distinction, and if we are to maintain it, how are we to characterize it?

We first begin with our intuitions, false as they may turn out to be. Many feel that humans are a somewhat “special” specie, for various reasons. On one end, some feel we are God’s chosen creation, made in his glorious image. Can’t get much more special than that. On the other end, many consider us to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to this planet. A specie of careless damage, and senseless avarice. No less noteworthy. For good or evil, our presence on this planet is heard, and we have followed a course that no other specie has come near. As much as we may squabble over the reason behind our noteworthy nature, no one can doubt that we are something different. Is this enough of a basis for suggesting our Purpose may be different?

Answering this question could mean asking another: what if there is indeed a link between purpose and Purpose? Remember, we first posed the question (if there is indeed a link) as to whether Purpose helps define purpose, or whether the reverse is true. Either way, a link would hint towards a kind of symbiosis between the two, and the definition of one would lend itself, to some degree, to the other. That is to say from a clear understanding of one kind of “purpose” (either Purpose or purpose), we should be able to know at least something about the other. That being said, if we can determine a strong similarity in general type between a given animal’s purpose and ours, we could potentially infer that our Purposes should reflect that same similarity, to some degree.

Yes, there are many things that we humans do that no other animals do. But there are also many things that some animals do, that others don’t. We must determine if the human activities and goals are of a completely different nature to other animals’, to be able to comfortably assert a difference on a grander scale. That being said, the activities presented in the previous post may do well to call us into doubt. Again, this is all provided we do accept some link between purpose and Purpose, which, although intuitively appealing, has yet to be fully argued for.

Beastly Brains

“The dolphin also attempted to remove algae from an underwater window with a sea gull feather, in imitation of the activity of a human diver who regularly cleaned the window. The dolphin, while “cleaning” the window, reportedly produced sounds resembling those from the demand valve of the diver’s regulator and emitted a stream of bubbles in apparent imitation of the air expelled by the divers.”

This 1980 text of L.M. Herman describes the observations of Tayler and Saayman seven years prior. This behavior stands as a cheeky reminder that there’s probably more going on in the brains of animals than we might guess. Not that brain size is a sure-fire litmus test for intelligence, but the brain of the bottle-nosed dolphin is larger than that of humans, though not identical in organizational structure.

In the Okavango Delta, the 6000-square miles of natural splendor in Botswana, classic, storybook wild animals live. The Okavango is home to its own breed of wild dog: generally dark, skinny creatures, with seemingly splashed patches of white, and somewhat disproportionately large, round ears that shoot up, giving its head the look of a large, canine rodent. For every pack of these dogs, only two mate at a time, and produce a litter that the whole pack then raises.

Generally, canines don’t strike most people as a genus of abstinence. That these animals engage in such a seemingly aware and responsible manner with regard to their sexuality is striking. Their self-control allows the young to be raised in the most ideal environment possible.

References / Further Reading:

Animal Minds : Beyond Cognition to Consciousness, by Donald R. Griffin

The Greatest Places (Large Format)

Analysis 3: Slaving Geometry

The numbers involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade are staggering. We may try to distance ourselves from our natural lean towards feelings of repugnance for the sake of historical analysis, but the core nature of slavery and its breadth are difficult to ignore. The fact is, in many cases, slaves were not only treated, but understood as subhuman creatures, in the same way that a farmer might treat and understand a draft animal. To many, an animal’s life has less value than a human life, because it is seemingly less capable and less intelligent. (As much as it is somewhat tangential to our current project, it is interesting to note that this is an instance where a purpose of existence is imposed from one living creature onto another)

As much as slavery seems fundamentally wrong, we must be clear that this was not a brief, passing phase. This is a part of human history involving millions of people, over hundreds of years. We have already briefly touched upon the relative unavailability of the psyches of human history. We can never sufficiently place ourselves in the exact, true mindset of the past. Trying to make sense of something like this is that much more difficult. Usually, all one can conclude is that “things were different back then”. It remains important to find out why, and how.

And so, we are left with many lessons, most in the form of open questions. Just how flexible are the goals, or the purposes, we have? How much of a role does our cultural and environmental context play a role in the purposes we individually form? What is the relationship between the purpose of a nation, and the purposes of an individual of that nation? What is the role of morality in purpose, or purpose in morality? Are specific purposes “good” or “bad” to have, and to what extent is such an attribution related to morality? These questions and more will be elaborated upon more specifically in this project’s further examinations, and should be kept in mind.

Slaving Geometry

For over 400 years, between the middle of the 15^th century to the end of the 19^th, over 11,000,000 slaves were brought to the New World from Africa by Europeans. Some estimates put that figure well over 20,000,000. Over 4,000,000 of those slaves were taken to Brazil.

Conquering European nations, despite having strong technology, political infrastructure, and economic strength, lacked the raw, working manpower to sufficiently develop the American colonial lands. Natives not killed by the Europeans themselves were being decimated by new diseases for which they had no immunities. As a result, Europeans turned to Africa to populate their labour force. Africans were resistant to tropical disease, and were familiar with the work of maintaining domesticated plants and animals.

Although some slaves were captured in raids (most often by the Portuguese, the most active European nation in the early slave trade and the last to abolish slavery), most were taken from willing African kings, who in return received goods like horses, brandy, textiles, and guns. These weapons were crucial for expansion by these kings across the African continent, and the acquisition of more slaves. With their colony workforce in place, Europeans were able to successfully acquire goods from the Americas, including sugar, cotton, and tobacco.

Thus, slavery was an integral part of what is known as the era’s triangular trade. Working backwards, one leg of the triangle was the exportation of slaves from Africa to the Americas. Another leg was the exportation of goods from Europeans to African kings in return for slave labour. The remaining leg was the exportation of slave-produced good sent from the Americas to Europe.

References / Further Reading:

The Slave Trade, by Hugh Thomas

Transformations in Slavery : A History of Slavery in Africa, by Paul E. Lovejoy

African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame, by Anne C. Bailey

Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, by Ira Berlin

Analysis 2: Out with the Old

There are only a handful of cultures that are completely unknown to the global community outside of them. As individuals, many of us can research the knowledge we lack about a particular people or place. To be an explorer, reaching a seemingly new continent with a seemingly new civilization that no one in the(ir) world has ever heard of before, is an experience that no person in our global community will ever have again. The 15th and 16th centuries seem a fantasy, more fit for the pages of fiction than of history.

Think of the range of purposes of the exploring Europeans involved, at home and abroad. The missionaries with the goal of spreading the biblical word of God to those who’ve never heard of Christianity. The explorers who sought both the money and prestige that came with a successful voyage. The rich of the old world willing to sponsor these extravagant endeavors for goods that have become relatively easy to attain, modern-day commodities, like silk, and spices. The home nations, wanting new resources, power, and recognition brought about by the conquering of new, inhabited lands. The ultimate curiosities of all those involved, including, and at the expense of, native peoples. The precise nature of these purposes are unlike anything most have ever experienced, or can ever experience. Time confines us to an inevitably refracted view of humans in history. The lens of relativism colors everything, and special, thorough attention must be given to try to understand the thoughts and emotions of those involved.

Our goals and ambitions (and thus our purpose(s)) are inevitably shaped by the cultures in which we develop and live. So, part of understanding what our purposes should be, and what our Purpose is, can be achieved by examining other cultures: those across the world today, and those of humanity’s past. We need to let go; not just read the facts about what these cultures are and were like, but imagine their existence in the context of their relative purposes. Other cultures just might shed a light on us and the culture in which we live, through their diversity, if nothing else. Many of the explorers of five centuries ago did not approach new cultures with an open and accepting mind. To understand who we are and why we do the things we do, we must avoid that mistake.

Out with the Old

During the Age of Exploration beginning in the 15th century, European navigators set forth on voyages into the unknown. The world was beginning to be accepted as round, but the actual dimensions remained unclear. Christopher Columbus, using faulty calculations, tried to convince King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that Asia was not only reachable through the West, but relatively nearby. Eventually, the Queen agreed, and in 1492, Columbus began his first voyage to that which became known as the New World.

Wealthy Europeans sought spices like salt partly to improve the taste of meat, but mostly for purposes of drying the meat for longer preservation. War with the Turkish empire made trade with the East difficult over land. A possible connection to Asia via the Atlantic ocean would avoid this problem entirely. Also, the wars in Europe were expensive. Exploration allowed the possibility of finding gold and silver to help pay the cost of battle. Exploration meant the possibility of new lands, and thus the possibility of the expansion of both an individual European nation, and of Christianity.

Columbus landed in 1492, in what he thought was India. Through this error, he called the natives he encountered “Indians”, a misnaming that survives to this day. The voyage resulted in the eventual conquest of these natives. With the Central Americans decimated by steel weaponry, warriors on horseback, and deadly European diseases, the vastly outnumbered Spanish took over.

References / Further Reading:

The Last Voyage of Columbus : Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition, Including Accounts of Swordfight, Mutiny, Shipwreck, Gold, War, Hurricane, and Discovery, by Martin Dugard

Analysis 1: Standing Up For Our Selves

For the goal of understanding human purpose, we have to take a serious look at human prehistory. To understand why, we must take step back for a moment, and again refine our question. The project here is not to figure out the meaning of life in general. This is a project about finding meaning in our human lives. The general meaning of life is an important question, but despite being even more “fundamental”  and overarching, it is less relevant to the more pertinent questions of how we live our lives. Why is that?

Consider the following analogy. Imagine that you are looking for a job, and decide you want to be an auto mechanic. To be able to do the job properly, you should get a manual on how cars work, or take a course. You’ll learn all the parts and what they do, and how they fit in the system as a whole. You may even want to get deeper, and learn more about how the wiring is set up. As much as the fundamentals of electrical engineering, including electromagnetism, Maxwell equations and so forth can be shown to manifest in an automobile, and although many other rudimentary principles of physics may apply, you don’t really need to know them too well to be an auto mechanic. Not to take away from the skill required for such a vocation, but the fact is there is only so deep a level you need to examine to produce the desired results of a corresponding level. All to say, the study of human purpose will affect our lives more directly than a study of the meaning of life.

Humans are animals. Before seven million years ago (when the human evolutionary branch first split away), we were certainly more animal-like. Therefore, it’s safe to say, that in our earliest days, human purpose was little different than the purpose of animals, generally. We’ll have to spend much more time on animals later, but for now let us be clear that part of what we are trying to do with this project is understand and qualify just how we differ from animals. As such, an important place to look is that point where man and animal diverged in nature, when things started to change, and our lives became more classically human.

And so we come to Homo Erectus. This is the first time in prehistory when we actually began to communicate, work, and achieve as a group. A new branch of purpose was born. The goal of complex hunting strategies brought about the desire to group together. The fact that purposes develop is obvious. This case shows a very important, subtle refining of that concept, that may hint at the structure of developing purpose later on. A new purpose or goal can be initiated to fill a specific need (established purpose), but then that purpose will persist in its own right. So, for this case, grouping together was a value formed for the purpose of the hunt, but in the process we retained socializing as a virtue, and it became part of our nature. We became social beings, social whether we were hunting or not.

Standing Up For Our Selves

Down from the trees, out from the brush, thousands of generations our ancestor, the last specie of hominid before ours walked through and out of Africa. People with thoughts, but without language. People with a world to explore, and no maps. There were hominids for millions of years already, but these people, the Homo Erectus, were different. They had come into their own as the first true hunters, predators in their own right.

Fearless, and wordless. For Homo Erectus, communication was limited to gestures and grunts, and nothing more. The larynx was not yet in the right position to allow for the range of sounds we’re capable of, the range needed for complex speech. Still, even these gestures and grunts were well beyond anything that had been done before. The human ability to communicate was developing. Homo Erectus had more advanced and modern vocal tracts than Homo Habilis before him. As well, the Broca’s area had evolved, a specific location in the brain important for language. 250, 000 years ago, according to anthropologist Leslie Aiello, communication needed to develop to handle more involved social situations and plan activities in groups, such as hunts. Before this, man was more of a solitary creature. Things were changing. They had to.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell

Reading about lizards that can stick to walls, cephalopods that can change color in a fraction of a second, or snakes with enough venom to kill a hundred people in one bite (the Taipan, of Australia), it’s easy to feel humbled as a relatively weak specie. The standard fallback is that, well, despite seemingly uninteresting (and not very formidable) bodies, we’re smarter than everything else. We have rational thought. That’s our superpower. Much as that may be true, reason is not our only ability, nor is it our first claim to fame.

Of all species on earth, we have by far the most accurate throw. Actually, very few animals can throw a projectile at all. Animals like elephants and chimpanzees can, but nowhere near as well as us. This ability developed as we used tools for the hunt, with simple, fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand stones as the first weapons. Even earlier though, Homo Erectus was the first able to take advantage of a distinct physiological edge that has persisted to our modern day. We can run. Not necessarily very fast, but certainly very far. Homo Erectus’ upright posture (erect, hence Erectus), combined with a powerful and supporting leg muscle structure, allowed him to go farther than any hominid had ever gone before, faster than any other specie could. And go farther they did. Agents of the first human diaspora, Homo Erectus brought mankind out of Africa and into both Europe and Asia, setting a greater stage for the future of man. Anthropologists speculate that the main reason for the spread was due to changes in the food supply. As far as traversing long distances to find food, humans are not unique. Animals time their migrations to yearly seasonal shifts that affect the food supply. For man, however, the move was not the result of a cyclical process. Larger scale climatic change forced human beings to spread on outward. Living from 1.8 million years ago to 500, 000 years ago, members of the Homo Erectus specie became the original pioneers of a genus of pioneers.

References / Further Reading:

The Teaching Company’s Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations, narrated by Brian M. Fagan