Cracking the Code to Human Interactions. Part 4: Purpose
With passing days, our world is quickly becoming a mix of conflicting ideas, creeds and thoughts. The results of this are not always beneficial. Quickly the political and social borders around the world are blurring out which has led to several clashes of civilizations and creeds.
The purpose of this series of articles is to make an attempt in understanding the sources of this conflict by making a deep dive into a core aspect of human existence: how we interact with each other.
In the previous article, we discussed Cause and how it dichotomizes the four types of interactions:
- Logic and Falsehood have Cause
- Emotion and Violence do not have Cause
A brief summary of the four types of interactions:
Logical (or rational)
Interactions which are based on sound facts and methodologies.
Emotional (or irrational)
Interactions which are based on human emotions and cognition.
False
Interactions which are based on unsound premises and methodologies.
Violent
Interactions which are based on uni-directional communication, where “the other” is not allowed to interact.
In this article we will discuss a bit on Purpose and how it too dichotomizes the four types of interactions.
Purpose
Purpose of something is the intention to achieve a goal. It is contingent upon:
- the ability to think of a goal
- the desire to set a goal
Both of these are in turn contingent upon consciousness. So for example, if someone says “I am studying because I want to become an academician”, the purpose here is “to be become an a academician”.
Purpose of something is the intention to achieve a goal
However, since purpose is contingent upon consciousness, if someone says “The purpose of this machine is to generate power”, it would be a false statement since machines do not have consciousness. A true statement may be “The purpose of the human manufacturers of this machine in manufacturing it is to generate power through this machine”.
Difference between cause and purpose
Cause is anything which deterministically brings about an effect. It is not contingent upon consciousness. Purpose, on the other hand, is the intention of bringing about an effect and is contingent upon consciousness but does not deterministically bring about the effect.
Use of purpose in logic
Purpose plays the role of premises in logic. For example the statement “I am studying because I want to become an academician” can be represented as the following set of arguments:
- Premise 1: I should be studying if I want to become an academician
- Premise 2: I want to become an academician
- Conclusion: I should be studying [first conclusion]
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- Premise 1: I am doing everything that I should be doing
- Premise 2: I should be studying [from first conclusion]
- Conclusion: I am studying [second conclusion]
So here, the purpose “to become an academician” is part of the second premise of the first argument to arrive at the first conclusion which in turn is used as the second premise of the second argument to arrive at the second conclusion, thus proving the statement “I am studying because I want to become an academician” to be true. So in premise 2 in the first argument “to become an academician” is the purpose of the conclusion of the second argument “I am studying”.
Usage of Purpose in falsehood
This statement “I am studying because I want to become an academician” may be false. Lets look at the following scenarios.
If the premise “I want to become an academician” is false, then the statement “I am studying because I want to become an academician” is a also false. Here “to become an academician” is the falsely ascribed purpose of the conclusion “I am studying”.
If someone presents the seemingly deductive arguments
- Premise 1: I should be studying if I want to become an academician
- Premise 2: I want to become an academician
- Conclusion: I should be studying
-
- Premise 1: I am doing everything that I should be doing
- Premise 2: I should be studying [from first conclusion]
- Conclusion: I am studying [second conclusion]
If the first premise of the first argument “I should be studying if I want to become an academician” is false then both the arguments above are also false. So in Premise 2 in the first argument, “to become an academician” is the falsely ascribed purpose of the conclusion in the second argument “I am studying”.
The statement “I am studying because I want to become an academician” may also be expressed in a wrongly structured argument:
- Premise 1: I should be studying if I want to become an academician
- Premise 2: I want to become an academician
- Conclusion: I am studying
This is a wrongly structured argument because it is not conclusive from the argument that “I do everything that I should be doing”, hence the conclusion “I am studying” is not deductive in this argument.
So in Premise 2 “to become an academician” is the falsely ascribed purpose of the conclusion “I am studying”.
Related article: Lie Detector…!
Purpose is not present in emotional interactions
Emotional interactions are not based on purpose. Although they may sometimes seem to have purpose, in reality they do not. Whatever seems to be the purpose is actually part of a logical interaction or a false interaction which has been combined with the emotional interaction, and in Part 2: Types of Interactions we mentioned that human interactions hardly ever follow a single type and that they almost always are a combination of multiple types.
Emotional interactions are not based on purpose. Although they may sometimes seem to have purpose, in reality they do not. Whatever seems to be the purpose is actually part of a logical interaction or a false interaction which has been combined with the emotional interaction…
For example, the statement “We should ride the bus because I want to ride the bus” is an emotional statement (wanting to do something originates from the human emotion) and seems to have the purpose “for me to ride the bus” for the conclusion “We should ride the bus”. However, this is not strictly just an emotional statement, but rather is a combination of emotion and logic or is a combination of emotion and falsehood, and the purpose is part of that logic or falsehood, in actuality. Lets look a bit deeper into this example.
Me wanting to ride the bus is the emotional part of the statement.
There may be an implied premise(s) which can form a deductive argument to prove the statement, and that argument is the logical part of the statement and the purpose belongs to that logical part. E.g. if the premise “If I want to do something we should do it” is true then consider the following argument:
- Premise 1: If I want to do something we should do it
- Premise 2: I want to ride the bus
- Conclusion: We should ride the bus
The above argument is a possible logical part of the statement “We should ride the bus because I want to ride the bus”. In Premise 2 “to ride the bus” is the purpose of the conclusion “We should ride the bus”.
Inversely, there may be an implied false premise or wrong structure which is used to present the statement. Then that becomes the false part of the statement and the falsely ascribed purpose belongs to that falsehood. E.g. if the premise “If I want to do something we should do it” is false then “to ride the bus” is the falsely ascribed purpose of the conclusion “we should ride the bus”, making the above argument “If I want to do something we should do it; I want to ride the bus; we should ride the bus” also false.
Purpose is not present in violent interactions
Similar to emotional interactions, violent interactions too are not based on purposes. Although they may sometimes seem to have purposes, in reality they do not. Whatever seems to be the purpose is actually part of a logical interaction or a false interaction which has been combined with the violent interaction, and in Part 2: Types of Interactions we mentioned that human interactions hardly ever follow a single type and that they almost always are a combination of multiple types.
Similar to emotional interactions, violent interactions too are not based on purposes… Whatever seems to be the purpose is actually part of a logical interaction or a false interaction which has been combined with the violent interaction
For example, if person A hits person B because A wanted to hit B, then there may be multiple types of interactions here:
- Emotional: A wanted to hit B (the actual emotional desire)
- Logical/False: If anyone wants to hit someone else, the former hits the later; A wanted to hit B; A hit B (the rationale; true or false depending on the validity of the argument)
- Violent: A hit B (the actual physical blow)
Hence to hit B (in second premise of 2) is not the purpose of the violent interaction (3), but rather to hit B is the correct/falsely-ascribed purpose of A hit B in the conclusion the argument in the logical/false interaction (2).
Violent and emotional interactions, in and of themselves, do not deal with cause or with purpose.
Conclusion
Thus Purpose dichotomizes the four types of interactions:
- Logic and Falsehood have Purpose
- Emotion and Violence do not have Purpose
And we also saw how Purpose may be wrongly ascribed to Emotion and Violence when in actuality Purpose belongs to the Logical or False interactions which are combined with Emotional and Violent interactions.
In the next article, we will discuss how to respond to different types of interactions.
