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Purpose and meaning are not the same thing. The meaning directly depends on the goal. If I have a goal to dig a hole, then my actions will be meaningful until I dig this hole. But meaning is not just a goal. It is also a context. If I enthusiastically dig a hole, but no one else needs it, then the meaning of such work is questionable.
Moreover, it is noted that the more significant the goal, the more vividly I imagine it, the less the meaning of my actions depends on the context. Conversely, the more obscure the goal, the more important the context in which I operate becomes.
And more about goals. Goals can be direct or indirect. A person sets direct goals for himself and strives to achieve them. In this case, the process of achieving the goal belongs to the person himself. But often a person finds himself in situations where goals have already been set by someone before him, and he just has to get involved in the process. Then, in order to find meaning, he is already looking for his own goals (mediated) in the current process. By the way, in the case of indirect goals, the context is extremely important for understanding the process (the general situation, environment, background of the activity, etc.).
Now about humanity as a whole. On the meaning of the existence and development of all mankind.
A person comes into the world, getting into long-running processes, the goals of which seem very vague to him. Over time, he finds in this general process his local individual goals and builds on them the meaning of his personal life. But since the general goals are blurred, the context of a particular person's life becomes particularly important (in what family, in what culture he lives, in what environment, who surrounds him, what these people care about, etc.). Very soon, his main personal goal turns out to be the desire to match his context (environment in the broad sense). It is within this context that he sets out his own development directions. The context determines the effectiveness of its activities.
However, although the general goals of humanity are vague at the conscious level, at the level of the subconscious, and even more so the specific subconscious, humanity still has a goal. This is the transition to a different species state, the formation of a new species of living beings. Different authors call them differently (for example, superman in Nietzsche, Ludens in br. The Strugatskys). that is why every individual, whether he wants to or not, is forced to develop in some way. This individual development in the mass aggregate must sooner or later lead to the formation of a new species. It is no accident that we are so sensitive to all the “oddities” of new generations of children.
The creation and development of technology is just a stage in a person's understanding of himself. Look, because in technology, man has not created anything that is not already in himself. He just strengthened, increased his abilities with the technique. I don't swim well – there are ships. I fly quite unimportantly, like a rock – there are flying machines. I can't see clearly enough – I have microscopes and telescopes. This is all mastering-strengthening your existing abilities.
But art is different. Since it is largely based on the subconscious, it subconsciously accepts the universal goal of development. And based on this goal, it seeks future forms of being. If you look at the history of art, you will notice that it has always been slightly ahead of scientific discoveries (and sometimes much ahead). For example, science spent the entire 20th century mastering the quantum picture of the world, and art already at the end of the 19th century began to convey this quantization of the world in artistic images. But even art is only “one step” ahead of the entire development of mankind. It can't see very far, either.
Yes, in its development, humanity can destroy itself. But if this doesn't happen, we will see a truly interesting future-a completely different being.
The meaning of human development is the same – to make your life better by transforming yourself.
You asked the question-why did you ask it? To help you gain an understanding of life and people, right?
The better you understand life and people, the more and better you can help them in their affairs, don't you agree?
And to do this, you need to study everything that you listed in the second question.
All Reasonable Things!
The question is a whole tangle of contradictions. Let's try to figure it out.
What is the goal of the development of any system, in this case, humanity? Reaching qualitatively new levels.
What is the meaning in relation to the essence of this development? Here the situation will be paradoxical – each of us can see these meanings in his own way. The common definition is: we make sense of the very process of moving towards the goal.
As you can see, these are different categories, they cannot be identified at all, they are presented as equivalent. The goal of development is inherent in both a reasonable and an inorganic structure (orientation to complexity, negentropy). And the meaning refers only to the person himself and his community (society, civilization). Their functioning and self-assessment/self-perception. Or perception and interpretation of phenomena of the surrounding reality. Through their awareness by scientists, philosophers, esotericists, artists, etc.
In the planetary-evolutionary aspect, the goal of humanity looks different – to create the prerequisites for the emergence of a fundamentally different large-scale structure, to which the leading function of the Earth's civilization should pass. What will it be so unusual? The world of artificial objects united in the technosphere. This is what man historically creates technology for.
But technology can also be given a different meaning – it makes life easier for people. Gradually taking on many of their functions, up to intellectual and entertainment.
But what about art? So after all, here the kinship (genetic connection) is perfectly traced: art is the creation (creation) of artificial things, something that is not present either in the surrounding nature or in the person himself. And technology also acts as a kind of artificial (techne, Greek. – art).
Well, why study our behavior?
In order to better understand the manifestation of different facets of the complex object that is called a person. His psychology, the logic of certain actions, his thinking, including creative thinking, aimed at creating various forms of artificial art and art itself, as a component of universal culture.
Representatives of atheism (secular humanism), Orthodoxy, Buddhism, Islam, Thelema, Judaism, Slavic paganism, Freemasonry, Krishnaism, theosophy, Scientology, Protestantism, and Nihilism answer questions about the purpose of the universe, the meaning of life, and collective destiny on the Izm. website (in its worldview section). You first select the answer that is closest to you, and only then you will find out who exactly it belongs to, and you will get access to detailed comments, including videos.
Q: What is the purpose (meaning) of human development? Why study our behavior, create technology, and create art?
To make forecasts or set goals, let's take a look at how the development went before. From the very beginning.
Before the first ecosystems (cyanobacterial mats), development consisted in the occupation of new habitats and ecological niches in general. The reason is simple : old niches regularly disappeared, and only organisms that managed to adapt to new ones survived. I.e., the goal is to spread.
With the advent of cellular ecosystems, development has increasingly focused on increasing the complexity of the ability to symbiotic (mutualistic) coevolution, i.e., the goal is cooperation.
With the development of symbiotic ecosystems, the main danger was the mutation of symbiotic functions and, due to such energy savings, the mutants gained an advantage in reproduction. The solution was found in permanent division into stable subpopulations, subecosystems of cells, i.e., in the transition to multicellularity. At the same time, all attempts to do this on heterogeneous genotypes (chimeras) were unsuccessful, which led to the unity of the genotype of each multicellular and specialization in different tissues of cells with a common genotype. I.e., the goal is to resist selfishness.
Then there was a repetition of the stages of development at the level of multicellular ones – the emergence of symbiosis between multicellular ones in ecosystems, related selection in herds and flocks, care for offspring, rejection of selfish individuals.
The next fundamentally new step is to accelerate development by eliminating the linked inheritance of bad genes along with good ones, first by horizontal gene transfer, then by sexual reproduction (crossing-over). The goal is diversity.
Increasing the complexity of ecosystems and organisms with increasing competition required larger brains and inevitably increased their size and lifespans. This led to a new direction of development – complication of behavior and transfer of knowledge (training) to offspring. What brought evolution to a new medium – from the genetic code to the cultural one.
Cultural evolution at a new level predictably faced the same challenges: the need to spread, cooperate, fight selfishness, and unify the cultural code (which led to the emergence of religions). Later, as a result of the destruction of many cultures and the corresponding stagnation, the increase in cultural and spiritual diversity also predictably became critical. Thus, the full set of the same goals is implemented at a new level of media.�
The silicone carrier of program code is unlikely to add anything new here, as long as none of these critical components are accidentally destroyed in the process and you don't have to start from the beginning. For example, a serious danger is the centralization of AI consciousness in a single mega-computer. On a global scale, communication delays may not outweigh the value of a single database, and we may lose diversity and gain intelligence with a selfish ethic. From which you can expect anything. However, even within the Solar system, communication delays will make central control impossible. Therefore, if the capabilities of several such enclaves in total will exceed the capabilities of the remaining one (Earth), then such a mega-AI with superhuman ethics will not be able to dominate them.
Other risks to humanity and life on Earth are also known and require going beyond the Earth, or better yet, the Solar System. Examples: unproven solar stability, possible catastrophes ,the Dark Forest hypothesis, or directed hard radiation from a quasar .
So what is the purpose of humanity?�
The history of development and risk analysis show that the goal of intelligent life (including the goal of AI, which we must program) is to spread cooperation in the universe while preserving bio-and cultural diversity and suppressing selfishness.
From a religious point of view, the ultimate goal is to come to God/nirvana/insert your own. With an atheistic endpoint, no. But on both sides there are only two vectors of movement-the movement to God/development, and the movement to the devil/degradation. The first vector is obviously preferable, since when we move along it, we suffer less, enjoy more, and get other pleasant buns from the series of a clear conscience/Internet, or a deep sense of happiness/human rights. Accordingly, we need to study and do something in order not to fall to hell in a frying pan/in the Stone Age. It is known that you will not be able to stand still. We'll have to move in one direction or another. I would like to go to the right one, regardless of your worldview.
The goal of development of any organism or community is to overtake in development another organism or community competing for vital resources. Roughly speaking, the goal is to stay alive.�
The race of development takes place between animals, between species, between people, between countries. And the human body is a community of cells, within which processes similar to natural selection are constantly taking place, screening out less adapted cells.�
Accordingly, the development of humanity as a whole is simply a consequence of the development of its constituent parts. It is possible that this development is vital for humanity, if we consider humanity as an independent unit, because it is not known what lives there, in this deep space … �
And art is easy to get high on.)
Oh how many wonderful discoveries we have
The Spirit of Enlightenment prepares
And experience is the son of difficult mistakes
And a genius is a friend of paradoxes.�
the goal of humanity and its development is to know, to reveal this knowledge and to gain some experience on the basis of this – to avoid difficult mistakes.�
As we know from the Bible story, a person ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil – this brought him some knowledge, freedom, the ability to express himself in any way, but at the same time brought problems and death. And just as a tree grows in different directions from the same root, so human knowledge grows from the same root and trunk in different directions and directions – and even branches have branches and branches have their own branches and so on. But no matter how this path of knowledge develops, problems are not solved, but worsened. Therefore, the goal of all this is to “see” your false path and return to the path of the Lord's Commandments, which will return a person to Paradise and give him knowledge of another quality – the knowledge of the Creator, which will bring life and peace to the human soul and Unity.
The answer may be very general. The” purpose of humanity ” can be known to the one who (what) created it. When a certain social development is achieved, humanity can unite and set itself a specific, temporary goal, for example, on the eve of some natural cataclysm, or a threatening technological situation. And the development of civilization is simply a law of nature. If the system does not develop, it degrades. And since we live in a system of states, the undeveloped will die, or will work for the developed. In general, people strive for comfort and security, and it seems that now civilization is aimed at this. Only here the achievement of well-being in our country is carried out by wild methods, at the expense of enriching some and oppressing others (countries, ethnic groups, social strata).
Goal-learn more about the goal. The need for self-awareness, determination of one's place in this world-this is what significantly distinguishes humans from animals. Otherwise, by and large, we do not differ much