Can purpose be attributed to events without grounding in agency

Question

As observers we observe events around us. All events have causes, either deterministic causes or non-deterministic ones. As observers however we can additionally attribute purpose (or meaning as in religious meaning) to events. We can declare one event happen for a given reason, or a purpose.

If an event was caused by the actions of another person, we can ask that person if their motivation matches our attributed meaning.

But sometimes events happen without us observing any person causing the outcome.

In such cases, can any purpose be attributed to such events without also assuming some agent?

Some examples:

• We win a (fair) lottery
• A tornado hits our house
• We give birth to twins
• An uncle gets cancer

Some people will attribute purposes like that this is deserved (as treat or punishment), that it restores balance, that it should teach us something, as a test...

But it seems to me that all of those purposes require:

• Some agent having a goal to achieve
• The agent to be able to influence the result

I can imagine a universe in which some additional laws of nature exist that cause good actions to set of events that lead to something like benefits, or bad actions that lead to something like punishment, without any agent being involved. But in such a universe the events would still not have meaning, it would just be additional laws of nature.

Maybe somebody can rephrase my thought more concisely?

EDIT: I used the word "meaning" in the first version of the question, in the sense of semantic interpretation. I switched to "purpose" to disambiguate, though I think meaning still often fits better. As an example, an event might be interpreted as a mere effect of a hidden event with meaning, such as thunder not serving a purpose in itself, but being the sound of gods arguing. That would be a "meaning" or "interpretation" rather than a "goal, aim, purpose".

Answer 1

To answer the title question:

Can purpose be attributed to events without grounding in agency?

Yes. There are several examples:

Daniel Dennett in several of his lectures explains how nature frequently exhibits purpose without agency, which he calls "free floating rationales". Trees and plants grow in certain directions with purpose (to avoid obstacles, to get closer to the sun, etc...), but without having agency.

Similarly, economists frequently speak of purpose without agency. Adam Smith and other proponents of a free market system, argue that free markets lead to greater good more so then centrally planned economies and intentional redistribution of wealth, because they are guided by an invisible hand.

On the opposite side of the economic spectrum, Marxists that different social classes act with purpose, but without agency. When they speak of the capitalist class oppressing the working class, they don't believe that a group of capitalists got together in a dark basement and conspired to oppress workers. Instead, the concept of class is an emergent phenomenon that acts with purpose, but without any agency.

See the related concepts of emergence and self-organization.

Answer 2

Humans have the ability to fantasise and/or rationalise meanings quite well

Humans are pattern-seeking animals. We seek to understand what goes on around us. Seeing a pattern — of the sort: "if this, then that" — makes us calmer and makes us feel more at ease, because patterns make the world predictable. We seem to prefer to live in an imperfect but familiar and predictable world, than living in a perfect but unfamiliar and unpredictable world. You can even find this sentiment in pretentious blockbuster action movies...

So when something unexpected and/or unique happens — good or bad — it tends to ruffle our feathers a bit, because if the event is unexpected/unique there is no pattern to be found.

So the human mind starts to seek an answer to the question "Why? What is the pattern here?". And — pattern-seeking as we are, sometimes to the point of absurdity — we will find a pattern sooner or later, no matter how grounded in reality that pattern is.

This even makes its way into the sciences. So to answer you question, I will give you the following truism:

"Enough research will tend to support your conclusions"

So yes, humans are exceedingly good at assigning meaning to events, even when they do not believe that an agent was the cause of those events.

So the question requires a bit of clarification: can humans justifiably assign meaning to all events, even those that do not have an agent behind them?

The answer to that is: no, sometimes, sh... things just happen, without meaning and/or intent.

Answer 3

Having agent causation allows what we are trying to explain to have a final cause or purpose or intention. It conflicts with causal determinism, but this would allow something to have meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_causation

The final cause is one of Aristotle’s four causes in his theory of explanation. It attempts to answer what something is for rather that what something is made out of (material cause), what kind of thing something is (formal cause) or how did it get here (efficient cause).

Science generally restricts its theory of explanation to avoid agency. If one ignores agent causation this simplification allows one to focus on the objective. For a quick view of how Aristotle fits into modern philosophy of science and agent causation, see Jack Sander’s Philosophy of Science Lecture #8 Scientific Explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-be4lH1_PI&t=575s

Let’s consider the question: In such cases, can any meaning be attributed to such events without also assuming some agent?

If one sees meaning or purpose as the final cause of something, one way to view a final cause is through agent causation, however, that is not the only way. One can also view meaning, or what something is for, as something’s “function in a larger system”. This does not involve agent causation. See the Sanders video starting around 16:25 for a presentation of this.

Answer 4

I think you are conflating two uses of the word purpose. One use refers to an intention. For example, you might say that my purpose in typing this answer was to exercise my mind to distract it from the tedium of existence- that use does imply agency. The other meaning is to play a role in achieving some outcome without necessarily intending to. I might use a spoon say, to serve the purpose of a lever to prise open a tin- in that example the spoon serves a purpose passively, having no agency or intention of its own. If a typhoon hitting your home unites your family in bonds of shared hardship, you can use the second meaning of the word purpose to refer to the role the typhoon played in bringing about that outcome, even though the typhoon did not play that role intentionally.

Answer 5

Very interesting question, with deep religious/spiritual ramifications. To my understanding, purposes are transformed into events (as you describe) and in this process agency is always acting upon this process: living beings have purposes and also act as "agency" regarding other's purposes, whether in active or passive mode. All these perplexing interactions produce the perceived events. Thus, I do not regard "agency" as a coordinator, but rather as a facilitator in the process. But what I think is the bottom line of your question is how it is possible that out of these interactions can come out a meaning; a meaning that sometimes can be thought of as an "agent" somehow intervened in the process. The only possible answer that came to me when I was trying to solve this same paradox you describe is that in every action whether in active or passive mode, everything is somehow taken into account: so the outcome of reality is always the most meaningfull one.

Answer 6

"A" means "B".

1. "A" involves agency but "B" doesnt.

The way he looks at the tree means the tree is going to be broken

2. "A" doesnt involve agency but B does.

feeling pain in my leg means that I should stop running.

3. "A" and "B" involve both agency

That Adam is getting horny means that i am about to have sex.

So if the fact that means something doesnt necessarily need to involve agency and we are using "mean" in not a purely causal way; and neither does the fact that it means, Why can't we imagine cases in wich neither involve agency?

Is strange uh. I think that from here you can create an argument that says it is.