The Why Of Man’s Existence (2)

All Souls Day or Day of the Dead 2016

Everyone seemed to be enjoying the fireplace and the Honey Mead, so Tristan began, “Dear friends, the first activity on the agenda is to arrive at a literary stop–that is a mental place where each of us understands the exact meaning of the words utilized. Otherwise, all of you will enter into your own ‘imagination place’ and be lost to the dark side. I think I shall call upon my dear friend, the March Hare. He is quite the stickler when it comes to words–and even knows a few.”

Tristan waved his hand and standing next to him was a two-foot tall, brown hare, with green eyes. Moreover, he was dressed in a red topcoat, white vest, and held an ebony walkingstick. He made quite the dapper gentleman.

First the March Hare kneeled before Morgana and she held out her right hand, the palm facing downwards. He gently held Morgana’s hand and lightly touched his hare nose to the dorsum. Morgana withdrew her hand and the March Hare stood up and bowed, saying, “Morgana, you seem to grow more beautiful with each and every passing year. And pull my tongue out and tie it into a bow, if I am lying!”

March Hare bowed to the ladies and winked. He then went to shake the hands of the gentlemen saying, “Nice to meet you,” with each hardy handshake.

Tristan explained to March Hare what he would like him to do. March Hare bends down upon his haunches and pushed hard upon the rock floor completing a nice, full-layout, back flip landing up his feet with a thud. “Sorry if I surprised you, but I needed to jiggle open the mental door to my carry-around, Red Queen, approved dictionaries of teaching words. Ok, Tristan, I am ready.”

Adjusting his vest and topcoat, March Hare stood up a straight as a hare could and began, “So the best place to begin any journey is at the beginning and not the end, or is it the other way around? No matter for the moment, I will touch bases with the Mad Hatter later and get back to you with his scholarly reply. In any case, we need to understand how we are going to restrict the definitions of certain words. So pay attention. If you are averse to me, I recommend leaving!”

“So here is how this lecture will go down. I shall say a word and then all of you will discuss the best meaning and then tell the answer to me. I will correct such when needed. Ready, set, go . . . ‘rationale.’”

All the visitors got together and discussed the best meaning–needless to say, the voices were louder than necessary. Finally, the spokeswoman faced March Hare and said, “The definition of the word rationale is ‘an internally consistent fundamental explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena.’”

March Hare replied, “Good job, this is correct. Let us continue.”

I shall skip over the remainder of the word list and simply provide the final definitions everyone in the room agreed to abide by and permission given to each other to correct them whenever they misuse a word.

The complete list

Aim is the ‘act of directing our efforts toward the attainment of a desired resultant or endpoint.’

Cause is ‘the way in which the circumstances came about so to produce the resultant or effect.’

Goal is ‘the resultant, target, or endpoint of an aim.’

Need is ‘a necessary duty or obligation, a lack of some object or cause which is considered a necessity for a resultant to occur, a desire or wanting something necessary so to succeed in satisfying such desire.’

Purpose is ‘the reason why an action is taken so to aim for a resultant or the intended or desired purpose as to why a process exists and functions. Purpose and Need are closely related.’

Rationale (or Reason) is ‘an internally consistent fundamental explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena.’

Rational thinking ‘means to follow the rules of cognitive reasoning in coming to the rationale.’

Why is ‘the fundamental reason explaining the existence of a process or an act. What purpose? What goal? What need is satisfied?’ It is the most general word listed upon this list.

March Hare had written down the word list, as it was derived, and handed the finished product to Tristan. He said, looking at his pocket watch, “Tat-tat, time for tea in Wonderland and so I must disappear for the now and the not-now. Tittles, one and all.” And in the blink of a lizard’s left eye on a very hot summer day, March Hare was gone.

Tristan turned to the guests, “I think most of you now understand the rationale underlying the ‘Why’ in the question, ‘The Why Of Man’s Existence,’ as it is most transparent. I could have used the word ‘Rationale,’ but, ‘Why’ is so much more mysterious and carries an implication that an event occurred or a process exists, which somehow satisfied an underlying need of some type. As we continue, you will find that the words, ‘need’ and ‘satisfying,’ are the key starting points as to our discourse.

I was satisfied to see that everyone here understood that the words, ‘aim,’ ‘goal,’ and ‘cause,’ were inappropriate, as such words inherently imply a casual agent or designer. The existence of a causal agent or designer is not required so to answer the questions posed.

The sole remaining word, ‘purpose,’ was proposed (a semantic funny) by the majority as a reasonable choice of starting word for the question. The problem with this word is that it straddles a boundary between and occupies two opposing meanings which must be objectified so to minimize any misunderstanding.

Generally, amongst theologians and many others, the use of the word ‘purpose’ implies that all things in the universe serve an aim or goal secondary to the intentions of God, Designer, and Grand Architect. While such suppositions may be true on a coarse-grained scale, such intentions cannot be well verified by external and internal studies. Moreover, the question of a Grand Architect is far beyond the explanation we can clearly find within the physical and psychoistic worlds.

It is possible to restrict the meaning of ‘purpose’ so to be compatible with scientific methodology. In scientific semantics, ‘purpose’ is equivalent to ‘rationale’ and the scientific utilization of ‘why.’ So for this series of homilies, put the word ‘purpose’ aside and think ‘rationale.’Any disagreement?”

The room was quiet, but Tristan could see that the semantic issue had been resolved once and for all.

TO BE CONTINUED