What is the difference between individual and collective goals?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Evil
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Life
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concepts of individual and collective goals, exploring the purpose of life and what governs personal motivations. Participants share their perspectives on how these goals may differ and the implications of pursuing them, touching on philosophical, biological, and personal dimensions.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants suggest that individual purpose is shaped by personal experiences and choices, while collective purpose is seen as inherent or natural.
  • Others argue that the pursuit of life may center around survival, reproduction, and self-awareness, with some emphasizing the importance of living life in a way that feels meaningful.
  • A few participants express skepticism about the notion of creating a purpose, questioning whether that is a valid understanding of purpose itself.
  • There are claims that goals may be interdependent, with some suggesting that individual goals often rely on collective efforts and responsibilities.
  • One participant posits that the quality of life is more valuable than the quantity, indicating a preference for meaningful existence over mere survival.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the nature of purpose and goals, with no clear consensus emerging. Some agree on the uniqueness of individual purposes, while others challenge the validity of creating one's own purpose, leading to ongoing debate.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference various philosophical and biological perspectives, indicating that definitions of purpose may vary significantly based on individual beliefs and experiences. The discussion includes unresolved questions about the nature of goals and their dependencies.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be of interest to individuals exploring philosophical questions about purpose, motivation, and the interplay between individual and collective goals.

Evil
Messages
94
Reaction score
0
just want to know...
Whats your purpose in life?
what governs the way u live your life?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Evil said:
just want to know...
Whats your purpose in life?
what governs the way u live your life?
who knows? probably a different mission for each of us.

in a general sense, I've come to believe that we are here to learn how our thoughts, emotions, ideas, expectations and actions create our reality. how we decide to learn is where we individualize our mission.

why? who knows? but if i decided how i wanted to learn, then i must know within and of myself what is to be accomplished.

i govern because i decided.

love&peace,
olde drunk
 
Im here to learn as much as possible and use it to make the rest of the world "better". I define what I mean by "better" too, (probably along the lines of getting everyone to think and behave in a productive manner, rather than destructive to society). Once again, I leave it up to my experiences and knowledge to shape what I constitute "productive".
 
TV, sex, drugs, and violence in that order.
 
wuliheron said:
TV, sex, drugs, and violence in that order.
c'mon, you KNOW it is sex, sex, sex, sex, all the other interests are because you want sex.

TV also fills the void when not engaged in or in pursuit of sex.

freud was right, just went a tad overboard. while it is our primary male goal, we will behave rationally when we are distracted from our quest.

love&peace,
olde drunk
 
A pursuit/purpose in life is to have sex and to reproduce? What if one believes their purpose is otherwise such like Newton, who may have died a virgin?

My purpose in life is connecting the dots. You know those books with numbered dots? That's my purpose, to connect them.
 
olde drunk said:
c'mon, you KNOW it is sex, sex, sex, sex, all the other interests are because you want sex.

TV also fills the void when not engaged in or in pursuit of sex.

freud was right, just went a tad overboard. while it is our primary male goal, we will behave rationally when we are distracted from our quest.

love&peace,
olde drunk

Hey, I'm working on a lawsuit against the major networks, don't spoil it for me!
 
Erus said:
A pursuit/purpose in life is to have sex and to reproduce? What if one believes their purpose is otherwise such like Newton, who may have died a virgin?

My purpose in life is connecting the dots. You know those books with numbered dots? That's my purpose, to connect them.

The collective purpose is something that is natural. It is written into the granite of ancient nature.

The individual purpose is something that we may choose to choose to create. If you choose not to create this, then it is easy to fall back on the collective purpose, and no one will think you the lesser for it.
 
Evil said:
just want to know...
Whats your purpose in life?
what governs the way u live your life?

the purpose in life is to live
and find a reason individually to do so and feel needed
 
  • #10
Many of you seem to be saying that the purpose is to find a purpose. That is non-sensical. The fact that we can create a purpose doesn't mean that that is the purpose.
 
  • #11
Tom McCurdy said:
the purpose in life is to live
and find a reason individually to do so and feel needed

then watz the purpose of living?
 
  • #12
'cause evil there's nothing else to do
 
  • #13
the reason YOU are alive is in your subconscious. generally, we are all learning to use and control our energy.

how we go about that general purpose is subject to our freewill, within the limits of physical laws. in a very, very objective sense whatever we do assists us, there is no good or bad, right or wrong.

personally, i think it is more fun to enjoy what i am doing and do good things. as said above, live life, your way.

love&peace,
olde drunk
 
  • #14
The purpose of life

From a biological standpoint it seems that the only purpose of life is to survive and reproduce.

Over the past 5 billion years Earth has been in exitence it seems that organisms are getting more and more complex and therefore more self aware, so in addition to the two above reasons for life I also include self awareness as a purpose for life. The fact that "Evil" is in a philosophy forum inquiring such questions that he, like myself, wish to obtain greater self awareness.

The universe is alive and thinking because WE are alive and thinking.
 
  • #15
Life purpose and digestive tubism

RAD4921 said:
From a biological standpoint it seems that the only purpose of life is to survive and reproduce.
  • A perhaps shorter life lived for the spiritual values of one's group is better than a longer one lived merely as a digestive tube.
(Raymond Cattell. A New Morality from Science. 1972. ch 5, sec 5.6.)
 
  • #16
To Hitssquad

I have to agree that it is quality of life that is more valuable than quantity of life.
 
  • #17
I've accepted that every one has a unique purpose but driven by the same meaning. That's a good enough reason for me to seek what I want and reach my own goals.
 
  • #18
to adopt to the environment in order to survive, to prevent extinction? the mind ?
 
  • #19
Enos said:
I've accepted that every one has a unique purpose but driven by the same meaning. That's a good enough reason for me to seek what I want and reach my own goals.

Goal is a vague term. Often when we self-deceptively think that we are pursuing our individual goals only to find out sooner that such goals have multiple levels of dependency upon several other things. And then we naively think of individually owning our own goals. My own sudies inform me that a goal is only worth its while when collectivelly pursued. The best goal is that derived via collective responsibility. It's the most likely one to last! You are probably thinking of 'EPHEMRAL GOALS' which may quite rightly be associated with individuals. PERMANENT GOALS are those collectivelly pursued many times over until subsequently or finally derived at.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

  • · Replies 10 ·
Replies
10
Views
3K
  • · Replies 15 ·
Replies
15
Views
3K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
1K
  • · Replies 19 ·
Replies
19
Views
2K
  • · Replies 21 ·
Replies
21
Views
5K
  • · Replies 24 ·
Replies
24
Views
8K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
1K
  • · Replies 25 ·
Replies
25
Views
4K
  • · Replies 148 ·
5
Replies
148
Views
13K
  • · Replies 20 ·
Replies
20
Views
4K