Purpose

Let's say we have an alien artifact, a black box, and we want to know what it is for. Did the aliens build it to sit on, if they can sit at all? Is it a piece of artwork, a sculpture perhaps? Is it a container, and is there something in it? Does it have any value to aliens at all, or is it just a waste product? These questions are all asked with a creator in mind; something created this black box to satisfy some purpose. In this sense the black box has a purpose (as given by the aliens), but is that purpose somehow intrinsic to the black box?

Let's say the aliens 'created' the black box to be fuel for their spaceship. The purpose of the black box is thus to be a (very specific) kind of spaceship fuel. However, the aliens, as far as we can tell, are dead and gone, and their spaceships are no more. We can have no idea that the black box was ever used for fuel, unless we ourselves develop that as a use for it. Until that happens, what is the use of the black box to *us*? Most likely its purpose would be like that of the pyramids: a great mystery to study and to base stories and artwork around. If we were able to reverse engineer it exactly, to what purpose would we consign it?

What if no one ever discovered this artifact, and it was left for the rest of eternity in obscurity? Would it still have a purpose? What if aliens never even developed it, though it was technically possible for them to construct, and if they had, it would have been used as spaceship fuel? Would the metaphysical form (qua Plato's Forms) of the black box intrinsically have as its purpose use as fuel, or would its intrinsic purpose be something that we imagine aliens would use it for?

We could find any number of uses for the black box. Perhaps it even has several 'best' uses. If we find a use for it, isn't it satisfying a purpose we give to it? If we sit on it, aren't we giving it the same purpose as a chair? If we eat it, aren't we giving it the same purpose as food? If we suppose it has a creator, aren't we giving it some unknown or hypothetical, intentional purpose of that creator?

Intentional purpose, actually, is redundant, because purpose cannot be void of intention. Purpose must always be with reference to a 'whom'. Some thing has a purpose as given by someone. Absent an agent to consider it, an object has *no* purpose, ie there is no intrinsic purpose of an object. Even if aliens did create the black box with some purpose in mind, the black box does not have that purpose without aliens (or other agents) to consider it.

Basic agents, such as monkeys, may find a purpose for the black box, say as a crude sort of shelter from the elements. More inferior agents, such as birds, may use the black box as a nesting place. Descending to the pits of agenthood, uses can be found for the black box, and purposes thus accrued by it. At the very cusp of agenthood, where intentions are as basic as can be possible, the 'use' of the black box will be correlated to the 'use' (or perhaps a 'use') of the agent, and their 'purposes' towards that mutual utility will also be correlated. Thus the evolution of agenthood is facilitated.

What *is* the purpose of the black box? Its purpose is whatever you can (or imagine you can) use it for. Use it well, because you only have one!