The Purpose of Purpose.

[trdsf]

So here I sit, spending a lazy Saturday reading entries in the "Things I Won't Work With" section of Derek Lowe's blog (highly recommended for anyone who ever blew anything up in high school chem lab).  The particular compound under discussion was dimethylcadmium, which Derek says "represents the demon plunked in the middle of the lowest circle as far as this element is concerned."  It's explosive, poisonous, carcinogenic and, as Derek further notes:

...its odor is variously described as "foul", "unpleasant", "metallic", "disagreeable", and (wait for it) "characteristic", which is an adjective that shows up often in the literature with regard to smells, and almost always makes a person want to punch whoever thought it was useful.

The comments are usually pretty entertaining, so I was wandering through those, and I came across this one that brought me to a complete stop:

I have a question. What is the use of Cadmium in nature? I mean if it is that toxic and with no known biological roles what is the reason for its appearance in the universe?

This is the clearest cut case of 'not getting it' I've seen in a very long time.  Just unpack for a moment the core assumption made in that brief remark: that the universe is here for a purpose - life - so why does stuff not needed by nature (and I suspect by 'nature' one could justifiably read 'us') have to exist in the first place?

Even without explicitly mentioning any sort of belief, this is the basis of creationism: that all this is here just for us, that it must have a reason, a purpose.

Fortunately, some of the responders were clearly educators, and took it as a 'teaching moment'.  I am alas not that good a person, and might have replied sharply had I been the first one on the scene.  And it's a much older post anyway (2013) so it'd be kind of pointless to dredge it up again.

But what it comes down to is that the original poster must have in the back of his/her mind that the universe is here to serve life (and probably meaning our life form in particular), that we're the point of the universe, why it bothers to exist, its purpose.

The truth, of course, is that we're not the purpose of the universe, we're an accidental byproduct of it.  We are, to paraphrase Sagan, what hydrogen atoms can do given thirteen and a half billion years of chemical and biological evolution.

But we are not what they must do.  We are only what hydrogen plus gravity plus immense amounts of time can do.

Cadmium is what hydrogen eventually must do.  An element with 48 protons and anywhere from 58 to 68 protons in various stable and metastable configurations must exist in a universe capable of producing stars that can go supernova -- there is a natural space for it to exist and even though a supernova is a chaotic process, it's impossible to seriously entertain the idea of one going off and creating only one heavy element, or all of them but one.  Blow up a star, get some cadmium in some amount or another.  That's big numbers and chaotic processes in action.

We, on the other hand, are optional.  We're the product of a stack of processes, not a natural consequence of a single relatively simple one.  You can't blow up a star and get a wholly formed sentient being out of it, and even if you could, there's no guarantee it would a human being anyway.

If I can be forgiven a moment of anthropomorphicization, it would be much more reasonable for a cadmium atom to ask what the purpose of us is, rather than the other way around.  Cadmium has a universe-defined reason to be here, a purpose, if only to fill the gap between silver and indium on the periodic table.

We do not.  We are accidentally spun out of nine billion years of supernovæ creating enough heavy elements to put together a metal rich star with some reasonably impressive gas giants and some rocky debris, and a further four billion years of biological evolution.

This is why I find physical reality so breathtaking: that it permits biological machines capable of contemplating it, and themselves.  What a comedown to be just put here 'for a reason' -- where's the awe in that?

[Sal1981]

The purpose of the Universe is to create black holes, given that's where most of the mass goes to.

The purpose of humans (or life) is to evolve into something quite grand and spread it to everywhere.

I have to confess, I have a rather strange fantasy, wherein on the step of the way, several billion years from now, we (or rather our descendants, whatever they may be) will transform the fabric of an immense local area of the observable Universe into a Steady-State (local) Universe. I don't know what caused the Universe to be what it is now, but if life (and humans on the step of the way) should have any purpose, it would be make sure this Universe persists forever.

[GSOgymrat]

The purpose of humans (or life) is to evolve into something quite grand and spread it to everywhere.

Some futurists postulate the purpose of humans is to create artificial intelligence, which isn't constrained by biology and therefore can escape the solar system and explore the universe. We will give birth to this superior form of life and then humans will die out eventually from an extinction level event.

[trdsf]

Some futurists postulate the purpose of humans is to create artificial intelligence, which isn't constrained by biology and therefore can escape the solar system and explore the universe. We will give birth to this superior form of life and then humans will die out eventually from an extinction level event.

Well, we'll have to.  You can't make plans that take more than a few thousand years -- and assuming no shortcut around Einstein, that's what exploring and/or populating the galaxy (much less the universe) will take -- for a biological entity.  Evolution and random mutation will keep changing the base you're working from.  AI moves you into a system that you can manage, maintain, and upgrade in a controlled manner.

[Baruch]

Yes, AI will work just as good as the Windows Registry ;-)

If nature (in the neutral sense) has any purpose .. then the reason why anything is here, is because it is somehow necessary.  This is how theists get around the theodicy question too ... G-d allows crap, because it is a necessary consequence in order to allow what tasty bits you put into your mouth to begin with ... you wouldn't want the end product of the digestive tract to just stay in you, right?

Usually human-imagined ultimate evolution etc ... pretty much looks like a personal nightmare to me.  Steady state ... where nothing ever changes?  Do you think that Stone Age man would have had any luck predicting us?

[Cavebear]

The purpose of humans (or life) is to evolve into something quite grand and spread it to everywhere.

Life does not have any more "purpose" than a light bulb has "thoughts".  Life is a random collection of atoms with replicability.  (and I had to really think of how to spell THAT one, LOL!).  Spellchecker still doesn't like it.  ;)

[Baruch]

Life does not have any more "purpose" than a light bulb has "thoughts".  Life is a random collection of atoms with replicability.  (and I had to really think of how to spell THAT one, LOL!).  Spellchecker still doesn't like it.  ;)

As any materialist would answer ;-)  We had an earlier thread, on the meaning of life.  This is similar to purpose (purpose being one answer to meaning).   The general consensus was that life had no objective meaning, but did have subjective meaning, if you cared to give it.  I would have to paraphrase that to "purpose" ... there is no objective purpose, but most of us have subjective purpose.

For some living thinking beings ... there is no life and no thought.  Usually these are called zombies, not atheists ;-)

[SGOS]

What is the purpose of gold?

[Munch]

What is the purpose of gold?

BLING FOO!

[SGOS]

Can't we make trinkets out of cadmium?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

The purpose of us as human beings obviously is to eventually die and fawn forever adoringly at the feet of gawd or in the case of us evil atheists to burn forever and ever and ever and ever in the depths of H E double dirty Q-tips so the pious have something else to do when they aren't fawning adoringly at the feet of gawd and that would be to sit there pointing fingers at us saying, "Told ya so! Nananananananahhhh!"
Everything else is just a waste of time..

[Baruch]

Can't we make trinkets out of cadmium?

Gold is non-toxic, and even edible (but not digestible).  Cadmium is toxic.

[SGOS]

Gold is non-toxic, and even edible (but not digestible).  Cadmium is toxic.

Can't we make trinkets out of cadmium?

[SGOS]

Apparently the stuff isn't utterly useless:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium

Batteries[edit]

Ni-Cd batteries
In 2009, 86% of cadmium was used in batteries, predominantly in rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries. Nickel-cadmium cells have a nominal cell potential of 1.2 V. The cell consists of a positive nickel hydroxide electrode and a negative cadmium electrode plate separated by an alkaline electrolyte (potassium hydroxide).[35] The European Union put a limit on cadmium in electronics in 2004 of 0.01%,[36] with some exceptions, and reduced the limit on cadmium content to 0.002%.[37]

Nuclear fission[edit]

Cadmium is used in the control rods of nuclear reactors, acting as a very effective "neutron poison" to control neutron flux in nuclear fission.[34] When cadmium rods are inserted in the core of a nuclear reactor, cadmium absorbs neutrons preventing them from creating additional fission events, thus controlling the amount of reactivity. The pressurized water reactor designed by Westinghouse Electric Company uses an alloy consisting of 80% silver, 15% indium, and 5% cadmium.[34]

Compounds[edit]

Train painted with cadmium orange
Cadmium oxide was used in black and white television phosphors and in the blue and green phosphors of color television cathode ray tubes.[39] Cadmium sulfide (CdS) is used as a photoconductive surface coating for photocopier drums.[40]


Cadmium sulfide
Various cadmium salts are used in paint pigments, with CdS as a yellow pigment being the most common. Cadmium selenide is a red pigment, commonly called cadmium red. To painters who work with the pigment, cadmium provides the most brilliant and durable yellows, oranges, and reds â€" so much so that during production, these colors are significantly toned down before they are ground with oils and binders or blended into watercolors, gouaches, acrylics, and other paint and pigment formulations. Because these pigments are potentially toxic, users should use a barrier cream on the hands to prevent absorption through the skin[32] even though the amount of cadmium absorbed into the body through the skin is reported to be less than 1%.[5]

In PVC, cadmium was used as heat, light, and weathering stabilizers.[34][41] Currently, cadmium stabilizers have been completely replaced with barium-zinc, calcium-zinc and organo-tin stabilizers. Cadmium is used in many kinds of solder and bearing alloys, because a low coefficient of friction and fatigue resistance.[34] It is also found in some of the lowest-melting alloys, such as Wood's metal.[42]

Laboratory uses[edit]

Violet light from a helium cadmium metal vapor laser. The highly monochromatic color arises from the 441.563 nm transition line of cadmium.

Heliumâ€"cadmium lasers are a common source of blue-ultraviolet laser light. They operate at either 325 or 422 nm in fluorescence microscopes and various laboratory experiments.[43][44] Cadmium selenide quantum dots emit bright luminescence under UV excitation (He-Cd laser, for example). The color of this luminescence can be green, yellow or red depending on the particle size. Colloidal solutions of those particles are used for imaging of biological tissues and solutions with a fluorescence microscope.[45]

Cadmium is a component of some compound semiconductors, such as cadmium sulfide, cadmium selenide, and cadmium telluride, used for light detection and solar cells. HgCdTe is sensitive to infrared[34] light and can be used as an infrared detector, motion detector, or switch in remote control devices.

In molecular biology, cadmium is used to block voltage-dependent calcium channels from fluxing calcium ions, as well as in hypoxia research to stimulate proteasome-dependent degradation of Hif-1α.[46]

[Hydra009]

Can't we make trinkets out of cadmium?

We can and have.  However, it's not a good idea.