[paul cotter]

Given what Alan has disclosed about himself I would imagine a "try" would be more important than a "goal"!

[alancalverd]

Which brings me to a serious question. Why are England's women so much worse at conversion kicks than Ireland's?  With ten times the population  to choose from, and a fully professional squad, surely we can find just one lass with better than 50% conversion rate? The Irish ladies seem to cross the bar every time.

Or is it because England's dominance of the overall game is due to the brilliant fullback/winger combination (worth watching!)  who widen the attack and score near the corner flag? I note that the French seem to concentrate their tries near the posts - harder work for the backs, and fewer tries, but making the kicker's job a lot easier.

Back to the subject. Terminal goal: Six Nations, then World Cup. But everyone else wants to win, so not universal. Instrumental goal (HY's terminology): ball over bar, every time, please.

PS The secret, IIRC, is to keep your head down, right through the kick. It's very tempting to look up at the posts just before striking, and you'll mis-cue every time.

[paul cotter]

I can't answer your question , Alan, as I am not a fan of competitive sport. I do admit , however, to having been absolutely captivated by the cricket in the Botham/Willis era.

[alancalverd]

And there's my father's solution to the perennial Irish Question: a united, independent republic within the Commonwealth.  You get professional cricket, we lose an expensive headache, and the rugby team stays the same. What's not to like?

[paul cotter]

Fine by me, no objections whatsoever. However the loony brigade would be up in arms.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Something I want to achieve, or want someone else (like Arsenal Football Club) to achieve. Other people want Spurs to achieve it, so it can't be universal.

Engineers commonly use analog thinking to solve their problems. In most cases, it would be enough.
But finding out the universal terminal goal requires thinking from first principles through deductive reasoning instead of examples and analogies. We need to define our terms and describe what are the necessary conditions to make them a logically consistent statement.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

This is how I define goal. Let me know if you think it can be improved.

[alancalverd]

finding out the universal terminal goal

first requires proof that there is or should be one. Why not spend your time looking for fairies instead?

[paul cotter]

Leprechauns, on this side of the pond.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

finding out the universal terminal goal

first requires proof that there is or should be one. Why not spend your time looking for fairies instead?

Do you think that something called a goal exist? Or do you think that the word "goal" is meaningless?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You can also find the universal terminal goal by using subtractive method.

I've uploaded a new video about the most universal goal logically conceivable. It describes goal in the most general sense, which should precede the first video about the universal terminal goal.

A method to arrive to the universal terminal goal.
Start with an arbitrary goal.
Identify all of its requirements.
Remove any requirements which can be removed without making the goal stops being a goal.
Whatever remains is the one we are looking for.

OK, I can remove all of them, and the goal is still to make a paper airplane.

By removing paper requirement, you can make airplane, although not made of paper.
By removing fly-ability requirement, you can make a plane, although not airplane.

Let's analyze this simple present tense: An entity pursues a goal.
Goal is a subset of conditions. To be a goal, it requires at least one entity to pursue it. The entity requires some capacity to pursue the goal. That capacity is what I called consciousness.
Continuously preserving consciousness is required to keep goals exist.

[alancalverd]

The moment you qualify it with "universal" it becomes nonsense.

Whatever you think consciousness means, it involves life.

Living things are competitive.

Therefore there cannot be a single universal goal.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The moment you qualify it with "universal" it becomes nonsense.

Whatever you think consciousness means, it involves life.

Living things are competitive.

Therefore there cannot be a single universal goal.

Your seem to have set your mind about universe, life, competition, and draw conclusions before properly define what each of them means.

As I mentioned earlier, the universal terminal goal is the bare minimum requirement for any goal to exist. Its existence is guaranteed by the definition of goal itself, and the existence of conscious entity who can comprehend its meaning. Any additional requirements reduce the universality of the goal.

[alancalverd]

I am alive. A crocodile is alive. A bacterium is alive. A rose bush is alive. Animals want to eat plants or each other,  plants and animals in general don't want to be eaten. Our goals are quite different. So even in this tiny bit of the universe, there is no goal that is agreed or can be achieved by all of us, therefore no universal goal apart from the inevitable heat death of the universe.

Anything else is philosophical bullshit.

[paul cotter]

I agree.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I am alive. A crocodile is alive. A bacterium is alive. A rose bush is alive. Animals want to eat plants or each other,  plants and animals in general don't want to be eaten. Our goals are quite different. So even in this tiny bit of the universe, there is no goal that is agreed or can be achieved by all of us, therefore no universal goal apart from the inevitable heat death of the universe.

Anything else is philosophical bullshit.

Having the characteristics of a bacterium, a crocodile, a rose, a human, etc. are additional requirements which are instrumental to achieve the universal terminal goal. If they can choose not to have those characteristics/requirements, and have the power to change at will, there is still one characteristic that they still must have in order to have a goal. That is consciousness, which is simply the capacity to pursue goals. The most universal goal is then to preserve that consciousness for the future. Lowly conscious entities can only effectively achieve short term goals, while highly conscious entities can effectively achieve longer term goals. Uncertainties in their environmental conditions will make the results probabilistic in nature, but they are not simply random.

[alancalverd]

So what mutual goal do they all have, that can be achieved without one species eating another en route?

Crocodiles and cockroaches have survived far greater environmental changes than humans have experienced or are likely to survive in the future, so I guess that eating humans, whether dead or alive, looks like the universal terminal goal.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So what mutual goal do they all have, that can be achieved without one species eating another en route?

Why do you choose species as the reference group, instead of individuals, subspecies, or genus?
The word terminal in the universal terminal goal emphasizes the importance of time domain over space.

Continuously preserving consciousness is required to keep goals exist.

Competition and cooperation are necessary mechanisms to achieve higher level of consciousness. In a virtual universe, they can be done more efficiently.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Crocodiles and cockroaches have survived far greater environmental changes than humans have experienced or are likely to survive in the future, so I guess that eating humans, whether dead or alive, looks like the universal terminal goal.

Why constrained by macroscopic organisms? Bacteria have survived much longer.
Why constrained by biological organisms? Superintelligent machines that can replicate and improve themselves can survive much longer.

[alancalverd]

Bacteria have survived much longer.

I guess that eating humans, whether dead or alive, looks like the universal terminal goal.

I think we have reached agreement.