this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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chapotraphouse
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By that definition, the purpose of a computer is to get hot. It of course does get hot, but a purpose is more than simply a side-effect.
Purpose, according to Cambridge Dictionary, is "why you do something or why something exist". A side-effect wouldn't pose any cause, therefore it's NOT its purpose.
I've put dough on top of my computer to rise while playing games before because of the extra warmth, purpose of a system is what is does
I burnt a toast in the toaster. But ruining my bread is not the purpose of the toaster.
Similarly, if a fire alarm goes off on a false positive, that doesn't mean the purpose of the fire alarm was to waste the firefighters time. Not every effect of a system is also its purpose.
But if your toaster ALWAYS ruined your toast, and you kept putting bread in it for, say, seventy years, and every single time it made a burned mess you say "But the toaster is supposed to make toast, it was designed with the intention to make toast, this burned mess is just bad luck/an unintended side effect/the result of a few bad apples" - then your epistemological paradigm might be lacking.
Yeah just the effect that KEEPS HAPPENING over and over again. As another poster put it, if a toaster burns toast every single time, then yeah, that's a toaster for burning bread. That's all its useful for.