Sorry for the delay, I completely forgot about this discussion, somehow.
When I say that the universe contains things that have a purpose, I don't necessarily mean human beings or intelligences. The hammer and wrench in my tool box have a purpose. A merchant ship has a purpose, to transport goods. Birds have beaks that are shaped a variety of ways with the purpose of eating various kinds of food. I don't think you could completely understand those objects unless you were willing to admit that they had purpose. You say you admire the universe for what it is, not what you want it to be, but its seems to me that you want it to be purposeless and so see it as such. I submit that the universe may have a purpose and that we might guess that purpose by learning about the universe through science. After all, if I were an alien visitor trying to figure out what hammers are for, I could study their form/composition and hazard a guess.
You can't equate function to meaning. That the hammer is there means that someone made it, but that doesn't mean the hammer has a meaning. The beaks have a purpose - to advance the gene pool of the bird, but the bird doesn't have a meaning. The bird is basically just the purpose
for the gene - it serves as a vehicle to pass on the genes.
To your second point, that's not true in the slightest. I admire the universe for what it is, and what it is, is extraordinary. I don't want it to be purposeless, I appreciate it for being the way it is.
I'm certainly not refering to a mystical force. I'm saying that the modern stance of science is what you mention...that the world can be completely understood in terms of components and their interaction. I agree that new properties can emerge from components...temperature is the classic example and there are other properties as well. I was just pointing out that its possible that not all properties can be understood in terms of components or emergence. Perhaps purpose is an example of something being more than just the sum of its parts.
]Firstly, temperature? That's not an emergent property - it's just a measure of the heat energy.
I agree about emergent properties, ie fractals / order from chaos / crystalization. A lot of scientists suspect that intelligence is an emergent property of a complex brain. I agree that 'meaning' is more than the sum of its parts, ofcourse it is - it's a function of our intellect. It's a human construct, nothing else.
We gives things meaning, but there's nothing inherent or divine about it.
