Where does meaning come from?

Meaning?

Where does that come from?

:laughing:

Hi Arcturus Descending

Same here . . .

:laughing:

Plural

Yeah, that would be devices :laughing: too many computers here and only one tablet and one phone.

Arcturus Descending

What do any of us truly know? Mostly what we choose to believe. Even the empirical cannot be held in certainty without some doubt. Now back to meaning. To say that we invent meaning is to say that the start dust invents meaning if that is where we are from - then even the star dust is from somewhere of something. Elements - what are they but those things that are stable under certain mathematical laws - to change the laws might even change the elements. We do know now, for the time being and with relative certainty that we are here and made of something - energy - and what is energy - perhaps more questions arise than can be answered. We are taking it further back - yes - that is what we are doing - ideas are still tangible unless you can prove them to be otherwise - again I fear we are being poetic and forgetting the displacement of an idea with our brain.

Believe me for everything you agree with or like there is some person who cannot wait to disagree with you Arc.

Your star stuff sounds feasible.

:smiley:

How much do you think we can generalize this, encode? Would it be fair to say the Big Bang invents meaning? And at what point do we introduce intention? Would intention come before the apprehension of meaning or after?

Here is a thought experiment(I am too lazy to offer an hypothesis):

I want to imagine a new universe called “chaos” - “chaos” is full of triangles and all of the triangles combined is objectivity - so objectivity in this universe is all of the triangles that “chaos” contains which is infinity. This universe is a type of field that only contains blank triangles.

Now subjectivity is “magically” seeded - we are not going to care about the details. Subjectivity turns a blank triangle into a black triangle to form veins of subjectivity throughout this infinite universe called “chaos”.

Now lets imagine the triangle and lets refer to the points as atoms instead.

Where:
a = answer
q = question
m = meaning

(a,q,m)

This triangle allows all three atoms to connect to each other and by placing other triangles in connection to the original triangle a more defined being of triangle takes places.

Now if we change the question and answer parts to other “things” that give meaning we can eventually connect all meaning.

We start out with all the triangles at once(a big triangle universe) and get some sort of arrangement that resembles veins moving through the chaos and it is these veins that connect meaning in all its forms. Entropy then is when all the blank triangles become black. Once all the triangles become black the very next cycle they all become blank again. The transition between all black and all blank we call death or recycling.

Now I am imagining a “bigger universe” that has infinite copies of the aforementioned universe and its name is “meta”. So “meta” contains infinite copies of “chaos” and each chaos is a being of sorts. When one “chaos” correlates in any way to another “chaos” we end up with what we call “defined objectivity”.

That is my mental lapse of reason for today.

gib

To say that we invent meaning is to say that the start dust invents meaning if that is where we are from - then even the star dust is from somewhere of something. Elements - what are they but those things that are stable under certain mathematical laws - to change the laws might even change the elements.

Good question. Generalizing this is a big question gib. It is easier to work out the most fundamental laws but to start generalizing at the more abstract level which is in fact what we are is to enter a new realm all together as we are so complex - I do know that each mental effect, affects the next and continues to, based on the strength of its network. The big bang being the theory that it is, uncovers something interesting, which is, a beginning - stardust need not have a beginning but it seems as though we do - we can emerge from a universe that has been here for ever as much as one that came from a big bang - either way, you and I emerge in physical form with certainty and that form is a configured state of the same thing - fundamental substance.

Intentions . . . the baby’s intention is to survive even though it may not be aware of that. We introduce intention before awareness. Before the apprehension of meaning. I do think if the laws change then the questions change too . . . Perhaps intention is a law not unlike gravity mathematics.

Does meaning come from a derivative of the question plus answer? Does meaning follow something. I know questions follow answers or else we can not answer questions - answering comes after - but an answer is already there before the question is being asked otherwise you could not find any answer.

The answer to, how much I think we can generalize this, was there before I answered the question - if I even answered it that is. If not, what kind of questions we ask to get at the answer becomes all important.

So do you see the problem of meaning as reducible to the problem of first personhood? The usual assumption is that there was no “first person” at the moment of the Big Bang. I think most people assume there was no “first person” after the first round of super novas in the universe either (so star dust pre-dates persons). The question really is: when did third personhood (which we assume is the state of all unconscious inanimate matter) give rise to first personhood–and how?

Meaning is quintessentially an apprehended phenomenon–it requires some form of mental process, a consciousness, in order to exist (don’t talk to the externalist).

As for the question of intention–does it precede for succeed meaning (or the apprehension thereof)?–I would say you’re right that intention comes first when it comes to cogitated meaning–that is, meaning apprehending in thought. But then you can ask: if the simple fact of experiencing can be said to imply meaning (for example, in the way that sensory experience is said to imply sensory information (i.e. meaning) being conveyed to consciousness), then meaning must come first, for only upon experiencing can one then intend things.

gib

OK, I have been very busy but I have been still checking in on this thread from time to time trying to come up with an answer…

  • the following is the best I have for now.

I think the main reason we reduce it to first personhood is because we are unable to leave our own mind behind. Imagine for a moment though that we can - what is that moment like? Are we caught between a question and answer? Or are we caught at a pivotal moment where meaning comes into being?

But is it really? I do not necessarily disagree with anything you are saying, I am just trying to provide more substance beyond the apprehended phenomenon.

Where does the first intention come from though? Is it taught to us or is it instinctual? I still think somehow meaning is being produced through analogy.

Either way I am still very interested in what you are saying gib . . .

:smiley:

I would say sensory experience automatically contains sensory information where such information is a response to the experience
And it does not have to be meaning in any abstract sense but just a practical one such as wanting to eat when hungry for example

If you mean that there can be answers to questions without the infrastructure of human thought, that would be a form of externalism. Most externalists I’ve read would say that meaning can have an objective existence independent of human thought or experience. An example would be writing on a stone tablet. To human readers, the tablet obviously has meaning. But the externalists say that even if mankind died and all intelligent life ceased to exist, the meaning would remain insofar as the tablet remains.

Now, what you’re saying might be somewhat different (I sense you think of meaning as more abstract than writing on stone tablets), but I gather you believe there are answers to questions, answers that are “out there”–as in: the answer to “what’s 2 + 2?” would still be “4” even if mankind died and all intelligent life ceased to exist. Is that right?

Meaning as having an independent existence to consciousness and experience?

I think intention is a product of meaning. Imagine that you have two experiences: seeing food and pangs of hunger. These two experiences come with meaning: “there is food there” and “I’m hungry”. Together, these two meanings entail the following conclusion: “I should eat the food.” (not that’s it’s always a formal logical process like this). That conclusion counts as an intention.

The difficulties are what I think are the cutting edge - we have been here before as a race many times in history and now perhaps we are getting very abstract. Things can only be said with an arbitrary degree and some things work better than others - I also think most things that work better than others if not all are hiding necessary truths to a fuller understanding of what they encompass - here we are mister philosopher - doing this cyclic thing.

Hmm, I see your point - I only wanted to imagine it for a moment as things can function independent of people. Imagine that we can leave our mind behind - my words are permissive enough to allow for it - we could write many things that we would consider impossible but yet the words can be written for the imagination to make it possible based on a nonsensical but somewhat interesting scenario. What is that moment like - the moment that meaning springs forth - is it some pivotal moment.

Difficult to harness - let us come back to what we mostly know - we are centered around our own existence - but what does that mean? :-k

You are correct - your sense is accurate and low and behold you are one of the very few people to pick up on it. I am indeed being abstract and allowing for meaning to be abstract too - what if it is the case that meaning functions independently of us - as with some many questions there are answers more probable than others but they all have probability.

Answers are obviously there before the questions are asked or the questions would be impossible to answer - argue that with some people and you end up in a death spiral of human arrogance focused again around itself - should we think that we are special compared to anything else?

Leaving behind my riddle of words and letting their impact travel in our wake we can return to regular viewing - the hall of mirrors we call life.

Still meaning is necessary to understanding mind and yes it plays its part whether external or internal I am confined to the internal questioning the external.

And :-k always thinking on these little sidetracks for an awakening. We can calculate and calculation may lead to meaning and it may not but I am guessing it does.

That is pretty deep man . . . even radical . . . I want some of what you have been smoking - lol - kidding - I don’t do drugs. I agree that sensory experience automatically contains sensory information - I would contest what that would be. It as you say is not mandatory that it contain meaning but I do say that it contains, similar calculations, that meaning would based on a calculation of meaning - yes this is possible - I forget the name of the algebra right now but I will post it if it comes to mind.

Wanting to eat means one is hungry - this is an example of meaning being external. Or not?

I am wondering whether this conversation has finished or not.

I am not sure how much further we can take it but go over a few of the finer points that we have skipped.

:-k

I like to think of it as a tightly coiled helix. We seem to be going 'round in circles, but we’re slowly making our way up.

So you mean: what is that moment like when we discover a deeper truth to life and existence (through science, divine revelation, mundane life experiences, or whatever), a truth that we would have thought impossible or inconceivable a while back?

Meaning isn’t always profound. If we find ourselves wanting for the deeper meaning of life and existence, we can always fall back on the simple meaning that’s right in front of us. What does my existence mean? Well, right now, it means I’m sitting on my bed typing at my computer, responding to encode. Not incredibly deep, I know, but obvious.

I believe it does. If there is some meaning you apprehend but I don’t, that meaning functions independently of me. But I even think meaning functions independently of all of us, just not without a mind or consciousness. As a pantheist, mind is everywhere–every physical action comes with a subjective experience (or so I’ll argue)–and I define all subjective experience as 1) quality, 2) being, and 3) meaning. ← There’s meaning, in everything… or so I’ll argue.

Well, sure it does. These calculations are already meaningful. They just need to get churned through properly such as to entail further (or greater?) meaning.

Encode, the way you’re describing your search for meaning makes me wonder whether you look for deep meaning or simple/surface meaning. Sometimes asking about the meaning of life is like asking about the meaning of a book. There’s no question that books are meaningful. Read the first sentence and ask yourself what it means. So longs as it’s not too cryptic, the meaning is right there on the surface. But this is not what people are asking. They’re asking if the book has some kind of deep underlying meaning that isn’t so obvious from a first read. But the point remains that you can’t get at that meaning before grasping the surface meaning, which is to say there is always meaning. It’s just a question of how deep you need to go before you’re satisfied.

Yes, gib, you are making a good analogy and meaning is self-referential for that matter but it is splayed, dispersed and yet integrated with every other meaning to make a conglomerate of meaning consisting of separate parts acting as a whole - meaning is like veins pumping blood in that it is heterogeneous with many different cells purposing for the whole organism.

Yes because this is meanings outer shell and it is the outer shell that the veins help to maintain, to give form and purpose - I am this shape because.

I hope you read this, what you have written that I have quoted again - very elegant and powerful words - I will let them be.

What if it is the case that meaning functions independently of us?

This is exactly the point I am trying to make and it works with emotions too - it is this external meaning that I am studying. What constitutes this consciousness? A god perhaps? Are you really a pantheist? Mind it seems is everywhere but obviously not just in human form. Whether this mind is aware of us we should first consider whether we are like red and white blood cells within the body of the universe - we know we are there but does the universe directly perceive us. Language and in turn communication in the body is achieved through chemical transmission and the immune system can mobilize. We can mobilize and the universe is so vast that it may not feel its own wounds directly. I could well be wrong here but I feel it necessary to acknowledge the awe inspiring size of existence.

I am looking for things that I can calculate - I have an idea that these things are heterogeneous - meaning is made up of many smaller meanings and is itself a part of a universal conglomerate meaning. Without contrast the larger meaning has no substance and yet its contrast is contained within itself. Therefore atomic meanings are in contrast with the greater whole and must remain that way or meaning is lost.

I hope that you do not mind me, quoting you in my signature.

The whole vs. the parts–yes, I understand this dilema very well–and it is very complicated (but doable).

First, let me point out how I see this in syllogisms. For example, this…

All X’s are Y’s.
This is an X.
Therefore, this is a Y.

The logic of this syllogism works because the meaning of the premises collectively leads to the meaning of the conclusion. Yet it can be rephrased as…

All X’s are Y’s, and this is an X.
Therefore, this is a Y.

…which can be further simplied to…

All X’s are Y’s, and this is an X, and therefore this is a Y.

Three thoughts translated to two thoughts translated to one thought.

But the shape changes when we learn new knowledge and insight, right?

What better way to promote one’s self than by a little publicity. Thanks encode for being my publicist! :smiley:

Well, if you’ve followed my pantheist logic so far, we can begin by saying that wherever a physical action occurs, there is subjective experience. What this means is that whenever we perform an action (even breathing), we have effects on the physical world surrounding us. These physical effects, therefore, must come along with a subjective experience. Not ours, but the universe’s. Thus, we can say that at the very least, the universe “feels” us, at least in our local vicinity. What constitutes a “feel” is, first and foremost, a subjective experience characterized by some quality (this is how I define it). But the quality of this “feel” isn’t necessarily conceivable to us humans. Nonetheless, one could say that the universe experiences a “disturbance” from us. ← This is the least we can say. We can go further and suppose that, based on this feel, the universe can identify its source–that the disturbance is experienced as coming from (or being) some third person entity outside itself (this would require making a distinction between “us” and “the rest of the universe” which isn’t necessarily innate). But in any case, I think we can say that the universe at least “feels” us. As for knowing about us, that’s a bit more complicated. This is why I distinguish between experiential awareness (feeling) and epistemic awareness (knowing). Everything, insofar as it “feels”, is experientially aware, but only those systems that experience knowledge can be said to be epistemically aware. In order to say that the universe is epistemically aware of us–that is, the universe knows about us, or at least knows about the disturbances it feels that come from us–it would have to be established that these disturbances, these “feels”, lead to knowledge. Knowledge is just a special kind of experience (a special kind of feel) defined by a particular kind of quality. The quality of the experience of knowledge is, at least, cognitive. It is the experience of thinking “I am experiencing X” or “X is the case” and to believe it. This doesn’t automatically come with any arbitrary experience. Whatever it is that we or the universe experiences, it must first be translated into knowledge before it can be said to be “known”. If the physical effects we have on our surroundings can be said not only to come along with some subjective experience (some feel), but that this subjective experiences carries the specific qualitative signature of knowledge, then we can say the universe knows about us, or at least the disturbance (and possibly its source) that we cause. If not, then it still might be possible to say that the universe knows about us but only by way of some indirect physical effect that our more immediate effects on our surroundings have on the wider world (i.e. further along the chain of cause-and-effect). If, at some point on this chain of cause-and-effect that we initiate, the signature of the physical action in question qualifies as that which corresponds to knowledge, and if that knowledge is specifically about the original “feel” that we directly caused (the disturbance), then we can say that the universe knows about us. But I don’t take that as a foregone conclusion.

Well, I’ve thought long and hard about this very question for years. Keeping in mind that I’m a pantheist who believes that everything experiences, and that experience is underlied by meaning, I can offer you the following insight: when it comes to experience, and therefore meaning, the entire dynamic of “identity” radically changes. To the nihilistic objectivist, a thing can be broken down into its parts (in the way that the whole meaning can be broken down into component meanings) in such a way that we must still say the parts constitute the whole. IOW, the parts and the whole constitute an identity. The atoms that constitute a rock, for example, are said to be identical to the rock itself. But when it comes to experience and meaning, there is an alternative: one can speak of what I call “equivalence” rather than identity. Equivalence is sort of a complicated concept, but let me give you a few examples: if a pixel on a screen is perceived as orange, this may be said to be equivalent (but not identical) to the red, green, and blue hues that the pixel is made of when seen under a microscope. If the average score on a classroom’s exam is 82%, this can be said to be equivalent, but not identical, to the whole collection of individual scores of each student’s personal mark. If two poems convey the same meaning, each poem can be said to be equivalent, but not identical, insofar as their meanings are concerned. I can say that these are not identical by virtue of the manner in which we experience them: when we see orange on the screen, we do not see red, green, or blue. Focus on the screen as hard as you might, you’re not going to find them. Therefore, as a subjectivist, I say that the red, green, and blue that the orange pixel is made of is not identical to the orange I perceive (it’s not actually there in the perception–and what is a perception if not that which is perceived), even though it may be identical to the pixel as an external physical object, but as a perception, I see no red, green, or blue when I look at the orange on my screen. But I can still say the red, green, and blue are equivalent to the orange I perceive. Or in another example: the atoms which make the rock may be said to be identical to the rock, but as far as perception goes, I see no atoms in my visual apprehension of the rock. The atoms are identical to the rock as a whole, but my concept of the rock is not identical to my concept of the atoms–when I am thinking of the one, I am not thinking of the other. If you grant that my theory of experience is right (that experience constitutes the foundation of being), then it can be said that equivalence is the determining principle that ties together all states of experience in the universe. That’s not to say that identity plays no part, but equivalence, at least for me and my metaphysics, is the more suitable concept for imagining the relation between parts and whole. So, for example, even if we say that the atoms of a rock are identical to the rock as a whole, the experience that the rock is having (a steady buzz I would think) is not identical but equivalent to the experiences that the atoms are collectively having (a flurry of diverse and conflicting experiences). In the end, I define equivalence as the relation between two or more sets of things that are ontologically interchangeable, but not identical, with each other–interchangeable in such a way that there is no fact of the matter which one is real and which one isn’t (similar to how 1 = 1/2 + 1/2–well, which is it? 1 or 1/2 + 1/2? Well, it’s both, but we can interchange which one we focus on, and there is no fact of the matter which is the real expression and which is only on stand-in). They both have equal claim to existence. So bringing this back to the question of the holistic meaning vs. the collection of individual parts, I would say the parts that we experience at the human level, even when we are able to amass the whole conglomeration at this level (as dizzying a feat as that would be), is equivalent, but not identical, to the universal meaning at the level of the whole. Such an apprehension as that of all the meaning in all the experiences that a human being can have is (assuming it can be exhaustive of all meaning in the universe at this level) interchangeable with that of the universe as a whole, and neither the former or the latter have any entitlement on ontology over the other. They are both equally valid.

Now why would I mind that? I’d be thrilled if you quoted each and every one of my posts! (not that I’m asking :wink:)

gib

The changing is all the time because everything in the physical universe is changing all the time.

I am also saying that meaning’s shape is warping all of the time throughout the universe. We are impacted by new knowledge even on a biological level as we have already worked out - the interesting thing to take notice of is that our wisdom is in an up and down motion - for the lucky, mostly up - but there are times when our judgement fails us - yes, even our good judgement - I always recommend to myself not to panic when this happens.

Like I said, this stands by itself - and quite solidly.

You are very welcome gib.

:sunglasses:

Meaning is a way of attaining understanding about something. It is not knowledge but something more subtle. But unlike knowledge it is not objective so treating it as
if it was is unwise. When looking for meaning therefore the question should be asked from whose perspective? even though the answer is already known as it can only
be from human perspective. Is meaning easier to find if one thinks it exists? And is that because one actually wants it to exist? If so then how does one recognise their
own self delusion and confirmation bias? Why does there have to be meaning in the grand scheme of things anyway? Why cannot there simply be no meaning? Why can
not the things that make some seek meaning such as death not simply be accepted or welcomed rather than feared? So if meaning is subjective then why cannot it be
applied differently? And the answer to that is there is no reason why

As a nihilist [ atheist existentialist is a more accurate descriptor but I prefer nihilist for reasons of brevity ] who sees no objective meaning to the Universe I am very
sceptical of it being applied in such a way. And particularly as the line between objective and subjective becomes quite blurred for those using meaning like this. As
for me such a line is very clearly defined. I am more interested in what is true rather than what I want to be true since I have no say in the latter and so focus more
on the former. But even then one has to try hard not to confuse the two. I say there is no meaning in the grand scheme of things but is this because I think it is true
or is there a part of me that also wants it to be true? There probably is if truth be told but I try to keep such thoughts to a minimum as I have no real need for them