Where does meaning come from?

Meaning is a difficult word.

There’s the everyday definition, i.e what one thing means or denotes.
i.e. gracias means thank you, generally.

The idea of symbolic meaning is malleable.

Something happens to us and we decide it means this or that.
A guy hits you could mean to you that life is dangerous. We tell ourselves stories about the world
based on what happens or what we perceive, which is never complete, so we have to
create meaning, i.e. order, in the chaos. In this, meaning is a creative process, that can be conscious or unconscious on
a continuum. A conscious meaning maker is like an artist, who constructs meaning using values as the measure.
I.e. if I value pleasure instead of pain, generally, my effort will be or “mean” a war against pain, both my own and others’.
If I have no war, code, or agenda, or no values that I choose or that choose me, the word “meaningless” feels apropos,
not in that there’s no meaning, but that I don’t know WHAT my life means, in the absence of one of those things mentioned
above. Surely it means something, but “meaningless” is generally used to denote a “meaning” that has a value that is unclear or
suspect.

Then there’s universal meaning, i.e. the “meaning” of life.

If there’s a God who created us against a standard or goal, then our life “means” an effort or picture that is held
against or contributing to that goal. If God didn’t create us and there’s no outside or extrinsic force interpreting what our
actions “mean” then we are the ones figuring out what life means, which is fine. It just means our meaning will be somewhat made up,
because unlike an omniscient God, we don’t have access to all the facts that go into the complete, comprehensive meaning of what’s all going on.

I’ve thought long and hard about this and here’s what I think life means:

You run around and do a bunch of shit, say a bunch of shit, and literally shit a bunch of shit, and then you die having no clue what the fuck all that seeing and hearing and thinking/feeling and being a body in time and space was all about. And you fall into a deep dreamless sleep and other people (and bugs, and animals, and possibly trees, and Aliens like Galactus, and definitely dolphins) think the universe, cause the universe ain’t gonna think itself, although that’s exactly what it’s doing, in separate little windowless nodules connected by communication, like this piece of writing.

On many days I’ve thought that meaning is a form of pudding. Not chocolate pudding. More like Black Pudding, from D&D. But also banana pudding. JELL-O brand.

What a bullshit thread.

Some Guy in History

With two responses up to this point that contain the word bullshit.

Some Guy in History

Perhaps you would like to explain why it is a bullshit thread.

Why bother?

Some Guy in History

How would I know? This is a very meaningful conversation we are having here.

:laughing:

I bet you’re constantly amused by your own wittiness.

Some Guy in History

Not constantly, only occasionally.

8-[

I’m your mirror.

Don’t get lost.

Some Guy in History

I do believe you are my mirror. I wont get lost.

And then the mirror shatters
broken glass and broken dreams
lacerations to your skin
blood flowing from deep within
dark and crimson
laugh and the world laughs with you
cry and the world laughs at you
The end is here and the world has had the last laugh
at your expense as they blast
every bit of you that you could have
believed to be worthy of long-term existence

Some Guy in History

Quite beautiful in an antithetical kind of way . . .

There is no such thing as antithetical. No such thing as extreme and direct opposites. No such thing as opposites.

Some Guy in History

I do like the piece of writing.

Now I am interested in your apparent deeper knowledge of one.

:-k

For the new to be built, we must first deconstruct the old. To build directly on top would not create a very firm foundation. To deconstruct the old, this has to be done while it all still stands and leave the old still intact to some degree to prepare the building of the new, which is the rebuilding of all the new that has come while the oldest still stands and to bring the old into the new and make it new again while making new seem older than it is to jumpstart our own travels forward again as a species. In this, there is meaning. In this, there is even the personal meanings of rebuilding contact, rebuilding communities, rebuilding friendships; and the forging of new. This is the meaning of crafting for ourselves a new lease on life. Where does meaning come from? All around and often through whatever source we will listen to.

That is because the gap between words and worlds will always be either large or small.

Some words describe the world around us with precision. Why? Because we invented the words to describe with precision that which our senses and conscious minds seem able to agree on.

The common example is “bachelor”. It is a word that denotes what it is “out in the world”: “a man who is not and has never been married.”

Same with the word “married”. You either are or you are not. But suppose the discussion shifts to a debate regarding the merits of either being or not being a bachelor.

Is there an argument [a clump of words] able to resolve it such that all rational men and women “out in the world” are obligated to share it?

Instead, the conflicts always revolve around our is/ought reactions to the either/or world.

Human beings are conditioned [in some respects indoctrinated] to intertwine “I” and “we” and all that is deemed to be “other”, out in a particular world. Historically, culturally, experientially.

So the crucial part here is the extent to which what we construe words to mean in any particular context is able to be demonstrated to others as the meaning which they must share in turn. If they wish to be thought of as rational/reasonable.

Meaning is the golden naïveté. It is something you build with metaphor, with your feet in the clouds. Meaning’s yield is emotion, which is a song a lute makes when the blind wind blows through. Meaning is a dream; a conversation you have with the universe that only you can hear, in that massless phantom zone where complete solitude and ultimate connection compete for your soul. In a Godless Universe; Meaning is God.

.

Contemplation . . .

The golden naïveté; I really like that. Thank you - this gives rise to much thought . . .

I have great affinity with this - whilst I believe that meaning comes in the form of logic as well.

Totally . . . Is it reality that our conscious mind is agreeing on?

I would also add emotional to this list with rational/reasonable.

I am loving the contrast on display . . . much to ponder . . . Meaning then as an expression to yield emotion and sagacious resolve.

:-k

As do I, but I think of it more as balance, not logic.

Each string of the lute vibrates on a certain frequency, a certain pitch, with certain intervals.
So even though the blind wind plays on the strings of perception, the natural set of the strings
is a Pythagorean equation. The logic is embedded in the structure.

Such that when the wind blows, the notes often harmonize.

But we also know that we can find meaning in atonal music.

This is the true essence of golden naivete.

When you are able to construct meaning without the need for external coherence.

When you are willing and able to build – and live – in worlds built from microtones.