Where does meaning come from?

What are you, James?

Objectively.

And note some specific examples of how this is manifested in your day to day interactions with others. As this [in turn] becomes embodied in “I”. As this [in the final analysis] reflects [philosophically] the conjunction between RM/AO and the Real God.

Meaning what exactly?

In the context of “all there is”.

It is true of course that while all other species of animals share with us the need to subsist, we are the one species that above all others have the capacity to create historical and cultural memes. Memes that configure [and than reconfigure in a world of contingency, chance and change] the genetic components of our behaviors in ways that would never even occur to the overwhelming preponderance of other species.

For them meaning is ever and always on automatic pilot. It revolves almost entirely around biological imperatives.

But: What does that mean?

How might we grapple with it in terms of the meaning that we ascribe to our own behaviors? In particular the meaning that we assign to behaviors that come into conflict?

The ability to think in abstract terms will guarantee paradoxes given enough time simply because of the sheer scale of possibilities. As the only limitation will
be one of imagination. And this is why there will be conflicts within ourselves as we explore specific options and also conflicts between possibilities in general
This arises because human beings are not conditioned to think of themselves as part of a single collective but of smaller ones within it all the way down to the
individual. We may be a social species but we are no where near as organised with common goals as other social species like ants or bees or wasps for example

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.