"Meaning“ is the central concept of semantics which is one of the most important subdiscipline of linguistics. The semantical research can be done in a synchronic and in a diachronic (etymological) way. So meaning has a history too. Animals do not reall know that a certain phenomenenon has a meaning; but they know the meaning of some phenomenons, because they have experienced them. So one has to have something like the human language in which one can analyse sound (phonemes) and the smalles forms with a meaning (morphemes), then words, sentences, texts.
Just observe little children when they learn the language of their parents or family. They learn that certain speech-forms, thus lingusitic forms, have certain meanings, either inward or outward. If these meanings are inward, then they are part of the language itself; and if they are outward, then they are part of both the language and the environment. So meanings can change (see also above: diachronic [etymological]), are in permanent contact with the environment of any language. The inward located meanings have a more subjective or "individual“ character, and the outward located meanings have a more objective character, and both are in permanent contact.
Can you give an example of inward meaning and outward meaning? Is it the same difference as between mental and physical? Or is it that inward meaning is speech-forms that come packaged with the language itself (so to speak)–words like “and” or “the” or because"–whereas outward meaning is speech-forms that are subsumed into language to serve the function of denoting or identifying things in the environment–words like “chair” or “cloud” or “shoe”?
I understand what you have written . . . I would have to intuitively say that this is definitely part of the truth . . .
. . . there are however a few caveats.
Here are three things to consider . . . let us employ analogy to illustrate . . .
1 ► If a tree fell in the woods, and nobody was around to hear it, did the tree really fall?
2 ► If a person(lets call him Bob) is sitting in a stadium(which is filled to capacity) - and bob has no cognitive abilities - is the stadium really filled to capacity?
3 ► Incomprehensible meaning is like hearing a foreign language: You know it means something but you can’t tell the difference between that and random meaningless babbling.
[size=85]gib(2017)[/size]
You could say that each of us only receives an incomplete puzzle to work with when it comes to meaning . . . meaning being the puzzle.
You are saying in a way: meaning always boils down to individual perception of comprehensive experience . . .
. . . I am saying: that when it does not boil down to individual perception, meaning still exists . . .
. . . to say otherwise, I would surmise, is to say that others do not exist . . .
. . . that is to suppose that something is true without having evidence to confirm it.
So where does that leave us? Well, your guess is as good as mine . . . mind.
That is a perfect scene to me, encode_decode. I have experienced that kind of day except for the Eagle. That would have been a rare day. I am also glad that the sun was gently shining.
Mr. List, being that I am a skeptic, would I be stepping out on some kind of silly limb to ask you if you do have a Zen Garden? No reason why you couldn’t.
Why are the trees still? Are they afraid to breathe for fear of disturbing the perfect moment?
Why are the trees still? Have you commanded them not to dance?
Ah, but this is a non-thinking moment. I will let something else absorb the meaning.
What are you wearing on your feet?
Three tall glasses? Are we expecting company or are you generously giving me two glasses?
I wonder how the koi experience their life? Their movement?
What are my thoughts in this moment? Or perhaps they were about the koi or simply a silent moment of contemplation ~ koi swimming within my mind.
. . .
Hacksaw Ridge can be a lesson in not judging things and people by appearance. Here was this conscientious objector who was taken for a coward though he wanted to serve his country but in his own way. He was beaten because people were not capable of seeing beyond the surface. He later …well, you know the story but perhaps others might want to see it.
Yes, Dunkirk is certainly well worth seeing. I love movies which are larger than life.
Yes, for many, it would have to be that way. It is for me too. We are social creatures. I think that without trying, that meaning just slips in.
But I do not believe that it can be the same with any and all.
Perhaps Maxwell could explain that.
Yes, like the meaning which comes from a sunny day after we have experienced days of rain - though I love the rain.
A smile can be like a burst of the sun’s rays.
Everything that is relevant to the one who is learning a language can be used as an example here. Thus: Everything. A tree for example becomes a semantical meaning as an inward meaning when the linguistic form “tree” is internalized (learned).
By "inward meanings“ I mean here in my example the forms that have already been internalized by the child, either incorrectly, then the child has to learn more, or correctly, then the child can use them for the next steps of learning. By "outward meaning“ I mean here in my example the forms that are new for the child, thus have not already been internalized by the child, are just outwards in the environment of the child. So the linguistic forms and their meanings inside the body (brain) of the child become firmer and more and more (like an inventory of a company / corporation for example), whereas the linguistic forms and their meanings outside the body (brain) of the child (and still inside the bodies [brains] of the child’s parents for example) become less and less. At last, when the language is almost (almost!) acquired, the child (about 3 years old) could already go to school, if there was not the other language precondition that must be fulfilled: the language of writing / reading (which is a skill the child is not capable of before the age of 5 years).
What I mainly wanted to say in my post above is that there is already meaning in the language before one learns this meaning. So we learn a language that has already been learned by others. But if you observe a young child who is learning the parental language, then you can ascertain how pre-linguistic meanings become linguistic meanings. Everything becomes more and more abstract and spiritual (later even philosophical and mathematical). That is a huge advantage.
The core is like the existential everything of a being.
It has all kinds of temporary and changing aspects,
as well as repeating or old aspects.
Meaning can be found in the mental aspect of the existential core.
Meaning is like an alchemical biproduct.
A biological rare chemical complex.
That is the closest thing to an accurate description that ive got.
It would be like a forest supporting the life of monkeys.
In this case, the man suppports the life of meanings as memes.
What you have to say seems like it is interesting - I need a little clarification so I can understand it better. Apologies in advance.
I agree that emotion is tricky. Do you think cognition is not relevant to emotions? How do you see genes affecting emotions?
Do you think that reason only takes place in the primitive components of the brain?
I agree that memes are a part of our emotions. I also think that emotions are used against people in a political manner.
Could you possibly give me a brief description of either/or and is/ought in the way you are using it here? Maybe you could provide a link to something that would help me understand it better . . . I am only guessing that you are not an objectivist - is that correct? I am purely curious.
To which you asked me a question as follows:
I am not too sure about the obligation as such but I could demonstrate the part where Gamer speaks of metaphor. Do you have any ideas how? I would like to learn.
I am interested in reading more of your thoughts iambiguous. Hopefully I do not cause any inconvenience.
I was going to follow the pattern which is a part of me at times well, often actually, in responding to posts ~~ giving my own answer. But I decided to adhere to the Socratic method which is clearly not a part of me. lol. Don’t expect that too often.
You have just left the student in the mighty forest. Where does he/she go from there?
So, what are you saying here, James?
How do we go about accomplishing this great feat?
What is our guiding light to get there?
Is there any one specific thing (or something which cannot be left out) which must be used in order to do this?
With the evolution of life on earth, the human brain came to embody the capacity to reason and to feel. They are both intertwined in an enormously complex interaction between genes [biological imperatives] and memes [social, political and economic narratives]. These narratives are rooted historically, cuturally and experientially both within and between particular communities of men and women sharing or not sharing particular sets of experiences.
In other words, you tell me: in any specific context where does reasoning end and feeling begin? Where does “I” end and “we” begin? Is there a way to determine this such that so-called “rational human beings” can come to grasp how one ought to behave in any particular context?
I don’t think so.
Well, an example I like to use revolves around something like this:
1] Is Donald Trump the president of the United States? Either he is or he is not. In other words, unless our sense of reality is just an illusion rooted in solipsism or in a sim world or in a demonic dream, we are able to establish that in fact Donald Trump is the president of the United States. This is true objectively for all of us. Though, sure, subjectively, particular individuals may say that he is not. What then becomes important is the extent to which those who say that he is are able to demonstrate that this is true.
2] Donald Trump is doing a superb job as president of the Unitied States. Is this either true or not true? Is this something that can in fact be demonstrated as true objectively for all of us?
For those [the political objectivists] who insist that he either is or is not doing a superb job, I challenge them to demonstrate this. That is, to establish this objectively such that the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy in this is/ought world is shown to be unreasonable.
If I may, Arc, does James’ comment remind you of the What Of Your Essence? thread? If we are ever changing creatures, is it even possible to discover the objective truth of what you are?
…a need from within… everybody has their own agenda of what they want to get out of life, and so meaning is pertinent to the individual through input and output/a self-serving process, interrupted by work and modern woes.
All I can think of that might relate in any way, shape or form that you all might be able to take to heart is something shown to me by a dog during my awakening. He showed me how so many had engraved a giant dick into the baseline of creation. I thought he had done it, so I told him ‘bad dog’, but turns out, as he explained to me, the balls symbolize the eternity symbol:
The shaft then represented all those trying to escape from eternity, breaking free from the figure 8 to travel high only to crash back down and from both directions.
The engraved giant cock of existence and creation even had 3 little drops of sperm to symbolize their escape from eternity.
The meaning that was then perfectly clear to me was that there was no escape from life, reality or existence and that by sheer accident all those that tried had wound up creating a giant dick and it was funny as Hell to those who never even had it occur to them to escape but instead made it their meaning to try to make their lives as meaningful as possible, to live their lives no matter how hard things got.
Which coincides with my belief that penis-wrinkle is an insult not used often enough. A lot of people are like penis-wrinkles. When things get hard, they vanish only to come back around after the party is over all pissed off about not having been around for the fucking fun.
I agree . . . everybody has their own agenda . . .
I like what you wrote “a need from within”. Meaning does tend to be interrupted by work and modern woes. I can only hope that despite the things that interrupt our individual searching to find meaning that we are able to hold onto . . . to the meaning gained - it is perhaps precious.
I’m an ongoing process, gib. I can only speak for myself here. Well, we are all ongoing processes.
The way I look at it, I think that I can discover the objective (actual reality) truth about myself, I mean, see myself as I really am. But I think that takes an enormous amount of honesty and a lot of time and energy, a lot of investigation, a lot of agonizing moments when we see what we do not like. That can be a great revelation as to who we are.
It also takes a lot of compassion and sensitivity toward ourselves because we are, after all, human.
But don’t you think that that can only happen in the moment, in each moment, in each phase or through each path of our existence - and there are many different ones, I think.
I don’t intuit that we just automatically come to discover this just as we do not automatically come to discovery the reality and truth of deep space or anything. And just how often has that changed?
Everything unfolds at different times for us. Sometimes we see our light and sometimes we see our darkness. We need to see it all in order to see us at any given moment.
Human beings are complicated creatures - at least I think that we are.
Since we are ever-changing, I think that we can only discover the true reality of who we are as individuals step by step by step within the particular phase which we are in - if that made sense.
Sometimes we can find this ourselves and sometimes it is something which just happens to us like an epiphany.
I don’t think that we discover this objective truth about ourselves all at one time. How can we?
Time does not stop for us - it flows on. So as it flows, we have help discovering this map, this great big puzzle of who we are - though the pieces move around and the puzzle becomes a different puzzle. lol
As you say, we are ever-changing.
There is no straight line when it comes to who we are and we will never ever discover all of the objective truth about ourselves. There is just not enough time and we are after all FLOW.
It’s like climbing a mountain. Up we go, down we go sliding. Then we discover at some point that we have to edge ourselves around to another path that we feel will bring us closer to the summit. Then up we go, down we go…ad continuum.
As promised, I said I was going to answer this post twice.
I have named the topic that you and I are discussing, Meaning Is the Foundation For Things To Exist, taken from your first post.
Last time I answered my favorite part of your post: Incomprehensible meaning is like hearing a foreign language, You know it means something but you can’t tell the difference between that and random meaningless babbling - You made the contrast between what we perceive as meaning and meaning that otherwise exists even when we do not become aware of it. This time I will answer the bit relating to reality being information expressed as matter. At a later date you might also be interested in a method I have devised that derives meaning from analogy - if you are, I will happily PM this method to you. My claim in this post, is that we do receive meaning from things that we come into close enough proximity with, even if it is only subconsciously.
Meaning Is the Foundation For Things To Exist
Meaning is in everything . . .
As meaning is the foundation for things to exist . . . It is the intention to communicate something that is not directly expressed as the underlying basis or principle for any object that one need not give a specific name and has objective reality or being. It can be communicated to any person by way of each individuals senses - and becomes internalized as a subjective copy to be integrated into that which we call consciousness. Meaning then has a special relationship with consciousness and is connected to the fundamental, driving forces of life itself, expressed as direction, from energy to matter, from the past to the future, from the unknown to the known et cetera.
1 ► Here we are claiming that all reality is fundamentally information.
2 ► Meaning is the intention to communicate something that is not directly expressed.
3 ► We can say that meaning boils down to information.
4 ► Communication is all about information.
To make meaning comprehensible is to differentiate between patterns by way of our conscious mind and has to do with some kind of fundamental ambiguity of things. It is the difference between these patterns that we turn into meaning - from enigma to transparency . . . from paradox to harmony.
We do this through vicinity and analogy. The closer something is to us the more meaning it is going to have whether the meaning is consciously expressed or subconsciously expressed. The expression itself is by virtue an analogy - it is a comparison between one thing and another - a comparison of the objective version of the thing and the subjective version of the thing - a correspondence that is trying to reach harmony. Conversely to distinguish true meaninglessness from incomprehensible meaning still requires us to be in the vicinity of the objective element - if it exists then we can be in vicinity of it and therefore it has meaning - the meaning remains incomprehensible until enough correspondence is made to determine meaning.
Meaning has a special relationship with consciousness and is connected to the fundamental, driving forces of life itself, expressed as direction, from energy to matter, from the past to the future, from the unknown to the known. We receive meaning from things that we come into close enough proximity with, even if it is only subconsciously.
Meaning is the foundation for things to exist . . .
. . . meaning is in everything . . .
With any luck gib, my post is not analogous to random meaningless babble for you - if it is, my apologies that you drew close to it’s vicinity.
