Where does meaning come from?

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.

Thank you for your post.

I equate meaning to core qualities.

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.

Do you see what i mean?

iambiguous

What you have to say seems like it is interesting - I need a little clarification so I can understand it better. Apologies in advance.

  1. I agree that emotion is tricky. Do you think cognition is not relevant to emotions? How do you see genes affecting emotions?
  2. 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.

James S Saint wrote:

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? 8-[

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.

Yes, I see what you mean. Thank you for your response, Dan.

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.

Was it anything like this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaWtWAvUb-4[/youtube]

MagsJ

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.

:smiley:

gib wrote:

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.

Too much.

Naw, more like this:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lexLAjh8fPA[/youtube]

gib

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.

:laughing:

gib

I have been told a few times that I am very structured - I know a couple of those times were not compliments - but my civilized exchanges with you online tells me something different - it tells me that you have taken notice of something about me - remember that time I said to you that I like your friendly nature? Well, it reminds me of that because I was taking notice of our interaction - I was aware that you were being genuinely friendly.

I also really enjoy a civilized exchange online and I agree that it gives both parties a chance to express themselves to the wider world. Your metaphysics of consciousness sounds very interesting if your posts are anything to judge by. I really like how you describe it as a whole Pandora’s box of philosophy.

I also think that our sensations are directional and contained within a feedback loop - our higher senses are able to build meta-information from those sensations. Essentially information about information. They tell us there is matter and because of their directional nature and their containment within the mentioned feedback loop they lead to us knowing information about that matter.

Most certainly science does not represent our substance as beings - at most it can give us a meager description from the outside looking in. I think the term is introspection when you speak one one appealing to one’s subjective experiences - and indeed that can give us a more natural view of man. In my last post I mentioned how vicinity and analogy help us to build meaning - the more meaning we have collected the easier it should be to connect the “future dots”.

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.
Yep. Still like it.

Have you ever wondered why? :smiley: They seem to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. Your analogy did make my day and you are welcome.

What does hubris mean? :laughing: Nah, kidding. Excessive pride or self-confidence reminds me of the saying: The bigger they are the harder they fall. What you are saying in the above quote is kind of like being in constant denial of reality from my point of view.

Until next time . . . may the thinking be with you.

:-k

Yes, please do.

Yes, and that’s only the start. I’m particularly captured by your use of the phrase “subjective copy”. Every played telephone? Is the final message received at the end of the line ever like the initial message?

So do you mean the way we take phenomena that we don’t understand and come up with some kind of explanation for them? And that makes them meaningful?

Here’s where the nihilist might object: getting close to the phenomenon to be understood brings us no closer to meaning. If we found no rhyme or reason, no grand purpose, when we stepped back and looked at the universe from a holistic point of view, what greater reason/purpose would we find by getting acquainted with the details? Or perhaps this is not what you meant to say.

Of course, I can see what you mean. If you take photosynthesis, for example, we can say that getting a better understanding of the biochemical process of photosynthesis (being in the vicinity, creating a subjective representation of the objective process) generates meaning for us: now, when we see sun light resulting in the growth of the plant, we know what that means: it means the process of photosynthesis is at work. ← But I don’t think this would satisfy the nihilist.

My interest, on the other hand, lays in this question: what is the experience of the plant like? What does it feel like to undergo the process of photosynthesis, to be the process of photosynthesis? Capture that and you will get a little sample of incomprehensible meaning.

I was able to make sense of it. Though you might have to confirm whether I got it right.

Well, it certainly wasn’t meant as an insult–not even criticism–more like a quirk. Everyone’s got their quirks, and that’s what I like about people. It’s what makes us all different. I’d encourage people to keep their quirks. Anyone who brings them up as criticisms simply doesn’t appreciate the diversity of quirky people we are.

Yes, and I’d even say “matter” itself is already derived at a higher level of sensory processing. What’s derived at the really fundamental level of our senses are very simple geometric data (they say that the first layer of neural networks our optic nerves hit at the occipital lobe are “line detectors”–so our world is essentially made of lines before anything else). But once “matter” as such is derived (or maybe objects), it seems to be at that level that the rest of our mind (our thoughts at least) say: that’s what I’m looking at.

Well, I’m trying to get at what the world looks like without the effect of abstract preconceptions of what the world “really” consists of or how it “really” works. For example, when you look at an object, you might think: a network of molecules. When you look at the Sun (don’t actually do that), you think: a burning ball of gas. But what would primitive man have thought? I don’t think primitive man would have thought anything more than: it’s an object (the sun might have been different, but you get my point). I’m saying the view of the world held by primitive man would have been: just a bunch of objects. Of course, primitive man probably would have had his own religion to taint the way he saw his surroundings, but I’m trying to get at the way we would look at the world if we somehow were able to brush away the tainting influence of what we’ve been taught (whether that be science, religion, our upbringing, our own crazy thoughts, etc.)

Arcturus Descending

Many of us make valuable exchanges of our thoughts on this forum, and you are no exception. I have witnessed you thinking with depth, curiosity and many times quite an impressive accordance to rationality. Your skepticism seems to serve you well Arcturus Descending. If both you and the others you have interacted with in this thread do not mind, I have taken the liberty to borrow/quote a couple of items of interest from those interactions.

We are all ongoing processes - this is a humble perspective if one chooses to accept it. Anyone of us can only really speak for ourselves, so it is with hope that my intervention does not offend you or the others you are interacting with. Investigation, honesty, time, energy and agony - in a peculiar way I like it and otherwise I feel I have to respect it. I have great affinity to your last two sentences in the above quote Arcturus Descending.

If I may Arcturus Descending, quote, edit and answer the following:

Sprinkle a little beneficial emotion and reality over the top and one is well on their respective way to achieving a sound mind. The answers to C and D, I have provided. The other three answers come from this post in another thread. Many things are at the very least worthy of consideration.

The interaction that gib and I are having in this thread is one of those things worthy of consideration.

May you think about this for a moment please? When zero outcome has taken place then infinity outcomes are possible - lets transpose this to the physical reality by saying that existence can not be in a state of zero existence otherwise it would not exist - let us further state that when you have that feeling of zero thoughts flowing through your mind - or the silent mind - you are now connected to the totality of existence. This is a toy because why?

You may now ask me any question.

Ah nothing . . .

It is such a perfect scene that it escapes us. Why? Because we cannot know zero or infinity entirely. We can only know that one is there.

Mr. List has left the garden, who knows where he went? He could be experiencing that kind of day now - even with the Eagle. A rare day that included the shining of the sun. There is no reason why you, Mr List or I could not have our very own Zen Gardens. Healthy skepticism is healthy, no? The trees are still because they are unaffected by the caress of the breeze due to the breeze leaving them to peace. They still breathe - they have decided to leave fear. Their moment is calm.

Only when they command me to dance. Perhaps your subconscious is absorbing the meaning - only to surface as a memory in the future. A memory that you get to decide whether is pleasant or not. What is one wearing on one’s feet?

You may in good stead, attempt not to think in terms of what one is wearing on one’s feet and instead you may think of what the wearing is.
Even if you think you have nothing on your feet, you may ask yourself, if that is really true? Thoughts can be permissive that way . . .

. . . judging things by appearance or not judging things by appearance . . .

Three tall glasses - the company is already here - all around. The Koi just keep swimming. Does their movement experience them?

Yes, what are your thoughts in this moment? Koi do swim in your mind when you are watching or remembering them. And then in the transition of thought from Koi to something else - the Koi become ripples in the water as a silent moment of contemplation enters.

A smile . . .

:smiley:

Namely… self-survival.

…and pretty words from you in return, ED :slight_smile:

Individual precious moments gained are being lost in the present global social-unrest… unless you have the money to hold onto them, so it isn’t only the price of goods going up but of experiences.

gib

It looks like you understand what I am writing - I have been thinking about your post and that is why I have not responded yet.

With a bit of luck I am understanding what you are writing as well as you are understanding what I am writing.

Look out for my response soon . . .

:smiley:

MagsJ

First of all, let me thank you for some of my recent inspiration to write - your concise thoughts have led to a cogitation explosion. Second of all, I want to give you a heads up that I have not paid the usual attention that I do to sentence structure - reason being - I just wanted to let the thoughts flow and see what came out.

I agree . . . everybody has their own agenda . . .
I guess years ago, our own agenda might have been less than that of the local community’s agenda - just a thought. Having not lived that far back, I can not really say but I can say this - spending my high school years in a small community where everybody knew each other, felt very wholesome - what I mean by this, might have little to do with meaning though. I can say that throughout my adult life, there have been times where my high school years felt more meaningful than any arbitrary moment thereafter. Right now I am considering whether nostalgia plays a small part in providing meaning to us.

Namely… self-survival.
Regarding self-survival; I imagine we are talking somewhat above physical survival. Meaning helps to reassure oneself in a confusing world that their own life means something. I wonder what living in a smaller tribe would have been like, whether the residents of that tribe found more meaning in life than we do. The larger the settlement(village, town, city etc.) the less meaningful one feels.

Looking back . . .
When we get to a ripe old age, I can imagine whatever meaning we have gained from life to be high on the list of best company. I have spent many an hour listening to an elderly person speaking of old times - I have received much enjoyment from these precious moments. I ponder whether the meaning might be so important to us that if in the event, we consider that we might not have gotten everything out of life that we were working to achieve, then meaning kicks in to save us from any disappointment we may feel.

Self-serving process . . .
Of course it is difficult for me to ignore what you wrote regarding an input and output connected to a self-serving process, that becomes interrupted - first because I like processes - secondly because I wonder whether the process is actually ever interrupted or whether it is only interrupted on a conscious level. I must say however it certainly feels like meaning is put on hold at times and our desire to get it back increases through these periods.

When we leave it for too long . . .
In this post I would like to add to my comment from before, about hope, that despite the things that interrupt our individual searching to find meaning that we are able to hold onto any precious meaning gained :: I will add that if left for too long, the maintenance of self-survival(related to personal meaning), can lead to one truly losing oneself in a ocean of meaninglessness - that is my observation of people - they may indeed have meaning but it seems it does not glow from them like some people - I can just see meaning in some peoples eyes.

Pretty words and my rambling . . .
:smiley: …and pretty words from you in return, ED :slight_smile: Thank you MagsJ, I think your words are better - not only are your words pretty but they are more succinct than my own. I could not really help myself this time around but to keep typing - apologies if I became too long winded for your liking. :blush:

Indeed . . . and sad but true. Meaning comes at a price - we invest many years and dollars to make our lives meaningful and before you know it, the world has changed and what we have achieved becomes meaningless, or less impressive to those around us and perhaps even ourselves. Your comment also makes me think about tradition - in that it is quite possible that tradition while may not providing a full meaning to some, is at least a basic asset to building ones own meaning off of. I can assure you that I will be putting more thought into global social-unrest.
[size=85]I will call this section: When meaning seems lost . . .[/size]

I have really gained from this interaction. Thank you. I can now consider how meaning drives our personality. How our personality can be watered down or diluted among the social noise of our respective environments - how it is that we become shells of people rather than humanely wholesome. How the “meaning process” is always running in the background and needs to be brought to the foreground periodically for reflection to maintain our conscious awareness of it - how this periodic reflection allows our personal meaning to shine through our personality. Finally, meaning I believe, is strongly attached to communication - our desire to talk/communicate and ask questions.

It should be interesting where all of this takes us . . .