Where does meaning come from?

gib

As far as I know this is the final part of my response - Part 7 - I will take a good look through everything later to make sure.

I think it is correct - like everything we do, it might be in need of some refinements - either way once it is perfect, you should not ever expect it to be permanent - except maybe the reality stuff. It’s value should be permanent though because of something that I will exposes at a later date.

I sure am! Too much for my own good at times - in this instance I have been really enjoying the points of expression - this conversation we have been having sure has opened Pandora’s box on a number of things. Keep it coming I say - within our limits of course and time pending - we have been doing fine though I think.

I know! And nothing wrong with that either - I am everyone’s rival

Cities I believe are a little too much if you are not indulging in communication with your neighbors but how can we when some of the neighbors are dickheads? Now I am a little off topic, I realize that but what has happened here is that your mention of God had inspired a thought and memory of something James once said to me about 75 people groups.

You have got that right. I did have a point to make here - it is a pity it came out the way it did. I still think some neighbors can be . . . OK I am not that tired now. Cities are a problem though, I am sure you agree. Much meaning in peoples life has been lost due to these megalopolises. Even the small town in which I reside, often times makes me feel meaningless - that is not to say that there is not more than one way to lose meaning, just that it seems easier enough, to attribute a loss of, to the locality one occupies. I guess a mid life crisis can help one achieve the same thing but what is that anyway. I have an idea that nostalgia is a natural phenomenon and that is one of those crazy ideas I have mentioned that would eventually make its way into conversation among some of the other craziness - to say that nostalgia is a higher sense, a sense of meaning or meaning lost, to say that it is one of our best friends in times of meaninglessness - Hmm, more thought required. We do need to feel connected to something though, I guess this is my point, this connection helps to define our purpose and give us meaning. God used to be that connection for many people and now, well, now, yeah you get my gist. One does seem to be happier with a defined group of friends and one tends to settle at this point and when things change one can become unhappy. I still think change is something we need to face up to.

I also think there is a lot of corruption in science and this corruption is on purpose - not so much conspiracy by a small group but a natural feedback that occurs when we as a race move too fast. There is just so much knowledge we do not need too - but it seems to be a law that to get something you have to pay more than it is worth - I am not talking about money now either.

I kind of do mean science working too fast - and I kind of mean that we have accumulated too much information up to 2017 - an information overload - the scales have been broken, so to speak. I still think there is plenty of quality there but to a degree, yes, sacrificing quality for quantity. I imagine that it is the reason why we hear so many science reports only to be refuted or exposed for their sloppy methods a few years later. I would say for every bad report there is plenty more science going on. Some of that science of course would be sloppy. It is probably fair to say that the quality of science has dimished, but by how much? Well we know it was never up to 100% quality, so where would that leave us - lets just play with made up figures to illustrate. If the optimum degree of quality(ODoQ) is usually 92% then I guess taking into consideration the bad science that has not been exposed plus the bad science that has been exposed would drop the ODoQ down to lets say, 83%. Can we afford this level of ODoQ with too much information(aka information overload), am I imagining things, I do not think I am imagining things even as hard as it might be to prove my claim. We know quality in general in life has dropped - not to be confused with quality of life - so why would science be immune?

You know the old saying though - what goes up must come down - there has to be some sort of ceiling for science before it collapses.

Many people have been educated in science in recent decades - not everybody can be a scientist for Pete’s sake. I will leave that there for further discussion.

Ah, good. I will get around to providing the missing pieces of information, I can assure you of that.

It has been a busy weekend.

Hi encode,

Once again, you have given me a lot to digest. Will have to take some time to work through it… stay tuned…

Hey gibinator,

Awesome gib - I am so tired I could sleep for a week - maybe in a few hours when I wake up I might not be saying that.

What a busy day. Phew . . .

decode_encode

I hope when you read over everything you have typed in the last four days, you do not come to regret it you crazy fool . . .

My contingency - it had to be said.

I think I just went cross eyed

Never have.

gib

You are a good man. My initial thoughts after waking from a needed rest, from a very inspiring few days - which it turns out, has been a week - my initial thoughts were to something we were talking about in another thread and that is the following, I find that if I have put an extreme amount of thought into the post when I write it - then I have to spend some time decoding my own writing. I remember you asking a question that I am about to paste from the other thread, do you think this is typical of people who form their thoughts and opinions “on the fly” so to speak? This was after all related to coming back to one’s thought after a long period of absence.

For the thinker, it is good for him to clear his mind of over-burden, like the miner has to clear the over-burden, to get to the gold. Decoding of ones own thought, I mean, related to the analogy, the thinker is perhaps like a deep mine, full of gold. The man on the fly is perhaps like the dust that blows across the over-burden on a windy day.

The thinker is to remain and the fool is to be deposited elsewhere. Yes to your question then - that one would expect after a long period of absence to know what one was talking about. The thinker could benefit from not clearing the over-burden so quick because he could be throwing out some gold to be hidden by the discarded burden.

You have been very inspiring gib. Of course my message was to myself - because when I lack sleep, my sense of humor likes to take a walk by itself. I am like the fool who becomes deposited elsewhere. When you say this sort of thing to many people, they tend to think you are being a little hard on yourself. For me though it is more like a feather pillow that has burst - the feathers go everywhere as they gently fall into place.

I have had a good rest now. Your response as it turns out is the first I came to respond to after falling back to the earth. Now that the burden has been cleared it is time for Encode to see what gold remains in the wake of his haste. Thank you so much for the inspiration gib.

Peace,

Aaron.

Upon awakening . . .

I said in a previous post to Serendipper that everything known was once unknown. This can be said of ourselves - that what we now know of our self, was once unknown. Discovery is just the unknown configured into formation. To say that we are in a constant state of discovering our self is to say that the unknown in-formation is known. The man that keeps seeking does indeed keep finding - to play on words.

Meaning then as a function of direction and connection can be restated/reiterated as follows:

Meaning also boils down to the fundamental driving forces of nature because what would we be without those forces? What would the driving forces be without us to comprehend them. Everything that changes, derives for itself, an intention - an intention to move forward, as grass grows up and not down.

The intention is to derive meaning, and it is not so much for the grass to understand us, but for the grass and us to experience each other.

Life itself is perhaps meaning . . .

There is no meaning to anything in Nature just function and purpose. The notion of meaning only exists because
human beings think the Universe must be there for a reason. There is no reason. It exists simply because it can

surreptitious75

So what would the driving forces of life be with out us to comprehend them?

The driving forces of life do not need human beings to comprehend them. Our existence is an entirely random
event and if we did not exist it would not make the slightest difference to how the Universe actually functions

Well, however one thinks of it–“thinkers” vs. “fools”, “deep” vs. “shallow”–I don’t think it’s our place to say who is more virtuous than the other; we might say that the deep thinker, insofar as he consistently argues the same point over and over again (and thus knows what he was talking about in a post he made several years ago), is “trapped”–he clings to an old worn out conviction that does nothing but hold him back and ultimately leads to his own stagnation (if you ever get a chance to talk with iambiguous, you’ll see what I mean… and if you do get a chance… don’t!). Meanwhile, the whimsical surface thinker is free. He is free to entertain any thought that comes to him, to take thought anywhere it leads. And this should not be mistaken for a lack of rationality or hard objectivism. The surface thinker can put together thoughts with just as much logic and intelligence as the deep thinker. His only difference is that he does so with fresh new material every time. And of course, none of this is to say that the surface thinker is better than the deep thinker, it’s just meant to present a contrast with the opposing point of view, to show how there is no fact of the matter about who is the better thinker and who isn’t.

I think what Encode means is that we can only meaningfully talk about the “driving forces of life” because we attribute meaning to that phrase. In other words, without meaning, it stands to question whether there are driving forces of life. Even in your thought experiment where you imagine the complete absence of human beings or any other meaning attributing intelligence, and you think you apprehend the driving forces of life, it’s only by virtue of you being there in the thought experiment that the “driving forces of life” means something.

Is “experience” your interpretation of “subjectivity”?

The most ILP members are subjectivists. The poll in my thread “Subjectivity versus Objectivity” is unfortunately not representative.

gib

And if we weren’t here? We would not be having this conversation . . .

Nailed it. It does have a deeper implication too - funnily - I will be back to present that.

gib

Confidence is not something that I lack in fortunately - pride on the other hand is something that I have learnt to live without. I am happy for those who thrive on pride but it is not for me - arrogance is something that I detest. Essentially we are stuck inside our own heads.

Correct.

I still think of myself as a fool though

The last thing I want to do is to become stagnate.

I can agree with this. Some say that to be a good comedian takes some real genius - someone who can see the irony in life.

I move forward not backwards and that is something that continuously provides me with rewards.

Can you kind of describe what this spirituality would be, would be about?
For example…

Can you describe the actual future? And then give me an example?

You said just not the way we have ever viewed it before now. That sounded interested to me. So I asked for a glimmer of what it is you might be seeing, encode_decode…the something which you intuited as being different.
You made a distinction.

Can I describe the actual future? Actual is kind of a written-in-stone word, don’t you think? But we can more or less describe our futures based on our present moments; namely, our jobs, what we might desire to achieve if we have a good work ethic, the direction in which our children may go if we have conversations with them and listen to them, listen to the News, based on human history and how we repeat our same mistakes, or how we have learned from the consequences of our actions and are at least pretty sure that we would go in another direction.

I do not think that we need to be psychics to come close to describing what we for the most part see our futures to be - of course, barring the foreseen - like Hurricanes, tornadoes and such. But even those we can somewhat see in our future if we are not afraid to follow the signs.

Again, there is nothing absolute but you did say Just Not the Way…

I will be responding to you Arc, I am just very busy at the moment.

My real goal with meaning is that it comes from somewhere like everything - out of the fundamental substance of the universe whether anyone likes that idea or not. Meaning is obviously derivative in nature - I do however think there is a point of contrast that takes place just prior to meaning being born each time associated with an event.

It is this point that I am trying to discover.

This is some difficult stuff but it has all started at the top - with intelligent beings(all of you lovely people) from there we can make meaning meaningful.

Have you ever given any thought to the distinction between epistemic awareness and experiential awareness?

It’s a distinction I use in my metaphysics to contrast the difference in “knowing” and “experiencing”. I think your search for that which “ignites” meaning from an event might benefit from this distinction. It could be that nothing “ignites” meaning per se, that meaning is always there, always being delivered, always in flux, always begetting further meaning, but there is a point at which it passes from the realm of “incomprehensible” meaning to “comprehensible” meaning (and comprehensible to humans beings in particular, but that’s because I assume we’re all human beings here). After that point, human beings can apprehend it. Before that point, it is indistinguishable from a total lack of meaning.