The Meaninglessness of Meaning

[Kingpin]

According to my understanding of a worldview that takes everything to be ultimately reducible to the physical (a term that is difficult enough to define), we have to basically say that a process of events that are objectively meaningless involve structures through which experiences (or call them emergent properties, though l'm inclined to agree with Sam Harris that "this seems merely a placeholder for a miracle") occur,

A standard example is a clock telling time.  The parts of a clock thrown on a workbench do not tell time, but when the parts are properly arranged, then the clock tells time.  I would not call that a miracle.  Notice, though, that the totality of the clock is still just physical.

The same is true of a person.  When the parts are not arranged properly, the person does not have the motivating feelings that would be present if they were properly arranged.  ("Properly," in this context, merely means that the parts are arranged such that they work that way, not that there is some design to it.)  An extreme sort of example of this is what happens when one chops off a person's head.  They lose all feeling rather quickly.  Likewise, if you chop off an important bit of the clock, it no longer tells time.

Pyrrho, I find your analogy about the clock parts being thrown on a workbench do not make it tell time very interesting. You say only when they are put in the right order. Are you saying that if you throw them on a workbench and it did tell time you would not classify that as a miracle? If not, would it be a pure anomaly? or basic statistical probability?

You say the right order, but is that right order defined by a mind or an unguided mindless process? You state "properly" does not necessitate design but if there is no design to it how can you say that is the proper arrangement? I find it odd that you can know with certainty that throwing clock parts on a workbench will never make it tell time (forgo the fact that the parts exist at all or that all of the "necessary" parts are being thrown together) but you can assume that the infinitely more complex human could be derived from being "thrown at a workbench". Doesn't make sense.