Meaningfulness v meaninglessness; theism vs atheism;

[Edwardo Piet]

Interestingly, you just refuted yourself. If meaning is really just various biochemical brain states, then it actually IS an illusion, a private fiction we use to console or empower ourselves that in reality is just electrical and chemical signaling throughout specific neural tissue.

Well, in one sense it's an illusion in the sense that our subjective experience of meaning (as opposed to tautological meaning) doesn't exist separate from our imagination. But it is not an illusion in the sense of it being unintelligible, it makes sense to me for meaning to be like this. Illusions are normally thought of as things that fool you, but once you're aware of them, are they still illusions?

Your very act of articulating yourself here is likewise just neurological and physiological activity. The reality turns out to be that you are simply a complex organism functioning on adaptation and evolutionary advantage, not these illusions of meaning and truth.

Tautological meaning exists.

And yet you speak of meaning and truth as if they are real in themselves

They are real in themselves in a tautological sense. If objective reality exists independent of us then it does. If it doesn't it doesn't. Let us not make the Use/Mention distinction error. Absolute logic is separate to the conceptualization of logic.

And I think you are right, but the point is that your atheistic views cannot account for this.

They can easily. My experience of meaning I really do experience, so in that sense the meaning is real. In another sense it isn't real because it is "imaginary", but that is irrelevant to the fact that I experience meaning.

On your atheistic view, meaning and truth are NOT real in themselves

Not true. Either something exists independently to us or it doesn't.

they are actually just physiological manifestations of your brain's neurological activity.

Use/mention error. That's the concept of meaning/truth you are now talking of, and yes, our conceptualization of them takes place in the brain. But truth/meaning does actually exist (if you were to call it a type of existence) in the sense that something either exists independently to us or it doesn't. Logic is absolute as well as conceptual. The concept of logic is separate to logic itself.

So when you speak of meaning and truth as if they are real in themselves (i.e., not an illusion) that is intellectual currency the origins of which is somewhere other than your atheistic view.

No, you are just making a Use/Mention distinction error and confusing the concept of meaning and truth with meaning and truth itself.

True. And yet that is nevertheless a very real and authentic question unique to the human experience and as old as mankind's ability to self-reflect.

So what is your point there?

But under atheism (in whatever form it happens to be expressed), and especially atheistic biological evolution, that sort of thing is unintelligible; it cannot give a coherent account for that question and its underlying assumption of existential purpose. (This is why I say that Nihilism is the only internally consistent atheism.)

It isn't unintelligible. My conceptualization of meaning and truth and how I personally experience something as "meaningful" or "meaningless" is separate to the fact that something must either exist independently of us or not. Logic must be absolute in that sense. It is also conceptual in the sense that we have conceptualized it, but its conceptualization is different to logic itself.

The "Why are we here?" Question can be answered in a teleological way, but why should it be? Why can't we just use to word "why" in the other sense so as to mean "What caused us to be here"? Why make the assumption of any additional purpose when we need not do so?

Incorrect. Agnostic theists don't know that God exists, whereas gnostic theists do.

No.

Yes, agnostic theists don't believe that they know that God exists (they just believe that they believe that God exists) so they also can't know that God exists because knowledge implies belief.

But, despite that gnostic theists also believe that they know that God exists (rather than merely believing that God exists) that does not at all mean that they actually know that God exists, it just means that they believe that they know. For them to actually know that God existed they'd also have to be correct since knowledge implies truth.

Then you are an agnostic atheist, inasmuch as they are agnostic theists. But I fail to see how this autobiographical information about you is relevant to my point.

My point is that unless you can back up your point I don't see why I should take your point seriously.

What you have or have not seen is simply irrelevant to my point.

My response to your point was weak but I considered your point baseless, so, I wasn't particularly worried.

And all this talk about who "knows" what and who doesn't is quite beside the point at any rate, as I have been talking about atheism, which pertains to the category of belief and is distinct from the category of knowledge. In other words, you are at risk of committing the red herring fallacy.

What on earth are you talking about? Agnostic atheism isn't related to knowledge but gnostic atheism is.