The Meaninglessness of Meaning

[Mudhammam]

What does "meaning" mean to you? From whence does "meaning" spring into being - or does it even exist at all? Is it wholly subjective, akin to the mystical experience, involving the usage of terms that only take on significance for the subject, and which in effect only describe something - a sense - about the world in a most superficial manner?

Essentially, from an "objective" standpoint, it would seem that no "state of affairs" in the world has any meaning. Consider the happenstance asteroid that collides with the moon; a worm that gets ravished by a bird; the love that a human feels for his or her offspring. We assign meaning, to a higher or lesser degree, to a variety of objects, believing that the very act of valuing something - that is, possessing strong feelings of pleasure towards it that include aims of temporarily "preserving" its illusory equilibrium - confers upon it meaningful attributes, or a quality of meaningfulness. But is this more than a linguistic trick that in actuality serves only to describe the affections, or chemical changes, that such objects cause in our bodies and our brains - to our center of consciousness, that socially and psychologically construed identity - our "selves"? Does such a chemical change, not fundamentally unlike the physical alterations that occur when water is heated to boil or cooled to freeze, justify our rationalization and usage of terms like value and meaning?

I cannot help but consider that, objectively speaking, we - illusory selves - are but a meaningless "state of affairs," or physical processes, like the asteroid hurling through space, like the worm sacrificing itself for the sustenance of the bird, yet differing in one aspect, its importance not yet properly measured or understood - we are capable of creating the delusion in which "I" have a "meaningful" existence. Is this feature a possible buttress to the seemingly inevitable logical conclusion of physicalism that "'objectively speaking,' no state of affairs possesses 'intrinsic' value or meaning"? For perhaps such powers of creation do reveal physical processes imbued with meaning - even if they are processes that exclusively reveal themselves in the abstract - and it is in the abstract that meaning is not meaningless . . . but what does "existence in the abstract" mean in the context of objectivity?

[Longhorn]

My head hurts O_o

[Exian]

- we are capable of creating the delusion in which "I" have a "meaningful" existence. Is this feature a possible buttress to the seemingly inevitable logical conclusion of physicalism that "'objectively speaking,' no state of affairs possesses 'intrinsic' value or meaning"?

I believe so.

For perhaps such powers of creation do reveal physical processes imbued with meaning - even if they are processes that exclusively reveal themselves in the abstract - and it is in the abstract that meaning is not meaningless . . . but what does "existence in the abstract" mean in the context of objectivity?

Could you give an example of this?

[Mudhammam]

For perhaps such powers of creation do reveal physical processes imbued with meaning - even if they are processes that exclusively reveal themselves in the abstract - and it is in the abstract that meaning is not meaningless . . . but what does "existence in the abstract" mean in the context of objectivity?

Could you give an example of this?

Hmm. Let's see. I'm going to borrow a page from S.I. Hayakawa's "Language In Thought and Action" to get my example off the ground:


Now let's say you love "Bessie," a cow, with feelings that rival the extent to which parents are said to love their children. Hence, she means a great deal to you, nay, even as much as you mean to yourself. At two levels of abstraction, say 2 and 3, you associate strong feelings of affection for the object you perceive, known to you (on level 3) as "Bessie," and (4) as "cow." You don't necessarily love all cows - livestock, farm assets, assets, and wealth, in general, don't possess any meaning to you, but you love Bessie, the cow. With her it is very, very different. You've created these abstract conceptions and labels to describe an experience, which, when verbalized, sound like "I love Bessie the cow. She means something to me" But Bessie, at bottom (1), is, like you - a conglomeration of molecules, atoms, elections, quarks, etc. that are always changing - a chemical and physical process no different, fundamentally, than anything else: boiling water, thunderstorms, gaseous planets. So, in some sense, the brain has created its own "realm of forms" where abstract objects (3, "Bessie," 4, "cow," 8, "wealth," etc.) represent physical objects (1 and 2) - none of which really exist as they're perceived and typically considered in thought, by "you," an "individual," to exist - because these, as everything, including ourselves, are composed of molecules, "jostling atoms," and further down, "particles" with no definite positions AND velocities. So, on the one hand, we have the unintelligible, raw data of consciousness - what the ancients called "impressions" - which are something like a mixture of images created by your brain in your body, as a result of registering what your brain believes to be external stimuli, such as light reflecting off other bodies, understood as "the real world," and on the other hand, we have our conceptions of these objects which are communicated by a language system using sounds and scribblings. So, I take it that meaning only exists from level 3 on up, in the purely abstract "realm of ideas." And in terms of physical reality, these do not exist objectively - there is no "Bessie," "joy," "meaning" - these are labels that describe physical processes after they have been subjectively abstracted and conferred with meaning. In other words, what makes us special, that the perpetual differentiation of chemical and physical states creates this delusion whereby "I" think some things are more valuable than others? Do we simply mean that they "resonate more" with our feelings of "pleasure"? Is my belief that anything is more meaningful than another just as groundless as the object "Bill" cherishes as his "spirit" or "higher power"?

[Exian]

I think it's only basleless if you don't value those physical processes that amount to emotional experiences- like, if it being a physical process diminishes it in some way for you. I'm personally fine with it, but then I'm fine with value and meaning being subjective. In fact, I prefer to call the physical processes the ground. "Bill's" "higher power" can't say that much. But I do appreciate what you say about the physical processes being equally groundless.

For perhaps such powers of creation do reveal physical processes imbued with meaning -

The two words I have bolded I find at odds. "Reveal" seems to assume an innate quality, while "imbued" seems to mean it was acted upon by an outside force. I'm having trouble with this sentence haha

[Cato]

Is my belief that anything is more meaningful than another just as groundless as the object "Bill" cherishes as his "spirit" or "higher power"?

Yes, if your measure of meaningfulness is some consistent objective criteria that must take its place on some fixed unalterable scale. I don't necessarily disagree with the hierarchy of abstraction, but have a difficult time with a ladder as an analogy. What of the grey areas between rungs; similar to the fact that every offspring is the same species as its parents yet we acknowledge speciation. Demanding objectivity where only subjectivity is warranted may cause one to lose his/her mind.

Extending Exian's point, no single molecule of water is wet. It's an emergent property when a shitload of them get together and even that's state dependent. As far as we know, mind is an emergent property dependent on lower level physical and chemical interactions. The same way wetness can't be reduced to a property of a molecule of water, the mind may never be reduced to a simple accounting of physical/chemical interactions. I can't be certain that his was precisely what Exian meant, but is why I'm just as comfortable with subjectivity. The fact that you and Bill don't place the same meaning and value on all states of existence suggests that meaning and value cannot be grounded as one might expect; i.e., reduced to an optimum and preferable physical and chemical state. Add just a few more people and your ladder becomes a web or cargo net.

[BrokenQuill92]

Ouch!

[bennyboy]

I think arguing that there's no meaning in humanity, when there obviously is lots of meaning, kind of reveals an answer to part of the question: that there is meaning in context. Looking for absolute meaning is pointless, because you cannot know the absolute context.

Obviously there is meaning, for example, in the alluring glance of a young lady. It means that whoever is receiving the glance is likely to participate in the process of evolution, sooner rather than later.

[Cato]

Trying to make headwind in a doldrums and Benny deploys the anchor.

[Whateverist]

Yeah, the attempt to examen concepts which, so far as we can tell, only arise in the minds of sentient beings, as if they were fixed, objective things is probably not a very promising way to to begin.