What is meaningless?

[pErvinalia]

...not to mention a concept deeply rooted in our relationship with language, our ability to represent the world through language forms, and our apparent desire to communicate that to others.

To say lack of meaning is meaning is like saying atheism is a religion or bald is a hair color.

Nothingness lies coiled at the heart of Being. - JP Sartre.

Whatever nihilism holds it holds. But, for me, the existence of a thing is not the same as it's meaning. What I think people mean by "meaning" in things is the express or implied significance of the thing.

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

— Spiderman

Can you give me an example of a meaningless thing?

All things lack inherent or objective meaning.

Anything can have subjective meaning to a brain.

Accepting your qualification as relevant, and indeed necessary in terms of what you've said so far, this still did not answer the question nor touch on what I have been saying or which led me to start the topic. Perhaps it can be summed up thus:

• Nihilists find meaning in the lack of inherent or objective meaning of things.

For the nihilist, the declaration that things have no inherent or objective meaning carries some inherent or objective significance as, to them, it is held to reflect a kind of truth about the world - a world in which all things have no inherent or objective meaning. If this wasn't significant to nihilists then there would be no motivation to declare it as reflecting a kind of truth about the world, and isn't this kind of declarative truth statement essentially meaningful?

Sure, but it's subjective, not objective.

[Jason]

Short answer: Meaninglessness exists in the same way nothingness exists - useful concepts. In reality everything has meaning - it is a prerequisite of existence as a conscious entity in time.

That's a fair point, but others (and even you I think) have made the point that nihilism is concerned with objectivity, not subjectivity. So in terms of nihilism, you can be a conscious entity and still believe in the meaninglessness of everything.

Yep.

Reminds me of the quote from Bella's signature: Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

[JimC]

Walt Whitman, I believe...

[pErvinalia]

Walter White?

(what's funny, is that Jim won't get that... )

[JimC]

Probably some young person's pop culture icon...

Bah humbug!

[pErvinalia]

Young person's? That reference was massively popular with my demographic 40+. But you are right, it was also popular with the younger demographics as well.

[JimC]

Young person's? That reference was massively popular with my demographic 40+. But you are right, it was also popular with the younger demographics as well.

You're all babies to me...

[Brian Peacock]

...not to mention a concept deeply rooted in our relationship with language, our ability to represent the world through language forms, and our apparent desire to communicate that to others.

To say lack of meaning is meaning is like saying atheism is a religion or bald is a hair color.

Nothingness lies coiled at the heart of Being. - JP Sartre.

Whatever nihilism holds it holds. But, for me, the existence of a thing is not the same as it's meaning. What I think people mean by "meaning" in things is the express or implied significance of the thing.

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

— Spiderman

Can you give me an example of a meaningless thing?

All things lack inherent or objective meaning.

Anything can have subjective meaning to a brain.

Accepting your qualification as relevant, and indeed necessary in terms of what you've said so far, this still did not answer the question nor touch on what I have been saying or which led me to start the topic. Perhaps it can be summed up thus:

• Nihilists find meaning in the lack of inherent or objective meaning of things.

For the nihilist, the declaration that things have no inherent or objective meaning carries some inherent or objective significance as, to them, it is held to reflect a kind of truth about the world - a world in which all things have no inherent or objective meaning. If this wasn't significant to nihilists then there would be no motivation to declare it as reflecting a kind of truth about the world, and isn't this kind of declarative truth statement essentially meaningful?

Sure, but it's subjective, not objective.

Surely sure, it's a subjective concern for the individual nihilist, but it is still presented as a kind if truth about the world, which is an objective concern. After all, 42 was talking about the lack of inherent or objective meaning of all things.

[Brian Peacock]

Young person's? That reference was massively popular with my demographic 40+. But you are right, it was also popular with the younger demographics as well.

You're all babies to me...

Yooz da daddi.

[Forty Two]

Perhaps if a brain could exist perfectly disconnected from all reality then it could conceive of things which, in perfect isolation, have no meaning. But as soon as it exists in an environment in which cause and effect are realised the relation between apprehension of a thing and the stimuli of that thing would become unavoidably apparent and consistent from one brain to the next. A poke with a sharp stick - which I'm using as shorthand for type of signal interpreted by the brain from such a stimuli - will always be painful.

That, however, is demonstrably not true, as the brain can interpret one stimuli as something other than what is "normal." A sound can be interpreted by the brain as a smell. A pin prick can be interpreted as orgasm inducing, rather than painful. Pain and pleasure doesn't exist outside the brain.

You mean to introduce dysfunction in the apparatus as proof of the arbitrary nature of the interpretation of stimuli?

No, I don't mean that at all.

You're simply moving the goalposts,

What goalposts moved? My position is the same as it was. And, this is current scientific thought on the topic. This isn't controversial. The brain creates pain and pleasure. Hitting a rock with a bat doesn't hurt. Hitting a person with a bat doesn't hurt if they're paralyzed. Hitting a person with a bat whose brain is connected to the place you hit them hurts because the brain makes it hurt in response to the stimulus.

and I don't think you even realize it. Uniformity of interpretation is not the point.

And, I never stated or implied that it was.

The point is the unavoidable nature of being in time, the inescapable nature of cause and effect, that a thing is assigned meaning in its very apprehension.

Key words -- a thing is ASSIGNED meaning. Only brains "assign meaning." And, the meaning assigned is subjective to the brain.

I don't care if I fart loudly and you smell calculus. That's irrelevant. You apprehended the sound of the fart and assigned it the meaning of the smell of calculus.

The brain did the smelling. The fart is just atoms emitted from an ass floating in the air. The only "meaning" assigned to it is by minds.

Existence is not meaning.

I'm not arguing for a uniformity of grammar in stimulus interpretation, I'm making the point in apprehending a thing, whether it be as complex and removed from consciousness as a rock, or as immediate as the electrical impulse sent to your brain as a response to being poked with a stick, you assign meaning in the very process of apprehending.

Indeed. Subjective meaning assigned by the brain. There is no objective or inherent meaning. There may well be objective EXISTENCE. The atoms may be there whether we know it or not, or find them meaningful or not. But, the meaning of the atoms is entirely subjective.

It is the nature of being conscious in time. I don't care whether the flavour of your qualia to a certain stimuli is the smell of daffodils or the sound of thunder.

And, it doesn't objectively matter what you care about. What you find meaningful, important, unimportant, good, bad, ugly, pretty, whatever, is entirely subjective. It's entirely qualia. Internal and subjective.

The point your making is that yes that's nice - we create meaning it doesn't exist on its own. To which I respond fucking duh

Oh, o.k., then we agree. We create meaning, and it does not exist on its own. You respond "duh" (meaning that such a thing is obvious). Great. We are in agreement.

the only consciousness that can exist without assigning meaning to every last bit of its environment exists would necessarily exist in stasis - removed from time. So.. again.. want to go back to the existence of nothingness? Or maybe read a philosophy book or two.

Consciousness assigning meaning is not the question that was under discussion. The fact that consciousness assigns meaning to things does not in any way negate the fact that meaning is not objective or inherent -- things don't "have" meaning. They are "assigned" meaning. You may agree with this. And, you may find it so obvious as to respond with "duh," but others have been arguing against that point, suggesting that things have meaning outside of what consciousness assigns them.

What are you on about with going back to the existence of nothingness? Nothingness isn't a thing that exists. What of it?

You want me to read "a philosophy book?" LOL. I'll just leave that there. It's just so sweet in both its condescension and its ignorance. Cue to Archie Bunker directing his neighbor to "look it up."

[Jason]

You want me to read "a philosophy book?" LOL. I'll just leave that there. It's just so sweet in both its condescension and its ignorance. Cue to Archie Bunker directing his neighbor to "look it up."

Right. I'm sorry for being condescending, but you clearly don't grasp the concept. And your blustery demeanor annoys me. My apologies.

[Forty Two]

You want me to read "a philosophy book?" LOL. I'll just leave that there. It's just so sweet in both its condescension and its ignorance. Cue to Archie Bunker directing his neighbor to "look it up."

Right. I'm sorry for being condescending, but you clearly don't grasp the concept. And your blustery demeanor annoys me. My apologies.

I don't grasp the concept, but you agreed with me. Not only did you agree with my point, but you suggested that it was so obvious a point as to be worth a "duh." You then reiterated my point, that consciousness assigns meaning, which is precisely what I have been saying.

[Jason]

You want me to read "a philosophy book?" LOL. I'll just leave that there. It's just so sweet in both its condescension and its ignorance. Cue to Archie Bunker directing his neighbor to "look it up."

Right. I'm sorry for being condescending, but you clearly don't grasp the concept. And your blustery demeanor annoys me. My apologies.

I don't grasp the concept, but you agreed with me. Not only did you agree with my point, but you suggested that it was so obvious a point as to be worth a "duh." You then reiterated my point, that consciousness assigns meaning, which is precisely what I have been saying.

Because subjectivity or objectivity isn't at all relevant to meaninglessness. Meaninglessness can only be said to exist in reality when consciousness is absent that reality - in a hypothetical reality we can only conceive of because we're capable of basic metacognition - in the real world meaninglessness cannot exist.

[Jason]

I'm reminded of the zen meditation "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" - it's a meditation on the nature of meaning and whether it exists absent consciousness. You're meant to realize that we're meaning-making machines. We cannot apprehend even the simplest of inputs into our consciousness without it being assigned meaning. It's how conscious operating systems work.

[Forty Two]

Meaninglessness doesn't "exist." Meaninglessness is the absence of meaning, so it's not a think that exists.

Consciousness assigns meaning, of course. And, the absence of consciousness means there is no assigned meaning.

Meaning is only meaning "to" something. So, things that no conscious being is conscious of have no meaning to those conscious minds. They also have no inherent or objective meaning. Therefore, they are meaningless. That's not to say that meaninglessness exists. To say meaninglessness exists or pointlessness exists is nonsensical. They aren't things. Those words just describe the absence of certain value judgments about things.

Saying this another way -- a universe without any consciousness has no meaning of any kind. It may exist. But, it's existence is meaningless because there is nobody around for whom the universe can have meaning. Things have no inherent "meaning" built into them as such -- meaning is not objective. However, if after 13 billion years a consciousness arises that can assign meaning to things, and does assign meaning to things, then things have meaning to that conscious mind. If multiple conscious minds arise, then any meaning assigned is simply the subjective value judgments of those minds.

It's the same as valuing diamonds. One conscious mind may find them to be so valuable it would be worth killing or risking one's life for. Another conscious mind may view them as useless rocks. They have different values. Meaning is like that. A diamond exists. However, its existence does not entail a meaning. It just exists. Meaning is assigned by minds, and meaning isn't really a thing -- it's just a value judgment - it's an opinion about a thing. Subjective meaning to a mind is the only kind of meaning.