What is meaningless?

[Brian Peacock]

Everything I love and hold dear is meaningless in the "grand scheme of things. It just means to me what it means to me. And, that's enough.

OK.This is my point.

To ascribe meaninglessness to everything you love and hold dear, in the grand scheme of things, is to ascribe a meaning to everything your love and hold dear, in the grand scheme of things.

The claim that things are devoid of meaning is meaningless.

I wasn't saying things are devoid of all meaning. I was saying things have no "inherent" meaning or "objective" meaning. Things have meaning to me that are meaningless to most other people. And, most other people find meaning in things that I think are meaningless. Absent a brain, there is no meaning in anything. Take away life on Earth, and the universe doesn't mean anything. Put humans on it, and it means what humans think it means, and what it means can change over time and differs from brain to brain.

OK. I feel like you still not getting the point - and in that you're arguing for and against something entirely different, which is not to say you're wrong in any way. What I'm saying is that to say that things are meaningless, that is, in your words, that they have no inherent or objective meaning, is itself an exercise in ascribing meaning - so the discussion falls to what things can and cannot, do and do not mean. But where is 'meaninglessness' in all this? Where is the absence of meaning? Well, it's nowhere to be seen.

The point is that asserted meaninglessness is meaningful; that asserted meaninglessness is informative, and, consequentially; that no thing can never have no meaning.

Nihilism holds that all values are baseless because nothing can ever really be known or communicated about a thing. In communicating this idea, and in trying to demonstrate it, nihilism defeats itself.

If the question is, "What is meaningless?" then the answer is, "Nothing."

What things actually can and cannot, do and do not mean, is another matter.

[Forty Two]

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.

[Brian Peacock]

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?

[Forty Two]

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?

Everything is meaningless, except if a brain thinks up a meaning (significance) for it. In other words, all meaning is subjective to a brain. Meaning only has meaning "to" someone. There is no "inherent" meaning.

[Brian Peacock]

So that's a "No" then?

[Forty Two]

So that's a "No" then?

No. Didn't I just say the opposite? I gave you an example. There is no inherent or objective meaning. If the sun went supernova and devoured all life on Earth and if life on Earth is the only life in the universe, then the universe would just "be" -- it would have ZERO meaning.

An atom of hydrogen orbiting 100 light years from the center of the galaxy. That has no meaning to me. It's meaningless to me.

There is no such thing as "meaning" outside of the subjective opinion of a brain. It does not exist outside of the thoughts in brains. It's like good and evil. It's a value judgment. A thought.

To speak of a rock or a cobra as having meaning is like saying they're evil. They have no property of "evilness" about them. They are. They exist. That's all. If a person thinks a snake is evil, then it's evil to that person. If a person thinks a rock is meaningful, then it' meaningful to that person. These are value judgments made inside of brains. They aren't properties of things.

[JimC]

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.

I think that people tend to use the word in a variety of quite different ways. In the everyday sense of the word, one can ascribe meaning to an event simply because you have seen something of a pattern; it has added, perhaps in a very small way, to your working model of the world around you. For example, you notice that a portly colleague has changed his normal lunch of hamburgers for a salad, and you decide that this means that he is trying to lose weight.

On the other hand, a lot of people describe things like religion as something that gives meaning to their lives. The implication is that, without this, they would be at a loss. This is a much broader use of the word, and I suspect it is this use which nihilists are rejecting, rather than the first.

[rachelbean]

Yes Jim. For instance: "Everything happens for a reason."

That one triggers a deep nerd rage in me just because there are only two ways that stupid statement can go. Either, the response is "No shit" if we are literally talking action and reaction, e.g. you tripped because there was a bump in the road and you didn't lift your foot high enough when you took that last step, or, and what I expect most people mean when they use that phrase: it all has some bigger meaning or significance that we are yet to understand and will make everything feel better in the end. Got cancer? Everything happens for a reason. Genocide? Everything happens for a reason. Baby rape? Everything happens for a reason. It's a way to make people feel better about what they can't reconcile, and sometimes it's an excuse not to actually figure your own shit out. It's exactly the same as 'God works in mysterious ways'.

[Hermit]

I also agree with Forty Two: Meanings - any meanings whatsoever - are synthetic constructs created by intelligent life. There are none other.

[Brian Peacock]

Yes Jim. For instance: "Everything happens for a reason."

That one triggers a deep nerd rage in me

Don't make her angry; you wouldn't like her when she's angry.


...or maybe you would?

So that's a "No" then?

No. Didn't I just say the opposite? I gave you an example. There is no inherent or objective meaning. If the sun went supernova and devoured all life on Earth and if life on Earth is the only life in the universe, then the universe would just "be" -- it would have ZERO meaning.

An atom of hydrogen orbiting 100 light years from the center of the galaxy. That has no meaning to me. It's meaningless to me.

There is no such thing as "meaning" outside of the subjective opinion of a brain. It does not exist outside of the thoughts in brains. It's like good and evil. It's a value judgment. A thought.

To speak of a rock or a cobra as having meaning is like saying they're evil. They have no property of "evilness" about them. They are. They exist. That's all. If a person thinks a snake is evil, then it's evil to that person. If a person thinks a rock is meaningful, then it' meaningful to that person. These are value judgments made inside of brains. They aren't properties of things.

Firstly, I'm not arguing agin you per se, but you do have the habit of avoiding the issue and your posts are as a handy foil.

I did not ask for an example of something with the intrinsic, objective property of meaninglessness for good reason: that kind of 'meaning' doesn't means very much and is, at best, just another form of description. I asked for an example of a something with no meaning. You said 'everything', but not quite everything...

If there is no 'inherent' or 'objective' meaning to anything, a position with which I concur, and, "Everything is meaningless, except if a brain thinks up a meaning," then we are squarely pinning meaning on consciousness, that is; meaning and value are concerns for conscious beings, or; meaning is dependent on on some conscious entity ascribing a value to a thing. For example:

• thing = food;
• thing = danger;
• thing = nice;
• thing = nasty;
• thing = beautiful;
• thing = ugly;
• thing = mostly meh;
• etc etc.

On the broad point we agree, or so it seems to me, and yet this also means that to say that "Everything is meaningless, except if a brain thinks up a meaning," is to talk at crossed purposes - everything is meaningless 'in the grand scheme of things', as you said before, but every thing means something individually in the not-so-grand scheme. It says that everything is intrinsically, inherently, objectively meaningless, except when it isn't; that nothing has any meaning except when some conscious being finds or ascribes meaning to it, therefore; not everything is meaningless, only some things are meaningless - presumably only those things to which no meaning has yet been ascribed.

Think of it this way: the hydrogen atom orbiting 100 light years from the centre of the galaxy means nothing to you personally, but it means enough for you to be able to talk about it and for me to know what you mean.

The challenge, thus qualified and re-framed, is then: is there an example of a thing for which no meaning has been ascribed and/or in which no meaning is can be found by a conscious being? This of course depends on what it means to say that something-or-other means something-or-other, which is all a bit meta-meta isn't it?

Your other point was that for me to say that ascribing the quality of meaninglessness to a thing is to ascribe a kind of meaning to the thing was, basically, foolhardy - but in this I think you have missed the general point, that meaningless is always ascribed, something conscious beings come up with by various means in an attempt to convey information, to themselves and/or to others, about what a thing or things actually are, which is in this case, rather paradoxically, means conveying the information that things carry no information.

This acts is another motivation for the challenge to provide an example of a meaningless thing, as before: if everything is meaningless give an example of a thing without meaning. This challenge is unmeetable imo, because it requires a language to convey an idea and ideas and language are intrinsically meaning-laden - that's the point of languages and ideas.

To use language to tell the world that nothing has any meaning is like using a computer to tell the world that science is a conspiracy.

Boiled down:

• If everything is meaningless, what is 'meaninglessness'?
  If 'meaninglessness' is the absence of meaning then that means that 'meaninglessness' actually means something, surely?

I should probably reiterate that my beef is with a certain brand of existential nihilism, a creed which holds that all value is baseless because nothing can ever really be known or communicated.

[Forty Two]

So that's a "No" then?

No. Didn't I just say the opposite? I gave you an example. There is no inherent or objective meaning. If the sun went supernova and devoured all life on Earth and if life on Earth is the only life in the universe, then the universe would just "be" -- it would have ZERO meaning.

An atom of hydrogen orbiting 100 light years from the center of the galaxy. That has no meaning to me. It's meaningless to me.

There is no such thing as "meaning" outside of the subjective opinion of a brain. It does not exist outside of the thoughts in brains. It's like good and evil. It's a value judgment. A thought.

To speak of a rock or a cobra as having meaning is like saying they're evil. They have no property of "evilness" about them. They are. They exist. That's all. If a person thinks a snake is evil, then it's evil to that person. If a person thinks a rock is meaningful, then it' meaningful to that person. These are value judgments made inside of brains. They aren't properties of things.

Firstly, I'm not arguing agin you per se, but you do have the habit of avoiding the issue and your posts are as a handy foil.

I did not ask for an example of something with the intrinsic, objective property of meaninglessness for good reason: that kind of 'meaning' doesn't means very much and is, at best, just another form of description. I asked for an example of a something with no meaning. You said 'everything', but not quite everything...

Everything can be meaningless and meaningful, often at the same time. Is a rock meaningful? The rock I gave my wife when we got engaged has tons of meaning to her. It's very significant to her. Important to her, etc. To a castaway on a deserted island all by himself, that rock would have no meaning.

The question "think of something that has no meaning [to anyone]" well, that is asking for something that objectively has no meaning or inherently has no meaning. Either that, or you're asking for an example of something that subjectively has no meaning to every being in the universe. The first question, we both agree is everything. Everything lacks OBJECTIVE or INHERENT meaning/significance. The second one is impossible to answer, since I can only tell you what has meaning to me, and my comment on what other people find meaningful in their subjective opinions could, at best, be hearsay. For most people, I just have no idea what they think is meaningful.

If there is no 'inherent' or 'objective' meaning to anything, a position with which I concur, and, "Everything is meaningless, except if a brain thinks up a meaning," then we are squarely pinning meaning on consciousness, that is; meaning and value are concerns for conscious beings,

Some conscious beings. It hasn't been established that all conscious beings ascribe meaning to things. However, I would submit that ascribing meaning to something necessarily requires consciousness.

or; meaning is dependent on on some conscious entity ascribing a value to a thing.

That I agree with.

For example:

• thing = food;
• thing = danger;
• thing = nice;
• thing = nasty;
• thing = beautiful;
• thing = ugly;
• thing = mostly meh;
• etc etc.

On the broad point we agree, or so it seems to me, and yet this also means that to say that "Everything is meaningless, except if a brain thinks up a meaning," is to talk at crossed purposes - everything is meaningless 'in the grand scheme of things', as you said before, but every thing means something individually in the not-so-grand scheme.

A brain can ascribe subjective meaning to things that have no objective worth, value, significance, or meaning. However, not all things have subjective meaning. For example, a speck of dust floating around star 141,001,321,321 of the Andromeda galaxy, just near the 7th planet.

It says that everything is intrinsically, inherently, objectively meaningless, except when it isn't;

No, it says everything is inherently, objectively, meaningless, but it may be very much subjectively meaningful to a particular conscious entity.

that nothing has any [objective] meaning except when but some conscious being [may] finds or ascribes [subjective] meaning to it

, therefore; not everything is meaningless, only some things are OBJECTIVELY meaningless

Think of it this way: the hydrogen atom orbiting 100 light years from the centre of the galaxy means nothing to you personally, but it means enough for you to be able to talk about it and for me to know what you mean.

Existence is not meaning. I don't dispute that the universe and things in it exist. However, there is no objective meaning to that existence.

I can point to a rock and say "there it is" -- but that is not what I mean by a thing having meaning. If being able to refer tot he existence of things is the same as "meaning" then I agree with you -- existence exists. That's axiomatic. Things exist.

The challenge, thus qualified and re-framed, is then: is there an example of a thing for which no meaning has been ascribed and/or in which no meaning is can be found by a conscious being?

Everything lacks objective meaning.

It is an impossible question to answer whether there is a thing that exists which has not been ascribed meaning by a conscious entity, because we cannot read the minds of every conscious being. I would surmise or suspect, however, that most specks of dust in the Andromeda galaxy have not been ascribed meaning by conscious beings. I can't be sure, though, because General Tsao from the Tsing Tao province of China may well have a fondness for Andromeda dust.

This of course depends on what it means to say that something-or-other means something-or-other, which is all a bit meta-meta isn't it?

I defined it as far as what I'm referring to when I use the word. If you have a different definition, let me know.

Your other point was that for me to say that ascribing the quality of meaninglessness to a thing is to ascribe a kind of meaning to the thing was, basically, foolhardy -

No, I said that meaninglessness is not a quality. So, meaninglessness is not "ascribed" to it. Meaning is ascribed. Until meaning is ascribed, a thing lacks meaning.

but in this I think you have missed the general point, that meaningless is always ascribed,

Meaningless is never ascribed. When the universe came into being, there were no conscious brains, and therefore there was no meaning to any of it. It just was. Things remain so until conscious entities ascribe subjective meaning.

something conscious beings come up with by various means in an attempt to convey information, to themselves and/or to others, about what a thing or things actually are, which is in this case, rather paradoxically, means conveying the information that things carry no information.

Information is not meaning. Well, meaning is information, but not all information is meaning. Like fingers and thumbs.

This acts is another motivation for the challenge to provide an example of a meaningless thing, as before: if everything is meaningless give an example of a thing without meaning.

I never said all things lack meaning. I said, all things lack objective meaning. Things have subjective meaning when beings ascribe meaning to them. What things lack subjective meaning is impossible to know because I cannot read minds. I can only suggest a thing that most likely has evaded the awareness of all conscious beings, such that we can be sure that it lacks all meaning to all conscious beings. I strongly suspect a speck of dust referred to above, although there may be Andromedan beings that love that damn speck.

This challenge is unmeetable imo, because it requires a language to convey an idea and ideas and language are intrinsically meaning-laden - that's the point of languages and ideas.

I think this has been answered.

To use language to tell the world that nothing has any meaning is like using a computer to tell the world that science is a conspiracy.

I never said "nothing has any meaning." Lots of things have lots of meaning. That meaning is, however, subjective only, and is not objective or inherent to an object. A diamond is only meaningful because of a consensus of subjective opinion (of some people).

Boiled down:

• If everything is meaningless, what is 'meaninglessness'?

Lack of meaning -- lack of any significance. Lacking any purpose or reason.

If 'meaninglessness' is the absence of meaning then that means that 'meaninglessness' actually means something, surely?[/list]

As a word, it means lacking in any significance, purpose or reason?.

I should probably reiterate that my beef is with a certain brand of existential nihilism, a creed which holds that all value is baseless because nothing can ever really be known or communicated.

Well, nothing ever can really be fully known or communicated - that seems eminently reasonable, since we only get our information through five limited senses. We therefore cannot really "know" about the things we perceive, because everything we perceive has qualities or aspects of which we are necessarily unaware. At least, that seems probable, unless we posit that our senses actually do give us a complete and accurate picture of the universe and/or the things in it that we perceive.

Also, we don't perceive the universe in real time. Everything we perceive has already happened. Our eyes see the past, and imperfectly. Given imperfect perception, it follows that any communication that we do about things in the universe must necessarily be to some degree inaccurate too.

[Forty Two]

Yes Jim. For instance: "Everything happens for a reason."

That one triggers a deep nerd rage in me just because there are only two ways that stupid statement can go. Either, the response is "No shit" if we are literally talking action and reaction, e.g. you tripped because there was a bump in the road and you didn't lift your foot high enough when you took that last step, or, and what I expect most people mean when they use that phrase: it all has some bigger meaning or significance that we are yet to understand and will make everything feel better in the end. Got cancer? Everything happens for a reason. Genocide? Everything happens for a reason. Baby rape? Everything happens for a reason. It's a way to make people feel better about what they can't reconcile, and sometimes it's an excuse not to actually figure your own shit out. It's exactly the same as 'God works in mysterious ways'.

The "everything happens for a reason" crowd amuse me. Oh, well, your child died of horrible cancer, "everything happens for a reason." What reason? An all powerful deity has a plan, an important part of which involved a child dying horribly from cancer? That's going to save the day for God's plan?

[pErvinalia]

Yet even nihilists write books expressing their viewpoint. As long as you've got love and hate of things then those things have meaning. The only nihilist without meaning is a dead one.

How do you know there aren't nihilists who literally neither love nor hate anything? I'm fairly nihilistic, but I choose to pragmatically temper down my nihilism so I can get on better in society. The more depressed I've got over the years, the less I've found any value or meaning or joy in. There's my kids, and sometimes photography. And sometimes music and movies/tv shows. Not a real lot, though.

And even then, I'm not convinced that finding pleasure in something implies it has meaning. I found watching Breaking Bad highly enjoyable. Does that mean it has any meaning in the world? I dunno know. Doesn't seem like it to me.

[pErvinalia]

And what Coito said in the bits of his posts I read.

[Forty Two]

Everything I love and hold dear is meaningless in the "grand scheme of things. It just means to me what it means to me. And, that's enough.

OK.This is my point.

To ascribe meaninglessness to everything you love and hold dear, in the grand scheme of things, is to ascribe a meaning to everything your love and hold dear, in the grand scheme of things.

The claim that things are devoid of meaning is meaningless.

I wasn't saying things are devoid of all meaning. I was saying things have no "inherent" meaning or "objective" meaning. Things have meaning to me that are meaningless to most other people. And, most other people find meaning in things that I think are meaningless. Absent a brain, there is no meaning in anything. Take away life on Earth, and the universe doesn't mean anything. Put humans on it, and it means what humans think it means, and what it means can change over time and differs from brain to brain.

OK. I feel like you still not getting the point - and in that you're arguing for and against something entirely different, which is not to say you're wrong in any way. What I'm saying is that to say that things are meaningless, that is, in your words, that they have no inherent or objective meaning, is itself an exercise in ascribing meaning - so the discussion falls to what things can and cannot, do and do not mean. But where is 'meaninglessness' in all this? Where is the absence of meaning? Well, it's nowhere to be seen.

No, the absence of meaning isn't an assignment of meaning, The absence of meaning is the absence of an assignment of meaning.

Things have no meaning in the sense of no inherent or objective meaning. A rock is a rock. What does it mean? It doesn't "mean" anything, unless a brain creates a meaning for it. Maybe the rock is worshiped as a deity. Is it any more or less of a rock? No. Has it changed in any way? No. Is it any different? No. It's just a rock. We who worship it give it meaning. To a person from the other side of the Earth who worships trees, but not rocks, it's just a rock. It means nothing.

Things do have meaning -- they have whatever meaning a brain assigns the things. Nothing more, nothing less.

The point is that asserted meaninglessness is meaningful; that asserted meaninglessness is informative, and, consequentially; that no thing can never have no meaning.

If asserted meaninglessness is meaningful, then what does asserted meaninglessness mean?

Nihilism holds that all values are baseless because nothing can ever really be known or communicated about a thing. In communicating this idea, and in trying to demonstrate it, nihilism defeats itself.

Well, nihilism is one of many philosophies, and saying that things have no objective or inherent meaning is not nihilism.

If the question is, "What is meaningless?" then the answer is, "Nothing."

Or, everything.

Or, everything except that which a brain or brains assigns a meaning.

Meaning is an opinion. Only brains form opinions.

What things actually can and cannot, do and do not mean, is another matter.

What does a rock mean?

What does your keyboard mean?

What's meaningful about your wallpaper?

what's meaningful about an iron atom floating 110,000,000 miles from the sun?

What's meaningful about your wife, daughter, family, or dog?

Doubtless you can write an answer to each question. However, every answer you write is what it means TO YOU, and ONLY what it means to you. It is not an inherent or objective feature of the thing. And many other brains can assign many other meanings to those things, or no meaning at all. It's all value judgment. It's all opinion. Only brains make value judgments. Only brains form opinions.