there is no such thing as meaning

[sushi]

yes my conjecture is that everything is meaningless

the word concept meaning is subjective
how does information become meaning?
how does language become meaning?
how do we construct and find meaning?
what is to learn the meaning and context behind something?


how do you teach meaning to a robot brain/mind
for instance, this sentence or paragraph seems like English to me and you, but to an robot or alien, who cant understand the language, it seems like random gibberish
therefore the concept of meaning is entirely subjective, and nonsensical. Conversely, robot who use 01000 robot language to communicate sees meaning in the information, but we humans see nonsense.

it only applies to personal level. there is no such thing as universal meaning.

there is such a thing as defintion, which is related to meaning, but meaning is personal while defintion and define is more objective.
meaning is only relating to self and self experience. meaning exist in relation to self. but it does not exist at an objective level

 

[sushi]

how does one find meaning in looking art and drawing

art and drawing, just like a string information try to communicate something

but meaning we see is entirely subjective.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Well, I guess then that means your post is meaningless too, if we take your word for it.

Postmodernism in a nutshell.

 

[sushi]

meaning is dependent on perspective and experience.

we find meaning in information, reality and experience. But it is only subjective to our senses.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[Black Rose]

If meaning were totally subjective 2 + 2 could equal 5. The objective imprints into the subjective and is why we can know about the outer reality as is. We are imperfect mirrors of objective reality because objective reality encapsulates us and not the other way round. Godels incompleteness.

 

[onesteptwostep]

meaning is dependent on perspective and experience.

we find meaning in information, reality and experience. But it is only subjective to our senses.

This and the title directly contradict each other. Is it dependent or is it meaningless? Make up your mind.

 

[sushi]

perspective and experience is subjective, not objective.
meaning exist subjectively as a perspective state, but not objectively in reality outside yourself.

perspective and personalification of expereinces=self-meaning
of course you can prove me wrong by saying there is meaning in random information and language.

 

[Black Rose]

It is not random wholly. Statistics exist. 2 + 2 = 4 is True.

 

[onesteptwostep]

perspective and experience is subjective, not objective.
meaning exist subjectively as a perspective state, but not objectively in reality outside yourself.

perspective and personalification of expereinces=self-meaning
of course you can prove me wrong by saying there is meaning in random information and language.

I don't see how this ties in with how things have meaning. Does objectivity give meaning? Does subjectivity give meaning?

You claim that everything is meaningless.

I don't see how you can go further than that.

(Then you say I can prove you wrong by saying that you are wrong??)

Make up your mind.

 

[Black Rose]

To find meaning in order instead of randomness is the opposite of absurdity.

 

[buteco]

It is not random wholly. Statistics exist. 2 + 2 = 4 is True.

Not entirely true. Our perception of numbers and quantities is based on How WE percieve quantities. The subject of knowledge, us, is the only things we can be sure and have the balls to say its absolutely true no matter what. The only thing we know is that we see 2+2=4 but maybe there is more depth in those statements. Our truth is thus not on the object, but solely ob the subject. Things are to us, but we dont see them on themselves. It is becoming evident that language is direcly connected on How we perceive things and concepts as quantities. We have a superficial knowledge and conceptualization of numbers derived from experience. Experience, yes, OUR experiência. The subject os always there no matter what. Its entirely subejctive.

 

[Marron]

I think the word you (all of you (ya'll)) are looking for is "abstraction".

 

[EndogenousRebel]

We invented meaning. If you ask me it's just as real as a table, bed, fork, ect. At least it might as well be. As a culture of the same planet and race, we share meaning of a lot of things, no one will be confused by what the aforementioned items are, everyone knows what a bed is, and what is conventionally done in beds.. You can say it's just a bunch of atoms and materials combined together, and you would be right, but what is the use of doing this? You can also be taught from a young age that beds are a place to only eat, and go to sleep on the floor, but to most other people you would be "wrong." Not the case though, you know if there is a bed in someones house, it means that there is a high chance that someone sleeps in it. The conventional meaning of bed serves you for reasoning in our common reality.

Oversimplification, but successful artists know very much about shared meaning and what people conventionally think, and make decisions based on this. It's hard to please everyone, so they cater to smaller audiences. It's why American rappers make songs that keep clubs in business, keeping their music fresh, sex and intoxicants on their mind, and an image that is appealing to a lot of people for some reason. Most of the good art has already been made, at least those that speak to the persisting human experience. People take so much inspiration from shit people did a long ass time ago, and the only new thing they usually offer is a different perspective and or spectacle.

Sure there is a descriptive component that we today have as an edge, but it's so hit or miss when artists try to figure out real stuff for themselves. Being an artists is a profession these days, and they're going to give the people what they want, not advance understanding or to add more meaning to life.

 

[Marron]

We invented meaning. If you ask me it's just as real as a table, bed, fork, ect. At least it might as well be. As a culture of the same planet and race, we share meaning of a lot of things, no one will be confused by what the aforementioned items are, everyone knows what a bed is, and what is conventionally done in beds.. You can say it's just a bunch of atoms and materials combined together, and you would be right, but what is the use of doing this? You can also be taught from a young age that beds are a place to only eat, and go to sleep on the floor, but to most other people you would be "wrong." Not the case though, you know if there is a bed in someones house, it means that there is a high chance that someone sleeps in it. The conventional meaning of bed serves you for reasoning in our common reality.

^Abstraction

... I spent a few hours writing the below and was going to just delete it since EndogenousRebel said basically the same thing (I did not bother to actually READ it until I finished) and in a much smaller package but now I feel like to would be an utter waste... Gosh darn you for forcing me to write an essay (I should be doing homework)... Your "common reality" is, I think, probably analogous to my "sandbox". Perhaps I call it a sandbox because playing in it is so fun. Living in it; a good bit more variable.

Humans live in their own structures of abstraction to interpret their sensory input. Honestly, I think most people are right in their own sandboxes (perspectives), but the problem is that most people argue from their own sandbox without ever realizing that they are living in a rigidly defined and subjective world (as all do). This is why most arguments between people are dumb and pointless. I much rather argue which sandbox is best and then we can argue the interpretations and implications of that specific sandbox. The fundamental is much more fun to discuss anyway. It is just so annoyingly difficult to get people to examine their own foundations because, even if they capable of glimpsing at their own foundation (an already rare thing), they usually fail to even consider that it could be made of sand. This is why I like the image of the Necker Cube which I think ties into the importance of art.

I believe art to be a dance with the divine (the fundamental). Good art will rise a feeling of the divine because it is as close as most people can get to the fundamental truths of reality. I once posted a badly worded question to Quora asking (in a much less comprehensive way) what the best method was to show someone the "truth". I asked this question with the express purpose of answering it (which I did not do). Most of the people who did answer it said that the question was short sided (because I assumed that my truth was the absolute truth) and asked with manipulative intent. One person (whose name and face I still vividly remember (not in a threatening way)) told me that he would never let his children anywhere near me. This hurt me pretty bad considering I asked the question with good intent and he does not know me in the slightest (He does not even live in the same country as me) and considering that my answer to the question is literally just "art" (*not to mention this was my first post on literally anywhere on the internet).

After reading and talking with people who defend what I believe to be dumb arguments (mainly the arguments of the average atheist (which annoy me as much as the blindly religious)) I had to wonder, how on earth can one argue with someone who knows that they are right. Can so many people be so wrong with so little doubt? Why do debates have a winner and a looser but the looser never alters a single point in their beliefs (is is just a little game? (obviously))? This question manifested soon after a particular argument I had with a neuroscience student on free will. He used the metaphor of a pinball machine to suggest that the decisions of the brain are fully predicable and thus free will does not exist. My contention was that, under the assumption of determinism (no such thing as randomness), that your will is not constrained by fate because your will is fate. I could expand on this for a few hours (and probably will in a thread) but the point is that I realized that shifting perspectives is extremely hard for most people. How could I ever possibly hope to show him "truth" when it is something so absolute expansive (Am I sucking my own dick here? IDK). Usually I would just recommend that they go listen to hundreds of hours of Jordan Peterson, take a course in psychology, and spend a few thousand hours just thinking about stuff but this is not at all practical unless that is what you enjoy doing and even if you do it there is no guarantee at all that one is inherently capable to comprehend enough of it... or am I in a trap of underestimating people? In my experience effectively no one (except in a place like this) has eyes like fire. The eyes of Horus.

Anyway... I really like how EndogenousRebel put it. Reality is in your mind. The fact that it does not really exist in the way that you used to think it does (the universe is actually in front of me) does not at all mean it does not exist. In terms of meaning, it is just a feeling that you get from your brain interpreting that you are moving in a positive manor through life. Since we are a bit overdeveloped in intelligence we question weather that meaning is just an illusion. But, hey, who said an illusion is not real? If that was the case than nothing is real. But since everything is real then illusion is real. (Makes no sense but i don't care)

 

[ZenRaiden]

perspective and experience is subjective, not objective.
meaning exist subjectively as a perspective state, but not objectively in reality outside yourself.

Maybe you just do not know how to be objective in the first place?

 

[Black Rose]

The brain is a black box. We really do no know what is shared between two of them. But what we take in by observation is somewhat comparable. When information is exchanged this shifts the balance in the psyche. The psyche is unsettled and must settle. That is where meaning takes place. It is the middle of what one received and knows.

If we are making sense of the world we are bringing this middle inside us. Communication is a way of making a collective group/relationship middle.
The middle is a mean between the individual or group. Within the individual and group.

Meaning would be a way of making sense. Setting up a direction to go in. Or a collective to put together.

 

[sushi]

okay, i am going to try an experiment. The purpose is to find how information becomes meaning in brain, or how the brain constructs meaning out of nonsense.

for example reading or learning a really difficult book about some topic, like math or chemistry or another language i am completely alien to/


i have found an excerpt , a page that makes no sense. i dont understand the information and equation on that page , it is like alien language or text

but if let say i copy that page a thousand times, can i learn and know the meaning behind that information. Can I make sense of the information? or i do i just rote memorize it without knowing twhat it implies?

if it is inherently meaningless, I have copied and learned some rubbish.

 

[Black Rose]

The purpose is to find how information becomes meaning in brain, or how the brain constructs meaning out of nonsense.

But it can't be nonsense if it implies something. Example the alien language. We know it is not random because it looks like an intelligence created it. We would not do the same with the wind in the sand. Another way of saying it is that it is predictable therefore implies. Predicting intelligence.

 

[BurnedOut]

Postmodernism

hahahahahahahahahahah

 

[BurnedOut]

how does information become meaning?

Information becomes meaning when you figure out a way to use it. Meanings are assigned to anything that has a function. We perceive meaning by perceiving its usage. For example, the word pen having a meaning would mean that there is an object called a pen which has a function and can be perceived by the senses.

how does language become meaning?

Language is nothing but labels for anything that has a function. Since our brain can store information in various formats - kinesthetic memory, Audio, Sound, etc, the most efficient form is the one that combines all of these senses into one. Therefore when you say 'pen', you can visualize a pen, feel a pen and after hearing the word 'pen', you associate it with the memories stored in other forms. It just happens that associating sound with a memory is somehow very efficient for the brain.

how do we construct and find meaning?

By understanding its usage. Suppose, if I were to tell someone 'aldkjfadkfjaid', I am sure that the person would not understand its meaning. If 'aldkjfadkfjaid' has a meaning, it means that 'aldkjfadkfjaid' refers to an object with some use. The other person would only figure out the meaning of 'aldkjfadkfjaid' if sees that particular objects or perceives its usage.

 

[sushi]

burnout, I understand what you say, but nevertheless i am going to try.

I want to know the idea of randomness /meaningless and meaning, and how they are connected.

rote learning is learning information through memorization

non- rote learning is knowing information and its implications (through understanding and use)

but then since implication and meaning is self constructed and subjective (as per my assumption), i wonder is there a difference between the two fundamentally.

 

[sushi]

Another example to use other than foreign language is the genetic code

which is a string of AGGCTCCCG

it seems like competel randomness, or is meaning stored in it.

 

[BurnedOut]

but then since implication and meaning is self constructed and subjective (as per my assumption), i wonder is there a difference between the two fundamentally.

I get what your wanted to say.

What you are talking about right now is about abstractions.

For example -
"Essential essence is deemed nonessential."

What I may imply -
"The things that make the thing be are ignored. This meaning everybody routinely ignores contexts, situations, motives and misconstrue stuff."

How you may conjecture -
"People ignore the core of the things. They keep forgetting that a thing's essence stays the same in all situations. Therefore, people are too subjective."

You are basically telling me that subjectivism leads to randomness because there cannot be any essential meaning to anything. Actually you are wrong because we can engage in abstractions because we understand the meanings of the underlying things. Let us call that level 1. Then, level 2 is figuring out the 'other meaning', that is, the meaning of the sentence. Let us call that level 2.

Without proceeding to level 1, one cannot proceed to level 2.

Basically, what I mean to say is that, you need first understand the underlying terms in a sentence. Then if the sentence is a fact, there cannot be alternative interpretations if it is clear enough. But if the sentence is not a fact, then we 'search' for the meaning from imagining situations. Then all the imaginations are alternative meanings to the same thing. Therefore, since there are meanings, the abstraction's various interpretations are still valid despite being subjective simply because each of the interpretations is based on the concrete sensations that a person experiences while surmising the particular imagination.

Therefore, there cannot be randomness or meaninglessness to any object if you can identify it with your sense organs.

Then you may think that grammar syntax is meaningless only that it is not. Grammar syntax represents causality and identifying causality is sentient behaviour which requires pattern identification. Causality is understood by understanding the relative interdependence between events. Therefore,
"sushi is not sushi." means that there are two concrete sushis. One is you and other is the Japanese sweet. Since there is a contrast between the two meanings, the word 'is' has a meaning.

 

[gilliatt]

You have to recognize differences between knowledge as by the senses and that which comes through the intellect. Take, for example, the color red. As a form that is the source of that determinate feature that is present in any and all red objects, the redness of any particular red object can be perceived by the senses only when the red color is actually present to the eyes. I cannot properly be said to see the color red unless that color is actually before my eyes. Any red I see must be a particular red or better, that particular red that is being conveyed to my eyes right here and now.
No, intellectual cognition is different. I could think about the color red or have a concept of redness without any red object present to my senses. It could be an idea I have of red.

 

[Black Rose]

The debate between rationalism and empiricism is that in empiricism the senses should not be the way they are because there should only be random sense experiences. The seeming organization is random. Rationalism says the organization of the senses is true. Empiricism says the senses are what they are. An organizing principle is a nonsense.

Empiricism ignores what the brain does which is use networks to make predictions. The organizing principle is real of Rationality. It is abstraction i.e. perspective. Predictions form a hierarchy of what goes together and what does not. It does so by proximity and angle.

Saying no meaning exists is an empirical claim, not a rational one. It denies perspective and abstraction.

 

[Kram]

Subjective objectiveness

 

[ZenRaiden]

okay, i am going to try an experiment. The purpose is to find how information becomes meaning in brain, or how the brain constructs meaning out of nonsense.

for example reading or learning a really difficult book about some topic, like math or chemistry or another language i am completely alien to/


i have found an excerpt , a page that makes no sense. i dont understand the information and equation on that page , it is like alien language or text

but if let say i copy that page a thousand times, can i learn and know the meaning behind that information. Can I make sense of the information? or i do i just rote memorize it without knowing twhat it implies?

if it is inherently meaningless, I have copied and learned some rubbish.

You are assuming meaning has to be understood to exist. We might not even need to understand meaning in such capacity.
Why do people assume that we need have to understand meaning?
Maybe things have meaning, but they are beyond our understanding. That is alright.
Being a bird its not necessary to know how aerodynamics work.

 

[gilliatt]

This thread sounds of Kant where he is out to destroy reason. Everyone knows that the world is in a terrible state and it cannot continue on its present course much longer. All I ever hear is meaningless generalities and shameful evasions from intellectual leaders. Philosophical publications, intellectual magazines , newspapers, political speeches, either party. People want to talk, and say nothing. Dullness, boredom, people that sound like the voices of men under censorship. Bible, "Forgive me, Father, for I know not what I'm doing-and please don't tell me."

 

[sushi]

i might take back what i said before because i may be wrong

Language is simply code built with meaning, you cant understand a language because you cant understand their code , so it seem like random code.

the basic structure of a language sentence is code, form , direction, meaning.

but mathematical and numerical information is entirely diffrent.

 

[Daddy]

Language is simply code built with meaning, you cant understand a language because you cant understand their code , so it seem like random code.

If that were true, what would be the point of using language at all? It's supposed to facilitate communication...yet you say it isn't understandable...

edit: not meaning to say this as ad hominem or be condescending, but are you autistic or consider yourself on the spectrum? This seems like something such a person might say.

 

[Black Rose]

Language is abstraction. It is a reference frame of all we know into symbols. Symbols mean different things depending on what they reference inside the individual. It is not really a code, that's too simple. I refer to things inside me when I speak because the outside is inside. I know what I mean because I know what I refer to. Meaning just is that way. Abstract.

 

[Minuend]

Yes, there's no higher power telling you what's right. There's no superior logic. The only thing that exists is you and your opinions and feelings. So, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to fuck everyone like you do in an open world RPG game or will you take a minimum of responsibility and make a positive impact on the world? Not because you get gold stars from some higher power, but because you personally value it and want to contribute