This is a debate in itself. Nothing exists for me. It exists. But if I asked you to get the red rose in the dark, ‘red’ wouldn’t help you here—it would be meaningless.
In that example it does, yes, I agree. The description “red” in the dark is not always meaningless.
Eh, it was a sloppy and condensed phrase. Something means whatever we say it does, it means whatever we’re using it for. If you knew the red rose was all the way on the left of the shelf, I could meaningfully tell you “Get the red rose.” Of course, you wouldn’t be doing so by looking at its color… which, if meaning is existence (as you seem to be driving at), would cause a problem.
I told you it was a debate in itself! Sure, I think color is “inherent” in an object. How we see color is not.
Yeah, but I wasn’t talking about the thought of a Chimera, I was talking about the beast called “Chimera.” Does that animal exist? Note if “Chimera” is meaningless you cannot answer the question yes or no!
How?
There is no singular “meaning of life”, that’s my point.
it seems to me that we need to be more careful about our language here. some have thought that all the questions of philosophy would vanish if we could only communicate properly.
Iamthat, what do you “mean” when you say something “means” something? what is it to have “meaning”? how is it possible that something can “mean” something, but not to someone or something that perceives that meaning (directly or indirectly)?
to me, “meaning” conveys the totality of what something is. what does a hamburger “mean”? it doesn’t mean as much if i don’t eat it…if i do, it means i will gain sustenance, and be able to enjoy a tasty meal.
how can meaning be transcendant? is it sufficient that it means something to everyone and everything? if there something that it means nothing to, is it still transcendant?
The question asked was: I am asking, if you were created for a purpose and you knew it would it not give meaning TO YOU above and beyond this life?
If I were created for a purpose and I new it, it would be meaningful to ME. This purpose would be definitive.
No one else is assigning purpose, that’s the point. Transcendent doesn’t (necessarily) refer to another entity. I am transcendent.
It becomes a question of self identity. Who is this I that you and I constantly refer to? What is its nature? Does it exist? What is it? Is it an it?
It depends on your meaning of I, how you define it.
Many on this thread have asked who is it(?) meaningful to? Maybe that’s the curcial question.
Who possesses meaning? Is it possessed? Where is it?
That’s the question.
If a transcendence, or transcendent self exists does it have meaning to itself?. Does it have self meaning?
Can it be meaningless to itself. If so, who would it be meeaningful to?
“I” is referring to the guy currently typing at my keyboard with whom you are having a dialogue. If the transcendent I is having a transcendent Dialogue with the transcendent You, then I am blissfully unaware of this fact, and I question what the relevance of such a Dialogue would be to our dialogue in the same way that I question what the relevance of my Life would be to my life. If something has no influence upon me whatsoever, then it is irrelevant to me – it doesn’t cease to exist, but it is beyond my concern.
“Meaning” is not a property inherent to an object any more than “deliciousness” is a property inherent to an object. Was my slice of pizza delicious to me? Yes, it was delicous to me, but it might have tasted absolutely horrid to somebody else had they been the one who ate it. Were such a disagreement over the pizza’s deliciousness to occur, neither I nor the pizza’s detractor could be accused of misinterpreting or defying (or whatever) the transcendent Pizza – we would have a difference of opinion, no more, no less.
That question would best be answered by a transcendent self. I am not transcendent, since I am spatially and temporally bound, therefore I can’t even begin to conceive of how a transcendent self would view itself.
Usually I am referring to myself. However in as much as we live in societies that are compromising to individual interests one has to take into account that things that have no significance to me may have some to others and vise versa. Therefore we can speak of something that has meaning to others.
Can we define “meaning” or “means something”.?
Usually I am using it to refer to something that I think has significances to me or others.
Can the meaning of a thing be separate from it?
I can bang a nail in with a hammer but can I bang a nail in with its meaning? Maybe not. But can I bang a nail in with the hammer without knowing and understand that specific function/use of the hammer which applies to banging the nail in? (I guess the nail could get banged in accidentally.)
I think the reason we cannot define things absolutely is because their function is indefinite, it keeps changing.
If “function” can partially define the hammer perhaps it can also partcially define “meaning”?
What is the function of “meaning”?
What are the functions of “meaning”?
Does “meaning” have a function(s)?
Does a thing have meaning when it is not being observed or thought of? Does the far off generator that is producing the power being used by this monitor have meaning if unperceived? Its effect has meaning for me at this moment. But does the cause? Can its cause not have meaning?
The “totality” ?..I don’t think the totality can’t be grasped. Meaning is always incomplete… No?
If we say it is to convey information, that which it conveys information to, i.e. you also "means’ something. That is, meaning has meaning to meaning.
Is meaning significant to itself?
We are more then meaning so at some point awareness or consciousness has to enter the picture, unless it can be said that meaning is an entity.
It’s probably more to the point that “meaning” is an attribute of an entity, a kind or mirror.
Yes, a debate in itself…well a few questions anyway…
Are you responsible for what you perceive?
Does your body exist for you?
Do your thoughts exist for you?
Does your awareness exist for you?
Who is this “you” that nothing exists for?
No, it still has meaning. It doesn’t have to help to have meaning. As long as I have an idea of what “red” means, a definition, it means something. If it were meaningless, “red” would be meaningless.
It means. “Get the red rose in the dark”.
reply: I can possible get a rose in the dark but I can’t guarantee its colour, although I can guarantee it will be “some” colour"
Perhaps you are right, but the meaning of the rose is always changing and not restricted to its colour. Sometimes a rose has colour sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it only has odor.
Maybe the object is “inherent” in the colour.
Okay.
I don’t know.
If its meaningless you can’t ask the question.
If a ball is rolling down a hill I tend to think the whole ball is rolling. Although the interior might not be.
Gotcha.
Is there a singular meaning to anything? I doubt it, since we don’t have a singular meaning of meaning.
[ul][li]Are you responsible for what you perceive? I… am not sure why you choose to use “responsible” there. I would say probably not, but I’m not sure I understand the question.[/li]
[li]Does your body exist for you? Not for me, no.[/li]
[li]Do your thoughts exist for you? Sometimes.[/li]
[li]Does your awareness exist for you? Sometimes.[/li]
[li]Who is this “you” that nothing exists for? It depends on what aspects are in question.[/ul][/li][quote]
It doesn’t have to help to have meaning.
[/quote]
If you say so; that is not how I handle meaning, so we’ll have to disagree here.
That is one possibility.
Of course if “red” was meaningless, “red” would be meaningless! What is that supposed to demonstrate? My point is that there are situations where “red” doesn’t have a use as a description of color; in those circumstances, it is meaningless, unless we give it another use.
The aspects we are considering of the rose shift, sure. I don’t think roses have meaning in an abstract sense.
sure I can, why couldn’t I?
Ok… sure. My problem isn’t so much with saying a thing is, in itself, total (which seems fine), but that this “totality” is what we concern ourselves with, ever.
I’m sure it is possible, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.
—I said, “That’s my view.” So I don’t know what you are going on about in the first few sentences.—
Maybe I was confused by what you said, or maybe you are confused by what you said.
But it’s very different thing to say “well, if that were so, life would have no meaning for me” and “life would have no meaning, in my view.” One is a personal estimation. The other is your claim about ALL meaning.
Even if what you REALLY meant was the former, your entire line of argument here has been to prove something akin to the latter. My “big deal” was simply to suggest that your lack of meaning says next to nothing about any and all potential meaning.
—Purpose is meaning, and would certainly be significant meaning to many. I think you are just playing the antagonist devil’s advocate.—
Really? And I think you’re just mad that I’ve dismantled your entire line of complain. But anyway, I’m not playing devil’s advocate.
Let’s go over this again: the purpose that a given someone has for me is not exhaustive. LOTS of people can have purposes for me, and different ones each. Finding out that someone has a purpose for me does not automatically make that purpose meaningful to me. It can, but it’s not NECESSARY, nor is me finding meaning in something PREMISED on the idea that someone else has a purpose for me. This is true even if we are talking about someone creating me for a purpose. Finally, none of these things are hypotheticals. Many people DO have purposes for me. I was created, by my parents, for various reasons, some of which are meaningful to me, and some of which aren’t.
Well, meaning could be transcendent if there was a transcendent mind… say, God. Some philosophers have considered the mind to be transcendent, as well.
What constitutes this “I” and where it is, is unresolved. Maybe not for you but certainly for many.
At some point in history magnetism was unknown to exist yet it still had an effect.
If we are ignorant about the nature of this existence; what consciousness and thought are in relation to this apparent material world etc., how they interact, if they do, if they are two etc… and that is beyond your concern then that is your choice. But given that you are in this discussion I will venture to guess that that is not the case for you.
I never said that ‘meaning” was a property inherent to an object. The question is, “Are “meaning” and “property” separate, or are they one and the same?
Looking at this monitor, in the immediacy of the experience there isn’t one monitor in my brain/mind and **another one ** out there. There is only ONE monitor that appears to be “out there”. (not talking about memory)
So if “meaning” is where the “experience” is where is the experience?
If I say the experience is in my body/brain the monitor is canceled out because it isn’t in my body. If I say the experience is the monitor then I am cancelled out.
This brings up Krishnamurti’s statement, “The perceiver is the perceived.”
If there is any more to my “self” than I have just described, then I am blissfully unaware of this. My Transcendent Self, or perhaps my Transcendent Not-Self (if we go Buddhist or Jainist here), apparently exerts little to no influence upon my spatial/temporal self. F’rinstance, if it turns out that I really don’t exist, why should my self (not my Self or Not-Self) care about my non-existence? If it turns out that I’m really a Transcendent Accountant, or Jazz Singer, or Vagrant, then why should I care, since I am none of these things?
Whereas the Transcendent I apparently does not have an effect. “If something has no influence upon me whatsoever, then it is irrelevant to me.”
We already know that consciousness and the material world interact – if you significantly alter somebody’s brain (by damaging it, or intoxicating it, or whatever), then you temporarily/permanently alter the person’s consciousness. Is it possible that the person has some Transcendent Consciousness that is unaffected by their material state? Well, sure, I certainly can’t prove that such a Consciousness does not exist, but I continue to question why the existence of said Consciousness matters – if alterations to my material state can alter my consciousness, then apparently my Consciousness and my consciousness are completely unrelated to one another, or at the very least my Consciousness exerts such a minimal influence upon my consciousness that merely drinking a beer can override said influence. In other words, everything points to the Consciousness either a. not existing or b. being irrelevant.
There is one monitor that I am looking at, and there is a representation of a monitor in my mind. The two are not identical, and the latter exists only in my mind (or brain-state, whichever floats your boat).
Deliciousness is in my mind (or brain-state, whatever) – my brain interprets the signals being launched from my tastebuds into “delicousness.” In other words, deliciousness is a subjective assessment, so it exists only in my mind.
The meaningfulness of my life to me is also a subjective assessment, and exists only in my mind. If God or Bob or whoever has a different assessment of the meaningfulness of my life, then this assessment exists only in God’s/Bob’s mind, and has absolutely no influence upon me whatsoever unless God/Bob tells me its/his assessment of the meaningfuless of my life (which I will then accept and/or reject as I see fit).
Why would your experience of the monitor annihilate the monitor? Isn’t it entirely possible for two (or more) people to be looking at the same monitor at the same time, and even for these people to be seeing different things when they look at the monitor (if, for example, Jill is red-green colorblind and does not see the same colors as the others, Bob is looking at the picture of the naked woman and ignoring the text, and Sam is ignoring the picture of the naked woman and reading the text)? Does Jill make some of the colors disappear? Does Bob make the text disappear? Does Sam make the picture of the naked woman disappear? No, no, and no. The features listed are all absent from the representation of the monitor in the mind of each respective viewer, but this in no way affects the monitor or the representations of the monitor held by the other viewers.
If God or Bob sees no meaning in my life, this does not nullify the meaning that I assign to my life. If God or Bob thinks that pepperoni pizza is repulsive, this does not nullify my own enjoyment of pepperoni pizza.
The question came to mind upon reading your statement, “Nothing exists for me. It exists.”
That which I perceive is a given. Whether real or an illusion this manifestation is imposed…so I think.
Thanks for replying, but I guess as you say it’s for another debate. I would say that I am the awareness.
I think, “Consciousness is the entity.” is closer to the truth then what I usually take myself to be; this body/brain.
I didn’t say that.
I said; “If it were meaningless, “red” would be meaningless.”
The “it” is the sentence; “get the red rose in the dark”
From your statement;
” But if I asked you to get the red rose in the dark, ‘red’ wouldn’t help you here—it would be meaningless.”
If “red” in the sentence is meaningless the sentence is. But I am saying that the sentence does have meaning, and “red” in the sentence has meaning.
You continue; My point is that there are situations where “red” doesn’t have a use as a description of color
[/quote]
in those circumstances, it is meaningless, unless we give it another use.
I agree. But I don’t agree that it is meaningless.
“Get the blue rose in the dark.”
“Get the black rose in the dark.”
“Get the white rose in the dark.”
"Get the invisible rose in the dark.”
They all have different meaning. Maybe I’m nit picking…
And perhaps you are correct.
Let’s continue…
You wrote:
I was talking about the beast called “Chimera.” Does that animal exist? Note if “Chimera” is meaningless you cannot answer the question yes or no!
I replied: If it’s meaningless you can’t ask the question.
You responded: sure I can, why couldn’t I?
Because if “Chimera” is meaningless what does, “Does that animal exist?”……mean?
What animal?
Do we concern ourselves with the totality of individual, fragmented parts?
Is whatever you perceive the totality of what you perceive?
If consciousness uses the brain as a tool or mechanism to work through then the condition of that mechanism will affect it.
Plus, it is yet to be proven that the material world exists.
Look closely. There is only one.
Which appears to be… “out there”
Unless of course you are seeing double.
But where is your mind?
The experience doesn’t annihilate the monitor. If I say the experience of the monitor is in my body/brain, then the monitor would be in my body/brain, which it clearly isn’t.
Of course, but that isn’t the issue. We are talking about one individual.
If “red” in the sentence is meaningless the sentence is.
Yeah, I think I can go along with that no problem. But this really demonstrates why I think that meaning isn’t transcendent: this sentence here is meaningless in that context… if the sentence had a meaning, period, then this wouldn’t be the case.
Because if “Chimera” is meaningless what does, “Does that animal exist?”……mean? What animal?
But I’m not the one saying that meaning exists independent of the subjective listener or speaker. The question means here, “Does the fictional beast described as having parts of a lion etc exist?” Now, if the meaning were somehow set it stone, this question either doesn’t make any sense, or the answer is, “Yes, that description can be made, but it doesn’t mean what it says it means—namely that there is a description of an animal like this.” When meaning is only mutable, and only contextual, a problem like whether ‘Chimera’ refers to a description or a real animal doesn’t arise, and we can in fact use it as either when the situation arises (for example, in a work of fantasy fiction).
Do we concern ourselves with the totality of individual, fragmented parts?
Not fragmented parts (which begs the question) but just: certain aspects. —Certian aspects of what? Well, of all the things we call ‘such and such’. What links them together into a whole is the blanket use of a term, not a metaphysical whole we only get glipses of through our foggy, imperfect senses.
But I’m not the one that said, "If ‘Chimera” is meaningless…
If it is meaningless it can’t be represented as there is nothing to represent, whether fictional, physical, textual, formal, mental etc.
If nothing else “Chimera” the word, is self representational and exits as such. If it were meaningless you wouldn’t be able to write or speak the word “Chimera”
When we say something is meaningless we are really saying, “It doesn’t mean this ….but it means something, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to say it’s meaningless.
“meaningless” and “nothingness” are words of convenience they do not nor can they actually mean what they attempt to mean.
“nothingness”…"meaningless(ness) are pointers attempting to signal absence but they always fail through their own presents.
I think what they attempt to point to exists it just can’t be represented in thinking or thought.
Well, I just said “nothingness” exists. That’s the problem. Nothingness exist and attempts to say it doesn’t.
It’s like me denying my existence which immediately affirms it.
That “meaningless” exists, is an oxymoron.
We’re trapped in a world of meaning.
or
We are a world of meaning.
Does something(?) transcend this meaning? Yes, but it’s not a “something”…so I think.
But “red” in the sentence isn’t meaningless and neither is the sentence. I.e. even if a sentence were to have no logical, contextual meaning it none-the-less still has meaning.
All “marks” mean something.
Yes, the way I said it does beg the question.
I was thinking of whole/parts.
Whatever I perceive is all I get and assuming there is more, is a kind of completing it. But the segment I perceive is total in that that is all there is, in this NOW.
There linked together prior to the use of any term.
The first thing I would like to say is that meaning isn’t necessarily a representation—I say that because I don’t know if you meant this quote in a general sense or only because we are discussing a chimera. If it is the latter then no problem.
Now. Let us look at what might serve as a definition of chimera: a beast that is part lion, part goat, and part serpent. Now, what does ‘chimera’ mean? If meaning is existence, chimera cannot mean the definition since chimeras don’t exist, it can only mean “the description ‘a beast that is part lion, part goat, and part serpent’.” But this presents us with a problem because the answer to “Do chimeras exist?” is then, “Yes.” Clearly not a situation we find ourselves in, so do you see why I think you go wrong to equate meaning with existence?
Sez you. “Meaningless”, for me, indicates a gesture, sound, symbol, or other appearance that has no inter-subjective use. I don’t just mean “use in communication” but use, period—an action that we do.
Only if we accept that meaning as a representation is bound to existence. I feel we are compelled to accept this if we accept some form of monism, but I honestly must admit a distinct inability to put this argument forward clearly when I most recently attempted to.
I simply do not accept this as an assertion, and I’ve never seen a development of it. Please, feel free.
Same difference.
I apologize for my apparent obtuseness, but I cannot reconcile these two statements.
Now we’ve descended into equivocation on the word “meaning” from a value judgement to semantic definition? Please.
—Although If I believe that god does not exist, then I believe god does not exist. If you say god does exist, I won’t then say, well then god exists for you. That’s bullshit. I would think that you were misinformed.—
But this isn’t even slightly an analougus situation: in fact it’s as far as you can get. We aren’t discussing matters of fact, but rather matters of estimation. If I say something is meaningful to me, it would be ridiculous to claim that I am “misinformed.”
—The difference is you assume that a god or transcendent self would be distinctly separate from you. I don’t—
You are being untruthful about me. I assumed no such thing (and you haven’t brought this “assumption” up until now!) and indeed it doesn’t matter whether it is or is not. It doesn’t change whether or not things are meaningful to various subjects, nor does it make them “transcendant.”
When is it not?
If meaning were inherent in the properties of an object would we be able to perceive its properties without perceiving its meaning?
Its “parts” have meaning as definitions in that they are defined as parts of real existing animals. I.e. If the leg of a goat is the leg of a Chimera; define the leg of a goat and you have defined the leg of a Chimera.
Does the fictional “Chimera” exist?……Yes.
Existence isn’t restricted to the existence of (apparent) material forms.
Does love exist? Empathy?
Yes I see your point, but I think you have to answer;
What does “existence” or “to exist” or “exist” mean?
What is an “existent”
Both the lion in “The lion King” and “Real lions” exist.
The former exist as fictional characters, the later as physical manifestations. If the fictional ones didn’t have any form of existence we would not be able to talk about them.
Most of us can readily distinguish between fictional beings, dream characters and what we call “real” ones, but they are all representations and “real” on their own level. I.e. when you are dreaming the dream is usually perceived as real at the time it is happening. It is only when we wakeup that it appears as illusion. So “waking up” is the deciding factor not the event.
Meaning you have to transcend the dream in order to know it for what it is.
So sometimes a thing or event etc. can have meaning and other times it can be meaningless? Both are relative?
Re: “Red in the dark”
From what I understand you’re saying, “Red in the dark”,……has existence but no meaning.
But at the moment you are in the dark not perceiving the red, How do you know it exists?
You don’t know. That it exists at that moment is a guess.
So I would say, the “Red in the dark doesn’t exist, at the moment I am in the dark not perceiving it.
And as such since the “red” in the dark is not detectable via our senses the “red” in the sentence “Get the red rose in the dark”. is not applicable. The sentence is nonsensical, but it has meaning because “nonsensical” means something.
What view or type of monism?
I was speaking in a literal sense. That “meaningless” can’t be pointed to.
It is said in Buddhism that the universe is vibrating at a very high velocity and each vibration is a NOW, a stagnant image like a still from a film strip. Movement and time are illusions created in the transition of the end of one now and the beginning of another.
How do we get from one now to the next? Perhaps we or “ I “don’t., as the universe comes into existence anew with every vibration. And the appearance to “consciousness” is that this “ I “ is continuous even though is isn’t.
Have a look at this, a conversation with Julian Barbour’s who wrote, The End of Time.
excerpt:
….” Barbour suggests that what we see as motion, in a leaping cat or a diving kingfisher, is really a series of still photographs, which are somehow brought together by the brain to produce an illusion of movement….”
My point is,…what I perceive is a complete image, even if it is blurred or partial, because it is all there IS at that moment.
It’s a whole moment.
If it’s partial what is it part of ?
It’s part of the last moment and part of the next moment, and on and on… but those other moments do not presently exist.
If I look into a doorway and see half of a table or part of a person, the actual image “like a painting” is not incomplete.
When I see half or part of a person, i.e. someone driving a car, I complete the image. i.e. I don’t imagine there is in fact only a part of a person driving the car.
I have never perceived my whole body all at once, but I fill in the missing parts on an on going basis. I have to imagine the missing parts to be there because I don’t perceive them. Do they have meaning but no physical existence WHEN I imagine them? And do they have meaning when I do not imagine them, that is, transcendent meaning?
What is the difference between what we actually perceive and what we perceive, after we “fill in” or completed the perception?
The former is the apparent material world and the later is a mental construction. Combined together we get a whole image or impression or “sense” of what we call “reality”.
Thanks for the link, I’ll have a look.
What I meant was, “awareness” is prior to the term or language. Awareness or consciousness has to come first, otherwise no observer.
This is a debate in itself. Nothing exists for me. It exists. But if I asked you to get the red rose in the dark, ‘red’ wouldn’t help you here—it would be meaningless.
Sure, I think color is “inherent” in an object. How we see color is not.