What is meaning?

[UnbornTao]

You guys want to keep the consideration abstract and overly intellectual. But what is meaning, really? What shows up as constituting meaning in your own experience?

Edited June 29 by UnbornTao

[saif2]

27 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

You guys want to keep the consideration abstract and overly intellectual. But what is meaning, really? What shows up as constituting meaning in your own experience?

I see it as something quantitative more than qualitative which is weird. It is also created by a limited perspective. Sometimes when I become aware of certain emotions the meaning disappears.

 

[UnbornTao]

On 6/29/2025 at 0:28 PM, saif2 said:

I see it as something quantitative more than qualitative which is weird. It is also created by a limited perspective. Sometimes when I become aware of certain emotions the meaning disappears.

Thanks for the input.

In relation to the following picture, see if you can recognize, or pull apart, the component of meaning - as it occurs in your experience:

What does the gesture mean? What's your reaction upon seeing it? Is it offensive? How so? Can you perceive it before, or without, interpreting it?

Edited July 2 by UnbornTao

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

You guys want to keep the consideration abstract and overly intellectual. But what is meaning, really? What shows up as constituting meaning in your own experience?

Meaning is the cause effect relationship. Any meaning is built by a set of cause-and-effect relationships that your mind automatically constructs. The basic structure of the psyche avoids death and desires life. From there, it begins to build cause-and-effect relationships upon cause-and-effect relationships.

38 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Thanks for the input.

In relation to the following picture, see if you can recognize, or pull apart, the component of meaning - as it occurs in your experience:

What does the gesture mean? What's your reaction upon seeing it? Is it offensive? How so?

Seeing something for what it is - in and of itself - seems to preclude meaning. What does that tell us about meaning?

 

For example, the meaning of that photo is aggression and rejection. When you see it, you automatically create the representation of anger and hatred. These mental representations are automatically learned by associating symbols with energetic manifestations. They are internalized and become part of your psychological structure, since it is programmed to create those patterns. 

This other simbol represents victory, Neither of them means anything intrinsically, but they mean something because they are repeatedly associated with an energetic reality. This association is what creates language, and it is real, not illusory. The moment the association occurs, it is a reality, just as the moment two atoms join together they create a molecule.

 

 

Edited June 29 by Breakingthewall

[Carl-Richard]

@Nilsi You're talking about fluctuations and the power of obsession and attention to magnify something to where you prioritize something over something else. That's definitely a part of the human repetoire of meaning. Frank Zappa comes to mind as someone who sometimes worked for days on end without sleep and only ate and slept when he felt absolutely forced to. He also died of cancer at the age of 53. Some live on that chaotic and obsessive edge. But it doesn't change the fact that even the content of that meaning, boils down to biology and movement, in the sense that it's about movement through some environment, be it musical, abstract philosophy, or a literal walk in the park. And this movement is not purely incidental; it has cycles, structure, logos. A meaningful piece of art or music does not single-heartedly stand on an amorphous ground. It may hinge on divergent and chaotic elements, but its base is firm.

I know you hate me saying it, but I'm not painting an either/or picture. Meaning is structured and chaotic, dynamic and static, energy and form. I get it, you have a thing for chaos, you like chaotic philosophers, you like challenging the ortodoxy, you like giving the antithesis. But even that has a structure that can be described.

Edited June 29 by Carl-Richard

[Guest Nilsi]

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@Nilsi You're talking about fluctuations and the power of obsession and attention to magnify something to where you prioritize something over something else. That's definitely a part of the human repetoire of meaning. Frank Zappa comes to mind as someone who sometimes worked for days on end without sleep and only ate and slept when he felt absolutely forced to. He also died of cancer at the age of 53. Some live on that chaotic and obsessive edge. But it doesn't change the fact that even the content of that meaning, boils down to biology and movement, in the sense that it's about movement through some environment, be it musical, abstract philosophy, or a literal walk in the park. And this movement is not purely incidental; it has cycles, structure, logos. A meaningful piece of art or music does not single-heartedly stand on an amorphous ground. It may hinge on divergent and chaotic elements, but its base is firm.

I know you hate me saying it, but I'm not painting an either/or picture. Meaning is structured and chaotic, dynamic and static, energy and form. I get it, you have a thing for chaos, you like chaotic philosophers, you like challenging the ortodoxy, you like giving the antithesis. But even that has a structure that can be described.

I agree that meaning has structure, but any structure is just a temporary stabilization of heterogeneous intensities that inevitably break down again.

So any so-called Logos is really just a neurosis - a representational theater that masks the irrational forces sustaining it. And it’s only the most neurotic minds that can maintain such grand delusions for any length of time.

[gettoefl]

Meaning is, what is in it for me. The extent it helps or its hurts. I ascribe meaning to the helpful as worthy of my consciousness. The hurtful I discard. Something means a lot if it brings my evolution forward. What means a lot is what elevates me or recognises me as the gem I am. Awakening is turning this on its head. Instead of what is in it for me, what of me is in it. That's what I from now on get up in the morning to embrace, True meaning, me-in. Clue is in the word.

[Guest Nilsi]

31 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I agree that meaning has structure, but any structure is just a temporary stabilization of heterogeneous intensities that inevitably break down again.

So any so-called Logos is really just a neurosis - a representational theater that masks the irrational forces sustaining it. And it’s only the most neurotic minds that can maintain such grand delusions for any length of time.

And it’s neurotic in precisely the Freudian sense.

Foucault develops this brilliantly when he shows how truth is produced through disciplinary regimens - what he calls “technologies of the self.”

Just look at any example of people claiming to possess the truth: it’s always coupled with injunctions about how to attain it - Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Islam’s codes of conduct, the scientific method, shoving research chemicals up your ass, or even supposedly holistic procedures like Vervaeke’s “ecologies of practice.”

You have to neurotically discipline yourself to reach this “truth,” and the moment you stop, the Logos destabilizes and you’re thrust into “chaos.”

So Logos isn’t something that exists “out there” as a deep structure - it’s inseparable from the self participating in its production.

Edited June 29 by Nilsi

[Guest Nilsi]

1 minute ago, Nilsi said:

And it’s neurotic in precisely the Freudian sense.

Foucault develops this brilliantly when he shows how truth is produced through disciplinary regimens - what he calls “technologies of the self.”

Just look at any example of people claiming to possess the truth: it’s always coupled with injunctions about how to attain it - Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Islam’s codes of conduct, the scientific method, shoving research chemicals up your ass, or even supposedly holistic procedures like Vervaeke’s “ecologies of practice.”

You have to neurotically discipline yourself to reach this “truth,” and the moment you stop, the Logos destabilizes and you’re thrust into “chaos.”

So Logos isn’t something that exists “out there” as a deep structure - it’s inseparable from the self participating in its production.

And I’m not saying you should stop doing this - I’m certainly involved in it in my own way. But maybe we can at least be honest about what it is we’re actually doing.

[Carl-Richard]

18 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

And it’s neurotic in precisely the Freudian sense.

Foucault develops this brilliantly when he shows how truth is produced through disciplinary regimens - what he calls “technologies of the self.”

Just look at any example of people claiming to possess the truth: it’s always coupled with injunctions about how to attain it - Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Islam’s codes of conduct, the scientific method, shoving research chemicals up your ass, or even supposedly holistic procedures like Vervaeke’s “ecologies of practice.”

You have to neurotically discipline yourself to reach this “truth,” and the moment you stop, the Logos destabilizes and you’re thrust into “chaos.”

So Logos isn’t something that exists “out there” as a deep structure - it’s inseparable from the self participating in its production.

Or maybe it's about de-disciplining yourself of certain things and re-aligning with what is often more intuitive and natural. That's the conundrum of modern society and the materialist mind virus. You're essentially taught to feed yourself poison and you have to unlearn that, which requires, well, learning something. If you were never taught it, if the environment was already more healthy, you would not need to discipline yourself as much to have it. If you were a caveman living in caves 30 000 years ago, would you need to discipline yourself to be social or be in a community, "go out" and meet women, get laid, be physically active, sleep well, engage in sacred practices and rituals, lay down the phone, stop scrolling TikTok and get to work?

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Thanks for the input.

In relation to the following picture, see if you can recognize, or pull apart, the component of meaning - as it occurs in your experience:

What does the gesture mean? What's your reaction upon seeing it? Is it offensive? How so? Can you perceive it before you interpret it?

Seeing something for what it is - in and of itself - seems to precede meaning. What does that tell us about this relationship?

Ey fok yoo man.

[Guest Nilsi]

2 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Or maybe it's about de-disciplining yourself of certain things and re-aligning with what is often more intuitive and natural. That's the conundrum of modern society and the materialist mind virus. You're essentially taught to feed yourself poison and you have to unlearn that, which requires, well, learning something. If you were never taught it, if the environment was already more healthy, you would not need to discipline yourself as much to have it. If you were a caveman living in caves 30 000 years ago, would you need to discipline yourself to be social or be in a community, "go out" and meet women, get laid, be physically active, sleep well, engage in sacred practices and rituals, lay down the phone, stop scrolling TikTok and get to work?

What you call “intuitive,” “natural,” and “sacred” are already truths produced by exactly the logic I’ve described above.

As a psychologist, you should seriously consider engaging with Foucault’s work, since his primary focus was precisely on how so-called knowledge and truth are constructed in fields like psychiatry, medicine, and science. These arguments are far from trivial, yet you keep flippantly glossing over them.

[Guest Nilsi]

4 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

What you call “intuitive,” “natural,” and “sacred” are already truths produced by exactly the logic I’ve described above.

As a psychologist, you should seriously consider engaging with Foucault’s work, since his primary focus was precisely on how so-called knowledge and truth are constructed in fields like psychiatry, medicine, and science. These arguments are far from trivial, yet you keep flippantly glossing over them.

Also, don’t assume your meditation practice somehow stands outside this logic. You are producing a particular truth-knowledge precisely through that practice - or non-practice, or whatever slippery term you prefer to avoid engaging with my argument.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Nilsi said:

What you call “intuitive,” “natural,” and “sacred” are already truths produced by exactly the logic I’ve described above.

As a psychologist, you should seriously consider engaging with Foucault’s work, since his primary focus was precisely on how so-called knowledge and truth are constructed in fields like psychiatry, medicine, and science. These arguments are far from trivial, yet you keep flippantly glossing over them.

I'm lost in the sauce. What's the argument and how does it negate that certain structures have a certain naturalness to them? Does an amoeba have to discipline itself to chase a bacterium?

Edited June 29 by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

On 6/29/2025 at 4:01 PM, Carl-Richard said:

Ey fok yoo man.

But in the Dazumbé tribe (in northern Congo), that gesture is an affectionate one, meaning "I love you." So...

 

 

Btw, I had GPT make up that tribe.

Edited June 30 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

@Breakingthewall Ok, appreciate that. 

What's the cause and what's the effect in the example above?

Meaning isn't a fact of the universe, but rather a human need. The hand movement doesn't have to mean anything in itself. But since we're calling it a 'gesture', we've already confessed that it means something. How does meaning come to exist?

Also, why would it automatically engender anger and hatred? It might just as well elicit different reactions - depending on what it means to us. As I joked with Carl, in a different culture, that gesture could mean 'I love you'.

So, we can recognize two different processes in this example - on the one hand, the particular hand movement itself; on the other, the meaning that is superimposed onto that perception. These are different in nature.

Edited July 1 by UnbornTao

[Breakingthewall]

14 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

What it's missed is that the gesture itself doesn't have to mean anything

A gesture means something as soon as it is given meaning. As humans, we are genetically coded to give meaning to signs, which can be sounds, letters, symbols, or whatever. The moment that meaning is given, it is fixed in the psyche, and at that moment it becomes a real, solid and permanent energetic structure

14 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

in a different culture or tribe, that gesture could mean something else entirely

Yes in Chinese they have different words also , but the meaning is the same. The word itself means nothing until it's given meaning, but once it's given meaning, it means something real. To say that's imaginary is to misunderstand reality. Giving meaning to something is a movement of reality, something that happens. It's as real as the atomic fusion that occurs in a star. Humans are real, so the things we do, like giving meaning to a word, are real too. Everything is energy in different states; the energy of meaning is as real as the force of gravity.

A curiosity: Zipf's law is a pattern discovered by someone called Zipf that establishes that in all human languages the first word is repeated twice as often as the second, and this twice as often as the third and so on. 

Edited June 30 by Breakingthewall

[UnbornTao]

@Breakingthewall A physical gesture was used, rather than a word or symbol, to hopefully keep the focus on meaning and not language - which might derail the initial topic. In this case, it is more grounded as an exercise. 

If meaning is, in fact, given - and without this activity, it isn't found in anything - then it doesn't exist in the same domain as objective reality, as you seem to imply.

Something has to occur (in one's mind) that isn't objectively there. We could say that the hand movement is objective, and therefore different from the meaning that is applied to it. Different meanings can be applied to the same perception or object - or, with some work, something could be perceived prior to the addition of meaning. So what does this tell us about it?

Might add to this at some point.

But don't take the chatter seriously and look into it yourselves.

Edited July 1 by UnbornTao

[Breakingthewall]

6 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

meaning is, in fact, given - and without this activity, it isn't found in anything - then it doesn't exist in the same domain as objective reality, as you seem to imply.

On 29/6/2025 at 10:53 PM, UnbornTao said:

 

Objetive reality and subjective reality are the same; reality. For what you call subjective reality to exist, trillions of neuronal interconnections must occur, with a huge number of chemical exchanges and perfectly coordinated athomic and quantum movements. The entire reality is vibrating so that this finger has the meaning of aggression. There is no difference between that and the collision of two galaxies. It is reality in motion in its total expression. There is no longer a difference between you and reality. You are reality, which operates on different levels, all of them real. The meaning of that sign has the same level of reality than the entire universe, it's just the reality 

[UnbornTao]

4 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Objetive reality and subjective reality are the same; reality. For what you call subjective reality to exist, trillions of neuronal interconnections must occur, with a huge number of chemical exchanges and perfectly coordinated athomic and quantum movements. The entire reality is vibrating so that this finger has the meaning of aggression. There is no difference between that and the collision of two galaxies. It is reality in motion in its total expression. There is no longer a difference between you and reality. You are reality, which operates on different levels, all of them real. The meaning of that sign has the same level of reality than the entire universe, it's just the reality 

Okey dokey.