The meaning of "meaning"

You have opened a can of worm. I agree with Dr Jack, that atheists and theists mean the same thing.The word "meaning" is a bit tricky, because we use it in many different ways. Most commonly, we use it when discussing semantics of language. But the term is also used to mean "purpose" and even "consciousness." When marc9000 suggests that atheism is a philosophy of meaninglessness (in several of his posts in Creationists think Evolutionists think like Creationists.), he seems to be going with the use of "meaning" as "purpose."This is really just an old "god of the gaps" argument. Because our concepts of meaning and purpose are somewhat vague, creationists imagine that they can find lots of gaps there in which to fit their god of the gaps.There are some people who find their lives meaningless. This is usually taken to be a symptom of clinical depression. As far as I know, atheists are no more prone to depression than are theists.

We don't have a widely accepted scientific explanation of purpose, so purpose must come from God - that seems to be a common argument. It's much like the arguments in times past that explained thunder, volcanoes, etc in terms of gods. There really isn't any more to say than that.Words such as "meaning" and "purpose" are considered part of our intentional vocabulary. Philosophers use the term "intentionality" to refer the underlying concepts. As usually described, there are two kinds of intentionality - derived intentionality and intrinsic intentionality. The latter is sometimes called "original intentionality." And of these, intrinsic intentionality is considered the gold standard. And intrinsic intentionality, which comes from within, is what atheists can claim to have.Suppose that I design a robot to vacuum my carpets. I could say that the robot has a purpose of vacuuming the carpets. That would be a case of derived intentionality. I am ascribing a purpose to the robot, but it is derived from my own purposes. If I could somehow come up with a robot that just wanted to vacuum the carpet, without being programmed to do so, then it might have the beginnings of intrinsic intentionality.AI (artificial intelligence) people haven't a clue as to how to provide a robot with intrinsic intentionality, so they tend to argue that there is no such thing and that derived intentionality is the only kind. Dennett has a book The Intentional Stance where he stakes out that position. Many people disagree with Dennett on that.So now we seem to have marc9000 arguing that intrinsic intentionality does not count, and what matters is derived intentionality provided that it is derived from God. It seems to me that this is a very weak position.A more common theistic position would seem to be that intrinsic intentionality comes from the spiritual soul, and is placed there by God. But it seems to me that such a soul based view would still have to credit atheists with intentionality (or with being able to have a meaningful life).

I should be clear that I am not a real philosopher. I'm a mathematician and computer science. I have found a need to dabble in philosophy, because of my interest in cognitive science (another can of worms). Some would say that intrinsic meaning is foundational, with the implication that you cannot be wrong about it. Others would say that it is metaphysical, and in that case presumably you could be wrong. Presumably they are going with the metaphysical viewpoint.

The question is not relevant to anything. A clay pot is inert. It does not define anything. It does not need to define anything. It has no purpose. We have a purpose for it, but the clay pot itself does not have a purpose of its own. That is unknown and unknowable. If we want a definition of God, then we must provide it ourselves, for there is nowhere else that a definition can come from. Moreover, all of the evidence shows that different people have different definitions of God, which can only be explained if they are responsible for their own definitions. I do not accept your assertions. The evidence is that human reasoning is something we learn, an acquired ability and not something we are given or born with. To say that we define God is not to say that we create God. Whether or not we create God is a different question from whether or not we define God. The first of those is unknowable. The second does not follow from the first. If God exists, whether or not he created man, then he gets to define what he means by "man". We get to define what we mean by "man" and what we mean by "God". That is the significance of meaning being subjective.Edited by nwr, : typo

I suppose I am a "great leaper" in that I agree with some of the ideas of Gould and Eldredge on punctuated equilibria. However, I don't see much discord. It's mainly a difference in emphasis. Punctuated equilibria (or "punk eek") does not offer any support at all for creationism.

Well stated. It's amazing, the way creationist jump to false conclusions about that.Well, okay, it's not amazing. Coming to faulty conclusions is par for the course for creationism.