We Give The Universe Meaning, Like Nothing Else

I think I understand 42's thesis. Please check me on this, 42--and welcome to EvC.We are a symbol-making creature. It's a function of how our minds work--the most recently evolved portions of the human brain. We make pictures stand for reality. We make an image and say 'this is that.'Paint on a cave wall, in this particular shape, means a rhinoceras. Vocal sounds, in this particular series, mean 'water.' A picture I hold in my head, with this particular characteristic, means 'three.'Our ability to make one thing stand for another is the basis of all conceptualization. It is the basis of language, art, and theory of any kind.This habit of thought gives us a way to apprehend and contemplate our environment, even in the physical absence of the phenomena being considered. It makes it possible to share what we learn so that the community gains collective knowledge.As soon as our ancestors began putting one thing in place of another they invented the idea of meaning. They postulated that a drawing, a sound, or a mental picture 'means' this or that thing.It worked out well for our ancestors. The smartest among them lived a little longer and made more babies. Their descendants developed larger brain cases to house bigger cerebra that enabled them to take this ability further. Their practice of putting one thing in place of another acquired deepening levels of sophistication. Now we sit down at computers and argue the definitions of words with each other in regular mental jousts.We are so used to making one thing stand for another that the process is transparent to us most of the time we do it. We talk about speaking 'literally' and 'metaphorically' as if every word we exchange wasn't a metaphor at bottom.It's inevitable that our species would ask a question like 'What is the meaning of me'? Our survival has depended on considering everything around us and seeking meaning. What does it mean when the sky looks that way? When that smell comes from an object? When an animal makes that sound? It follows that we would look at our own existence as a crucial feature of our environment and ask the same question. We say 'If this means something else, as other things do... what is that?''Meaning' is how we think. It's built in.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : Revision.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

For the purposes of that post I'd call B (with some chagrin) an inadequately chosen example. The other two definitions, certainly. C would arise in time from the mental habit of A.All three ideas are related, though, and in the consciousness of our ancestors would tend to run together.For them to paint a picture of a rhinoceras on the cave wall would set up 'meaning' by definition A. To stab at that picture with a spear the night before a hunt would extend the meaning according to this same definition. But they would also see the latter act as one that affected the world of consequences in the manner of definition B. To stab at the picture was to help ensure a good result in the next day's hunt. And to the extent that they had come to postulate the existence of spirits who enabled good and bad results in hunts, they would view the animal itself as an living emblem of these forces. The creature itself would acquire meaning in a manner analogous to the meaning its picture had. At that point the ancients would be on their way to assigning meaning by definition C.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Science is just a disciplined version of the same thinking. It does discourage anthropomorphic models. Our ancestors gave themselves more latitude to project their own situations onto the environment. But even as science discourages anthropomorphism (and unconsciously chosen models of any sort), it makes plenty of pictures and mental constructs. Without the liberal use of placeholders science could not exist.A theory is a placeholder. A law is a placeholder. Each is a picture we carry around that stands for something in nature. But the picture is not nature.Say we have a debate about whether or not Pluto is a planet. We are discussing the placeholder. How shall we define 'planet'? It's like asking where to draw the lines to make our cave painting look like a rhinoceras. Our discussion may refine the picture in a way that makes nature more comprehensible to us. But nature couldn't care less. Pluto continues in its orbit, heedless of everything we say. I don't see how we can help thinking this way. We do it right off the bat whenever we use language.As soon as we use a series of letters

P L A N E T

to convey a certain series of sounds, we are using placeholders. When we understand the letters or sounds to mean a huge object in orbit around a star, we again use a placeholder. We are working with symbols. We say 'This means that.' I'm suggesting that questions like 'What is the meaning of the universe?' or 'What is the meaning of my existence?' arise from our evolutionary specialty: a consciousness that thinks in placeholding ways. We make meaning, we look for meaning. It's just how we think. It has served us well. And the more we do it, the better the habit seems to serve us. So those are the kinds of questions our species would inevitably ask when our thoughts turn to The Whole Enchilada. I'm not sure applying the placeholder idea to the universe makes sense at all. I am only suggesting that we do it because that is our habit of thought.We are not prone to thinking things just are. And we don't much like to think that way. 'Just so' ideas don't normally get us very far. We seek meaning. When we can't find meaning, we create it. That kind of knowledge--'meaningful' knowledge--has been far more useful to us in our survival than 'just so' knowledge. That is a beautiful question, isn't it?What if the whole universe is a symbol of something? What would it represent?Of course, maybe it just represents itself. It seems they do. I'm open to being shown otherwise.We see this thing we call the 'universe.' As soon as we ask what this thing means, we have assumed the reality of another thing. That other thing is not the universe itself, but its 'meaning'. This means that.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Refinement of cave painting.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.