Re: What is the meaning of life? [new PCP node]
(no name) ((no email))
Wed, 8 Feb 1995 17:31:09 -0500
Perhaps it is useful to consider that meaning is always meanbing to & for
somebody, or some artefactually intelligent system.
If all of life is an intelligent system then it may have a
meaning for itself.
Otherwise various of us imagine meanings for it.
For people meanings tend to be either instrumental
Rational Instrumental Meaning this is enables that (which I/we want)
and so it is meaningful.
Or
Re-enacted affiliative symbolic meaning
this is what we , people of our ilk do which is part of who we are,
symbolic rituals and re-enactments which characterize members of clan or
family, but which arent done for any reason, still have immense meaning
and indeed are mainly what give meaning to most people's lives.
they arenot arbitrary but historical.
Can life in general have such non-instrumental meaning?
Survivalist instrumental meaning can be horribly destructive if not
offset by identity-meaning (Life-world) meaning.
So meaning can be seen as collecytions of meme complexes which
are symbiotic for various (eg.human) populations, and also which
are like genes ends in themselves
Eh?
Gary Boyd
boydg@vax2.concordia.ca