Stop Making Meaning Matter

Questions of meaning are a function of human life, but they are not native to the universe itself—meaning is not what we find, but what we create with the lives we live and the seeds we plant and the organizing principles according to which we sculpt our personhood.

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things y... See more

It is hard for us humans to separate information from meaning because we cannot help interpreting messages. We infuse messages with meaning automatically, fooling ourselves to believe that the meaning of a message is carried in the message. But it is not. This is only an illusion. Meaning is derived from context and prior knowledge. Meaning is the ... See more

At the end of his book What Does It All Mean? philosopher Thomas Nagel wonders if the “Meaning-capital-M” question comes from too great a sense of our own importance.1 He proposes that since “the grave is [life’s only] goal, perhaps it’s ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously.” It should be enough to simply take life as it comes and enjoy it as

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