Two meanings

Two meanings

I have an inconvenient tendency to look behind the curtain - it makes everyone uncomfortable. Increasingly I’ve been trying to find where biology ends and philosophy begins, and philosophy is backed into an ever shrinking corner. Maybe there is only a tiny gap that makes us human, or the concept of being a uniquely chosen, sacred species is only an illusion.

Even the search for meaning, our most profound (and profoundly vague) goal can be better understood with evolution. In fact confusion surrounds this issue because there are two meanings created over different periods of evolution, and they often conflict.

The older, stronger one is about survival. It’s nature’s way of challenging us to use and explore all our complex abilities to flourish as a species. It’s like a special exam the teacher only gives to the brightest kid in the class, a secret weapon to make him use his potential.

The newer sense of meaning comes from the conscious brain, specifically self consciousness. It reflects on the beliefs inherited from nature and spots flaws and logical incoherence – of which there are plenty in the old version of meaning.

But both have in common the definition of meaning as a process rather than the goal. The key to understanding it is the emotion of anticipation – which is a much cruder, older version of the same process.

Instinct for meaning

Our compass in the search for meaning is feelings and instincts. You can believe these are cosmic truths given to us by some cosmic force. But it’s far more likely that they evolved, like everything else in our bodies, for survival.

Emotions of pleasure and pain signals gain or loss. Anticipation and fear points the way to future gain or loss. The sense of meaning can be seen as another emotion, one that developed with our conscious brain and our ability to string together complex learning behaviour. The instinct for meaning drives us to make the most of our powerful brains, motivating us to start and persist in extremely long term, complex planning and delaying gratification.

Even in modern times, meaningfulness is very clearly associated with these things, like long term career development, learning something new and difficult, overcoming challenges, investing in a family and bringing up kids.

What are we directed to accomplish with this complex planning? Either one of two things: a) using as much of our innate abilities as possible, the ultimate example is creativity or, b) building civilization by supporting the set of conventional moralities.

a) Using our abilities is both the goal itself, and also the way we achieve the goal. Creativity therefore is its ultimate representative. New ideas are an end in itself, a pure expression of what the brain can do. But at the end of the day, even creativity has evolutionary uses in the extremely long term, it’s the ultimate long term investment. For example pure research science and philosophy.

b) Morality is associated with meaning because it allows us to organize and utilize large, complex societies. Civilization is probably the most important factor in our evolutionary success so far. Morality evolved to help us with social organization, how to balance between individual impulses and compromising for the good of the group. Search for meaning often involves building families or communities on the one hand, or fighting for causes that upholds the rights of the individual.

If that seems bleak and unromantic then stop reading, because the second type is bleaker.

The paradox of meaninglessness

Consciousness is built to search out accuracy, whereas the older brain makes whatever sense it can from whatever material is at hand. It’s one of the greatest ironies of life that consciousness will eventually find there is no meaning.

Self consciousness therefore comes to the conclusion that we are absurd.

Reality and nature is a big pool of everything mixed together, differentiated by no good or bad, or any values in between. Is one rock better or worse than another? Is the sea better or worse than the sky? Are the solar systems a good thing or a bad thing? The questions aren’t applicable, things in nature just ARE. They exist that’s all. They have no meaning. Reality is meaningless.

Then life came along, and it differentiates from the rest of nature. Life values life for itself, and assigns the value of good to alive, and bad to dead. Then it goes on to impose values on everything according to whether it helps you live or not. But it’s an imposition on reality, not reality itself.

All living things thus live in created meanings, like a story or a play. Man comes along and he is the most complex form of life, and naturally he creates the most complex form of theatre. He is an actor in a play but he doesn’t know he is acting in a play. He thinks the play is reality.

BUT the truth seeking consciousness can’t help but work out the internal incoherence of this state of affairs. Self consciousness then causes us to realize ourselves as actors in the play. But this realization conflicts with many, older and very strong instincts. Though it’s more accurate, it’s only allowed to surface from time to time.

This is why everyone has at some point felt that life is meaningless. It comes and goes. But the more self conscious you are, the harder that it will pound on your awareness. Like Neo in the Matrix.

Speaking of the Matrix, is the answer then to take the red pill? i.e. leave the matrix (the play) and go in search of the truth? The harsh answer is no because unlike the Matrix, there is no bigger story outside of the story we have woken from. Reality is meaningless - it has no stories. We have no where else to go. (And this is why the Matrix sequels are so bad, they completely lost the plot).

This is the existential crisis that’s part of the human condition. Everyone one will always have to deal with it.

The actor who realises he is acting must continue to act. The only choice is whether to embrace the acting or see it as an unsolvable trap. Only the first choice offers any chance of happiness. As a self conscious actor he can actually embrace the fundamental absurdity of life, and put all the passion he can muster into the role. He can also change his role and the play to suit his tastes.

The conscious search for meaning therefore involves creating meaning. You can choose anything and then create its meaning with the act of devotion. The more you make something important, the more value it will have. Both parts are a kind of defiance of absurdity. It’s all in the attitude.

How do the two meanings add up? Well they often conflict, especially at the existential crisis. People will be a lot happier if they knew it just exists and got comfortable with it. But choosing and creating your meaning fits in quite well with the set tasks of evolution, which was designed to draw out our creativity. Most need some of the conventional moralities to aim for, but a lot of creativity can be worked into that.

(The spanner in the wheel is modern cubical jobs in mega corporations. By being so specialized they eliminate many of the key features of meaning. Our powers of social organization have evolved faster than our emotional brains, but that’s another post.)

Since the older brain trumps the new for emotional power every time, the key is to put its requirements first. But not forget also to deal with the fallout from having our newer intelligence.

From this I can deduct a pretty clear and detailed definition of how to find meaning:

Engage in a long term project that requires complex planning and delaying gratification. It needs to be challenging enough to stretch as much of your abilities as possible.
The goal can be either stretching your abilities itself, creativity, or building society (any set of the conventional moralities).
Really devote yourself to it.
Build in as much choice and creativity as possible.
Be aware of the feelings of meaninglessness that will come up, and continue regardless.

Should I change?

The conscious mind has indirect methods to exert huge influence on the subconscious - if you know how, but since the brain works like a computer it’s a matter of technology rather than philosophy.

But I’m not interested in tools and technology. I’m interested in decisions – that tiny space in our thinking left for free will and change. At the intersection of conscious and unconscious lies change. And the crucial question with regard to change is, ‘should I change?’

It’s very hard to answer yes to this question, because it protects us from a lot of things. The pain of adopting new habits is well documented. But beyond that yawns even more abysses – a glimpse into reality without our delusions, a terrifying alien terrain of complexity and meaninglessness, and freedom.

I said before that motivation relies on a tripod of questions: Is change possible? How much can I change? And should I change?

The first two are to do with worldview, and the last with self image. To answer yes to should I change, we implicitly have to accept two scary consequences: a) that a consistent and stable self does not exist and b) we are our own creators. This brings up both a fear of death, and a fear of life.

The Buddhists have long discovered that there is no such thing as ‘I.’ If every physical cell in your body is growing, dying and being replaced at every moment, then what is a fixed, physical ‘I’ based on? Our thoughts, feelings, opinions, memories and experiences are also constantly changing – so what is this fixed concept of the self based on? It simply doesn’t exist.

But to us who have so much invested in a concept of ‘I’ any significant change holds the threat of annihilation. It’s a step towards death which is a return to nature, or reality which has no ‘I’ - it only has endless change in an indistinguishable soup of all things, all meaningless.

This is one reason there’s so much resistance to change.

The other is taking responsibility for change.

Being responsible for our own creation brings a great deal of hassle and effort – it’s like you’re constantly being reborn, and you yourself is also the midwife. It’s the end of an easy life of ignorance and dogma.

Also endless choices organized by no one else in any order again touches on unpalatable reality - an indistinguishable and meaningless soup. Having the responsibility to order this for ourselves prompts the fear of freedom, which is essentially the problem at the heart of being alive.

The word ‘should’ throughout history with its moral associations has always been a barrier of some sort – both against great fear, and against great progress.

Between this world and the next

The lifelong business of self creation involves two things: looking for new possibilities and bringing them into reality.

We are driven to create something new, and uniquely ours – this is evolution by design. We are innately creative.

In imagination we can consciously find new versions of ourselves. But there's a much greater, deeper pool of possibilities contained in the unconscious. To be the most that we can be, we search in these pools of potential and realise them through action. We move constantly between that murky world and the cold light of reality.

Self creation is difficult because it is balancing between two worlds: the imminent and the transcendent. It's all too easy to get lost in one or the other, and madness is the result.

Dreams

Artists for example live most of the time in potential, with neglected material lives. They explore the realms of possibility until they are lost. Madness in artists is no longer even a surprise.

There's an ingrained romantic myth that living in dreams is somehow more noble than being a materialist. The most famous Chinese novel, "Dream of the Red Chamber," is about the struggle between Taoism and Buddhism (on the side of transcendence), and Confucianism (realism). Like many dreamers the hero gives up the world to become a monk in the end.

But potential is only ever an empty promise until it is realised. It is a ‘nothing’ because nothing exists except in reality. It is a dead end.

Plato dealt in ideal forms – some greater truth out there we can neither see nor touch. Aristotle in contrast collected evidence of what he saw in the real world – and gave birth to science which changed our world beyond our wildest dreams.

There is a complex interplay between imagination and reality – they change each other.

Reality

The other example is interesting. Relentlessly materialistic people who spend their lives pursuing wealth and success are just as likely to be unhappy when they get there. This is a different kind of madness – that of never exploring alternatives.

Buddhists say this is the fault of endless desire, even when we get everything, we want more. Therefore they say desire is bad. But I think this is missing the point. Endless desire comes from our endless potential – which is simply a part of human nature.

Desire is the driving force of life and meeting its challenges with grace is the stuff of adulthood.

It's like a tug of war. We can get lost in either world, but for the pull of the other one pulling you back. It's strange how opposites melt into each other. Try to escape from reality through art or religion and you get lost in endless, empty potential. But try to cling to reality and you find it is itself a manifestation of endless potential.

The only real solution is to face endlessness directly.

This requires coming to terms with freedom and choice (more later), which is the only remedy to being lost.

Who am I?

Say there was a god that made the world in seven days, including all the animals, and then he made human beings. Each species gets to choose a gift. The cow chooses many stomachs to digest grass, and the big cats want physical strength and agility.

But man chooses something strange and abstract. He chooses adaptability and potential. He is a blank slate on which anything can be written, and from which anything can be formed.

Human nature is like Pandora's Box containing infinite potential, and its slow unpacking is the unfolding of human progress.

But how do these big ideas about human nature help with everyday life?

That's my roommate's complaint when I talk to her about philosophy. "Life is just about two things: finding a good career, and a nice family," she says, being a practical girl who works in finance.

It's simple according to her - but I despise simplicity, and here's why.

When you look at any self evident truth closely they slither and multiply, becoming impossible to pin down.

Finding the right career and the right partner, or even knowing what 'right' means, leads directly to the big, existential questions of who you are and what you're doing with life.

Our adaptability creates many solutions to any problem. If that Pandora's Box is full of mysterious creatures, our various potentials, life involves picking the things you want to unpack from the box.

If we are a blank slate then life is writing a narrative, bringing ideas into black and white from an infinite sea. It's creation of a story and of a person. We are self-creators
and it's our longest, biggest, most complex project.

'Who am I?' is our challenge, and our handiwork. We are all project managers.

Of course complex projects are never easy. It requires discipline, delayed gratification, big picture thinking, and persistence. Many try to escape from the task (more on neurotics later).

This project is also unavoidable because life must have meaning (more on why later).

The idea that human life is inherently suffering has been knocking about in religions since forever. Maybe it's related to this difficult, long, and unavoidable task hanging over our heads, and which comes with the package of human existence.

Imagine how traumatic birth is, but we are constantly being born. Existential self creation is one of the roots of suffering.

A related suffering is how we pick potentials to realise, and which potentials to forgo.