Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The Pre-Meaning



The Pre-Meaning

Consider the ‘meaning of life’. Does life have a meaning, or not? I propose that this is like the ‘first cause’ problem; in that life is full of meaningful activity, each meaning having a deeper meaning, and so on recursively, just like causation; is there a first one?
          In an earlier post I mentioned a ‘zeroth cause’, the putative cause of the putative first cause. Is there a zeroth cause? I see three resolutions: there is no first cause, as causation is infinitely deep; or there is a first cause, itself uncaused; or there is a first cause, and a zeroth cause, which cause each other.
          In similar fashion, define the “Pre-meaning” to be the meaning of the meaning of life. Is there a pre-meaning? I see three resolutions: every meaning has a deeper meaning, so there is no meaning for all of life; or life has a meaning, itself meaningless; or life has a meaning, and a pre-meaning, which mean each other.
          So either life has no meaning; or its meaning has no meaning; or meaning flows in a loop. I vote the third; life is full of loops.

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