It’s difficult to understand what people mean when they say “meaning”, because they’re always so mysterious and vague around the term.
It seems to me that most of the time, when people talk about “meaning”, they mean the dopamine hit you get when you move towards something that will elevate your social status, e.g. helping others, or sacrificing yourself for the well-being of the tribe/superorganism, or whatever else can be used as a virtue signal. (So, for example, making money for the sake of making money doesn’t feel as meaningful as making money under the veil of “fulfilling a mission” and “having impact” and “making a dent in the universe”, exactly in proportion to how much less status/prestige you’d be awarded by your tribe for the former. But, I mean, depends on your tribe; there are tribes where cynical money generation is cool (e.g. crypto traders), you’re awarded status for it, and you’ll find a corresponding sense of meaning in it.)
This is to distinguish meaning from the dopamine kick you get from moving towards other (notably short-term) goals, like food or sex. I don’t think people call that one “meaning”.
NB: The “meaning” circuit can be apparently hacked by superstimuli, like every other motivation-related part of the brain, hence videogames feeling “meaningful”.
There are other phenomena that people sometimes call “meaning”, but I think this is the most common one. (E.g. I usually use the term to mean literally meaning, in the semiotics sense, i.e. how dense the symbol web in your life is, i.e. minimum meaning = suññatā, maximum meaning = schizophrenia.)
It’s difficult to understand what people mean when they say “meaning”, because they’re always so mysterious and vague around the term.
It seems to me that most of the time, when people talk about “meaning”, they mean the dopamine hit you get when you move towards something that will elevate your social status, e.g. helping others, or sacrificing yourself for the well-being of the tribe/superorganism, or whatever else can be used as a virtue signal. (So, for example, making money for the sake of making money doesn’t feel as meaningful as making money under the veil of “fulfilling a mission” and “having impact” and “making a dent in the universe”, exactly in proportion to how much less status/prestige you’d be awarded by your tribe for the former. But, I mean, depends on your tribe; there are tribes where cynical money generation is cool (e.g. crypto traders), you’re awarded status for it, and you’ll find a corresponding sense of meaning in it.)
This is to distinguish meaning from the dopamine kick you get from moving towards other (notably short-term) goals, like food or sex. I don’t think people call that one “meaning”.
NB: The “meaning” circuit can be apparently hacked by superstimuli, like every other motivation-related part of the brain, hence videogames feeling “meaningful”.
There are other phenomena that people sometimes call “meaning”, but I think this is the most common one. (E.g. I usually use the term to mean literally meaning, in the semiotics sense, i.e. how dense the symbol web in your life is, i.e. minimum meaning = suññatā, maximum meaning = schizophrenia.)