I suspect this topic is going to have a lot of variance among individuals, and that variance will be rather heavily correlated with personality traits, emotional affect, and cultural upbringing. It’s also VERY difficult to separate actual beliefs from signaling (for status of the advice-giver or to manipulate the advice-receiver into more social/cooperative behaviors).
Many people claim that “meaning” is important to their happiness, and many claim that it’s universal. They’re probably right, but they may also be trying to convince you that they have found meaning and are therefore praise-worthy, or to convince you that you should seek meaning (preferably one they support) so you’ll be more useful to them.
For myself, I don’t seem to have actual final terminal goals (as in, a state of the universe that I consider complete and perfect). I have only relative preferences (more of X or less of Y, differences from status quo). When those preferences are fairly large in scale and it appears that my actions have moved the universe toward them, I feel satisfaction. I don’t know if that’s what other people call “meaning”, and I’m not even sure if I like it for intrinsic reasons or if I like it because it correlates with what my monkey-brain thinks should increase my status in a peer group.
Thanks! Noting your concern with conversations about meaning being about signaling: do you think that the “[...] and therefor are praise-worthy” comes from the fact that most people have a lack of meaning and do consider it important? Or do you think it’s just a signal that is no longer attached to the reality it was once (if ever) grounded in?
I can’t speak for most people. I tend to classify “search for meaning” in the same bucket as religion, in that there is an absolute majority of humans who claim it’s the most important thing, a tiny minority who ACT like it’s even a little bit important, and I don’t personally experience it very often.
I suspect this topic is going to have a lot of variance among individuals, and that variance will be rather heavily correlated with personality traits, emotional affect, and cultural upbringing. It’s also VERY difficult to separate actual beliefs from signaling (for status of the advice-giver or to manipulate the advice-receiver into more social/cooperative behaviors).
Many people claim that “meaning” is important to their happiness, and many claim that it’s universal. They’re probably right, but they may also be trying to convince you that they have found meaning and are therefore praise-worthy, or to convince you that you should seek meaning (preferably one they support) so you’ll be more useful to them.
For myself, I don’t seem to have actual final terminal goals (as in, a state of the universe that I consider complete and perfect). I have only relative preferences (more of X or less of Y, differences from status quo). When those preferences are fairly large in scale and it appears that my actions have moved the universe toward them, I feel satisfaction. I don’t know if that’s what other people call “meaning”, and I’m not even sure if I like it for intrinsic reasons or if I like it because it correlates with what my monkey-brain thinks should increase my status in a peer group.
Thanks! Noting your concern with conversations about meaning being about signaling: do you think that the “[...] and therefor are praise-worthy” comes from the fact that most people have a lack of meaning and do consider it important? Or do you think it’s just a signal that is no longer attached to the reality it was once (if ever) grounded in?
I can’t speak for most people. I tend to classify “search for meaning” in the same bucket as religion, in that there is an absolute majority of humans who claim it’s the most important thing, a tiny minority who ACT like it’s even a little bit important, and I don’t personally experience it very often.