Happiness is achieved through Meaning

[coberst]

Happiness is achieved through Meaning

I suspect that when parents are asked what are the most meaningful things in your life they will answer “My kids are the most meaningful things in my life”. A kid might say anything when asked the same question. It may be their car, their boy friend, their new hair style, their new bike, etc. The parent has had more time and experiences about which to organize what is meaningful in their life than does a kid.

The great truth of the nineteenth century was that produced by William Dilthey, which was the answer to the question “what do humans constantly strive for?” “It was “meaning” said Dilthey, meaning is the great truth about human nature.

“Everything that lives, lives by drawing together strands of experience as a basis for its action; to live is to act, to move forward into the world of experience…]b]Meaning is the relationship between parts of experience[/b].”

Man does not do this drawing together on the basis of simple experience but on the basis of concepts. Sapiens impose symbolic categories of thought on raw experience. Her conception of life determines the manner in which s/he values all of its parts.

Concludes Dilthey, meaning “is the comprehensive category through which life becomes comprehensible…Man is the meaning-creating animal.”

What are some of the fundamental considerations we must focus upon when we speak of creating meaning?

Meaning is an abstract concept. What is an abstract concept? Webster informs me that concept is defined as “an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances”. I would say that there are two types of ideas, i.e. concepts: concrete (generic) and abstract.

A concrete concept is the neural network that is created in the brain when we have a physical experience. An abstract concept is constructed, often unconsciously, by one or more concrete concepts. An abstract idea might usefully be thought of as similar to a molecule. The molecule is made up of one or more atoms and the abstract concept is made up of one or more concrete concepts. That is to say the conceptual and inference structure of a concrete concept is mapped into the “mental space” containing the abstract concept.

The concrete concept is an “objective” concept while the abstract concept is a “subjective concept”.

Examples of objective concepts becoming part of subjective concepts:

Infant feeling warm when held mapping into subjective concept of affection.
Sensing a foul smell into abstract idea of a movie “that stinks”.
Sensing the rise of milk while pouring into a measuring cup leading to a subjective judgment that prices are too high.

We are meaning creating creatures. We are creatures who create abstract ideas about which we live, die, and kill. Our task is to comprehend this fact and through the sophistication thus achieved we may be able to create abstract concepts suitable to permit our survival for a few more centuries.

[kris]

I think happiness is a universal drive. Human trait that drives quest for meaning is curiosity. I have seen far too many people in frenzied pursuit of happiness oblivious to meaning of anything.

[francis]

We are meaning creating creatures. We are creatures who create abstract ideas about which we live, die, and kill. Our task is to comprehend this fact and through the sophistication thus achieved we may be able to create abstract concepts suitable to permit our survival for a few more centuries.

Yes coberst it's true., we give meaning to everything. The whole thing, the whole kit and kaboodle, is all made up. It’s not until we understand that it's us giving meaning to everything, that we can start to look for the real meaning of life, buried under all that meaning.

[coberst]

John Rawls authored the book A Theory of Justice published in 1971 in which he offered a theory describing Justice as Fairness that describes two fundamental principles of that theory: “the liberty principle and the difference principle”.

Rawls describes justice as being equivalent to fairness.

I would say that both justice and fairness are abstract ideas and both are matters about which all humans place great importance. In fact if we give it some thought most of the things that we are willing to kill and die for are abstract ideas. Religion, nation, capitalism, all of these things are our abstract ideas that we create to provide meaning to our life.

It seems to me that there are two types of ideas: concrete ideas and abstract ideas. A concrete idea is one I form when I walk in the woods or eat a piece of pie; it is an idea that develops as a result of a physical experience. An abstract idea is a subjective development that incorporates concrete ideas into an idea that is not connected directly with a physical experience.

[Chan Tiger]

John Rawls authored the book A Theory of Justice published in 1971 in which he offered a theory describing Justice as Fairness that describes two fundamental principles of that theory: “the liberty principle and the difference principle”.

Rawls describes justice as being equivalent to fairness.

I would say that both justice and fairness are abstract ideas and both are matters about which all humans place great importance. In fact if we give it some thought most of the things that we are willing to kill and die for are abstract ideas.

There is nothing "abstract" about injustice. Billions of people across the globe are disenfranchised, marginalized, and generally powerless---and I can assure you this situation has a direct effect on their experience! If injustice is concrete, then it follows that justice is also something concrete.

And despite the attempt of the power structure to define conflicts in terms of abstractions (nation, religion, etc) most of the people doing the actual killing and dying are fighting because of equally concrete conditions. The most immediate reason for fighting often comes down to protecting one's family from real or perceived threats.

[kris]

..... In fact if we give it some thought most of the things that we are willing to kill and die for are abstract ideas. Religion, nation, capitalism, all of these things are our abstract ideas that we create to provide meaning to our life. .....

Religion and capitalism are abstrat ideas and neither is worth killing for. Makes me wonder if there is any abstract idea worth killing for. Can anyone here think of one?

Nation is really a collection of people who share a locale, culture, institutions, etc. Not sure if nation is really an abstract idea.

[schrodinger]

Happiness is achieved through Meaning


We are meaning creating creatures. We are creatures who create abstract ideas about which we live, die, and kill. Our task is to comprehend this fact and through the sophistication thus achieved we may be able to create abstract concepts suitable to permit our survival for a few more centuries.


Do we really need more abstract ideas? Right now there is a generation of people who live in virtual reality, doing just about anything “on-line” with virtual strangers and hardly ever interacting with the “real” world. Even the food they eat is “processed” to the point where many people will spend their entire life without ever seeing a real chicken, yet consume tons of chicken meat! I believe things are already far too abstract for human mental and physical health. The way things are going, the human race will consist of brains in vats, serviced by robot caretakers, and life will be just an abstract dream. No, we do not need more “concepts” to ensure our survival, but more physical interaction with the real world! In keeping with that spirit, I now turn off my computer and go out to wash my car, feed my dog(s) and maybe even read a real (hard-cover) book! The “real meaning” of life is just to live it; not dream about it!

[coberst]

Aristotle said that all men seek happiness. Freud said that the goal of the pleasure-principle is happiness. Man’s desire for happiness sets at odds to the reality-principle. It is the reality-principle that propels the world into tomorrow. Humans naturally seek what they wish but “reality imposes on human beings the necessity of renunciation of pleasures”.

Therein lay the rub and the rub is called repression.

Freud says that the whole edifice of psychoanalysis is constructed on the theory of repression—the essence of society is the repression of the individual--the essence of the individual is repression of him or her self—Freud’s theory is that the phenomena dreams, neurotic symptoms, and errors are caused—i.e. the principle of psychic determinism—they are meaningful because this means there is purpose or intention—“since the purport of these purposive expressions is generally unknown to the person whose purpose they express, Freud is driven to embrace the paradox that there are in a human being purposes of which he knows nothing, involuntary purpose”—i.e. unconscious ideas.

Neurosis is “the disease called man” Nietzsche. “Neurosis is an essential consequence of civilization or culture.” Brown

“Between “normality” and “abnormality” there is no qualitative but only a quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work.” The difference between “neurotic and healthy is only that the healthy have a socially useful form of neurosis.”

Freud defined psychoanalysis as “nothing more than discovery of the unconscious in mental life”—the other hypothesis is that “some unconscious ideas in a human being are incapable of becoming conscious to him in the ordinary way, because they are strenuously disowned and resisted by the conscious life”.

Norman Brown tells us that to comprehend Freud one must understand “repression”. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, the essence of the individual is repression of the self.”

Freud discovered the importance of repression when he discovered the meaning of the “mad” symptoms of the mentally deranged, plus the meaning of dreams, and thirdly the everyday happenings regarded as slips of the tongue, errors, and random thoughts. He concludes that dreams, mental derangements, and common every day errors (Freudian slips) have meaningful causes that can be explained. Meaningful is the key word here.

Since these psychic phenomena are unconscious we must accept that we have motivation to action with a purpose for which we are unconscious (involuntary purposes). This inner nature of which we are completely unaware leads to Freud’s definition of psychoanalysis as “nothing more than the discovery of the unconscious in mental life.”

Freud discovered that sapiens have unconscious causes which are hidden from her because they are disowned and hidden by the conscious self. The dynamic relationship between the unconscious and conscious life is a constant battle and psychoanalysis is a science of this mental conflict.

The rejection of an idea which is one’s very own and remains so is repression. The essence of repression is in the fact that the individual refuses to recognize this reality of her very own nature. This nature becomes evident when it erupts into consciousness only in dreams or neurotic symptoms or by slips of the tongue.

The unconscious is illuminated only when it is being repressed by the conscious mind. It is a process of psychic conflict. “We obtain our theory of the unconscious from the theory of repression.” Freud’s hypothesis of the repressed unconscious results from the conclusion that it is common to all humans. This is a phenomenon of everyday life; neurosis is common to all humans.

Dreams are normal phenomena and being that the structure of dreams is common to neurotics and normal people the dream is also neurotic. “Between “normality” and “abnormality” there is no qualitative but only quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work…the doctrine of the universal neurosis of mankind is the psychoanalytical analogue of the theological doctrine of original sin.”

Quotes from “Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History” Norman O. Brown

[kris]

the essence of society is the repression of the individual--the essence of the individual is repression of him or her self

One handy tool that a society uses to repress the individual is abstract ideas, e.g., religion. Is there anything good about abstract ideas?

We are meaning creating creatures. We are creatures who create abstract ideas about which we live, die, and kill.

Should we be meaning creating creatures? I don't think so. quite naturally, because I don't value abstract ideas. I don't live, die or kill for any abstract idea.

[coberst]

Meaning is fundamental. Truth and falsity are species of meaning. Meaning begins when we select from the vast universe something upon which we focus our attention.

Iraq may be slightly meaningful to me until my grandson informs me that he has joined the army. At that moment Iraq has taken a giant step in meaningfulness to me.

[francis]

Hi corberst, I haven’t read Freud or Aristotle, but what you say about people creating meaning in life, to give giving meaning to their lives just about sums up human existence. The only difference between God and god, is the capitalisation. And hey, people are prepared to die and kill to protect what gives their lives meaning. This understanding is at the core of Buddhism. The following is a bit of from the Dasabhumika Sutra.

“There is nothing in the world but the operation of our own minds. When thou dost realise that there is no personality in thy mind then thou wilt recognise that there is no reality in things as well.”

Be the Dream

Cheers :)

[Trevor]

If happiness is achieved through meaning, are you saying that happinness is in the end something without meaning, or something above meaning, or that it is relevant on the accomplishment of things that each individual person finds meaningful because they either feel that are meaningful, or that they were taught which things were meaningful, and which things weren't?
I thought that happiness was a warm puppy.

[coberst]

mistaken post

[coberst]

If happiness is achieved through meaning, are you saying that happinness is in the end something without meaning, or something above meaning, or that it is relevant on the accomplishment of things that each individual person finds meaningful because they either feel that are meaningful, or that they were taught which things were meaningful, and which things weren't?
I thought that happiness was a warm puppy.


I would say that happiness is a feeling that results from something that is meaningful. A warm puppy or a substantial bank account are good examples.

[francis]

I would say that happiness is a feeling that results from something that is meaningful. A warm puppy or a substantial bank account are good examples.

coberst, I’d doubt that money brings people happiness. People can never get enough money, so they never find happiness.

[coberst]

coberst, I’d doubt that money brings people happiness. People can never get enough money, so they never find happiness.

I suspect many people who have lost their savings in the recent financial crash might argue this point with you.

[francis]

I suspect many people who have lost their savings in the recent financial crash might argue this point with you.

That’s exactly the point.

[coberst]

That’s exactly the point.


Then we agree!

[francis]

Then we agree!

No, you missed the point. Greed and craving for money were the cause of the global crash. People keep craving for money because they think it will bring happiness; it doesn’t. People can never get enough money, so they never find happiness.