Freedom said:

What is this meaning stuff all about? From an evolution perspective, it doesn't seem to benefit an organism at all. For example a tiger that can't appreciate the sunrise will still tear your body apart just as well as the one who can.

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Diploid said:

I speculated on this a while back:

Theists Outnumber Atheists - Lemme Tell You Why

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yeah I can see it. Although the way meaning takes shape is quite interesting. It seems that anything has the potential to be imbued with meaning, that its close to the surface. Disrupt the brain a bit through drugs or manic emotion or schizophrenia or bipolar or staying up late or blah blah blah blah and there it is, right beneath the surface. Almost as if the meaning circuit is being repressed or overridden in some manner (which isn't as far fetched as it sounds, some female behavior in mice is produced by a brain circuit that is overridden in males).

Also meaning is often random or maybe just associative. Some schizophrenics will feel profound meaning in seemingly random objects. I remember tripping and picking up a screwdriver and it became a symbol of all the technoloical ingenuity of mankind, and I became reverent over this object for the associative symbolism

Perhaps meaning is useful because it gets people really interested in random stuff, like the philosophers stone and through the intense pursuit of random stuff sometimes great things are found, like LSD (hundreds of years later an unpredictable fruit of the pursuit of the philosophers stone).

andrewss said:

What does 'meaning' mean?

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Whatever you want it to mean.

Freedom said:

no way, its got to mean something!.?;?!?'^??!

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............WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Nothing...