The Search for Meaning: Part Three

(Continued from The Search for Meaning: Part Two)

But perhaps we are close to going too far. If truth is a woman, then she is not just any woman. If she is to be seduced, then we must first know something about her, lest we miss the mark entirely and seduce the wrong woman.

What we are after is meaning herself, and not simply truth. We do wish to say true things about meaning, and to discover the truth about meaning, but we do not want to mistake meaning for truth, or truth for meaning. It would be an easy error to make: after all, meaning and truth do tend to frequent the same circles. It would be easy to accidentally seduce truth, and bring her home to bed, only to later discover that we took the wrong girl home.

We may easily become bogged down in our quest and begin asking such seemingly relevant questions as "What is the meaning of truth?" and "What is the truth of meaning?". But we are not interested in the relationship between these two women and how they came to be friends! We are only interested in bringing one home with us. We are in pursuit of meaning, which is not the truth of meaning, but rather meaning herself.

Furthermore, the meaning of meaning is not just another meaning. It is easy to forget this, in a world of dictionaries, enumerating endless words with their corresponding meanings, giving an apparently equal weight to each word and every meaning. It would perhaps be better if dictionaries left certain words undefined, leaving them for the user to define as they will. After all, that is more akin to how things work in the real world. Plato would have us believe that for every word there is a single and certain definition, the form of which exists in a world beyond our own. But in reality the meaning of a word is neither single nor certain, but rather manifold and fluid; not otherworldly, but quite pragmatically of this world. Language is developed by its users, and is always developing. Language is dynamic, not static.

But perhaps again, we have come close to going too far. Here, we are on the road to meaning. If it will help us on our journey to explore meanings, then we welcome the opportunity, but only insofar as it helps to bring us closer to our destination, which is meaning itself.

The Search for Meaning: Part Two

(Continued from The Search for Meaning: Part One)

But how can we possibly be satisfied with this? If meaning is our Eurydice, who shall disappear the moment we turn back to grasp her, how can we be sure that she is behind us at all?

We may know the myth of Orpheus, but do we know it well enough? Do we sympathize with Orpheus well enough, not only with his loss, but so too with his anxiety before he turns? Too many of us may be quick to criticize Orpheus, blaming him for his mistake without adequately understanding his position. We should be careful to understand him, for we are in just this position ourselves. Walking forward, leading our beloved Meaning out from the netherworld of obscurity and vagueness and into the light of day, can we really trust that Hades has been forthright in his deal with us? Perhaps it was merely a trick, a ruse to get us to leave without our prize. Don't look behind, he says - because there is nothing there! Shall we risk bringing only a phantom of meaning into the light, just because we were naive enough to place our faith in the Devil?

That is to say, if meaning is always close to hand and yet slips away the moment we grasp for it, what leads us to believe that there is any meaning at all, and that meaning itself is not just an illusion? Is meaning a mere article of faith, to be accepted and never questioned, lest it be revealed for the vacuous dogma that it is?

But there is meaning, both in the world and in the words we use. During pivotal moments in our lives, we celebrate that something meaningful has come to pass. Birthdays... Graduations... Marriages... Funerals. And these significant events are always accompanied by certain ceremonial words. Happy Birthday... Congratulations... 'Til Death Do Us Part... Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. Now these words and events may be repeated endlessly and grow to become mundane mere simulacra, devoid of any "weight" or significance. But, though meaning may be forgotten, it cannot be lost. If only one person comes along and says the ceremonial words with sensitivity and conviction, we are immediately reminded of the vital significance of what has happened. A thousand people may say "Congratulations" in passing, and we will forget it means a thing; but if just one congratulates us in earnest, all that is forgotten and we immediately remember why we say it in the first place.

Meaning may be forgotten, but it is never lost. It is locked deep within the words we use, ready to come to light if the right speaker comes along to subtly coax it to the surface. Here, the job of the poet and the philosopher is the same: both strive to lure meaning and truth out from the deep and into the light.

As Nietzsche wrote: "Supposing truth is a woman - what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper methods for winning a woman's heart? What is certain is that she has not allowed herself to be won - "

The Search for Meaning: Part One

If it is possible to mean something with the words that we use, if it is possible for language to have meaning, and to hold it, what then is the source of meaning? If language is built upon the foundation of meaning, what then is the bedrock upon which meaning is situated? Or are we to believe that it is, so to speak, "turtles all the way down"?

There are those who would advocate a sort of infinite regress in language. After all, "meaning" is a word, just like any other word. To search for a meaning of "meaning" that exists outside of language might not be logically possible. Words get their meanings from other words; to look for a single "origin" of meaning is absolutely impossible. Words only mean what they mean because of the total language they find themselves in. This is, roughly, the "structuralist" position regarding meaning and language, as was first given shape by linguistic pioneer Ferdinand de Saussure.

But although this question is apparently only a linguistic concern, it has much broader philosophical implications. Effectively, structuralism amounts to a transcendental nihilism, a denial not only of meaning in the world, but of meaning itself, effectively charging meaning itself with meaninglessness. But, if meaning itself were truly meaningless, surely that wouldn't mean a damn thing.

Meaning is not meaningless. There is meaning, both in the world and in the words we use. Where does it come from, and where does it go? This is perhaps the most elusive question we can ask. Like Orpheus trying to lead his beloved Eurydice out of the underworld, if we glance back at her too soon, we shall lose her forever. It is this way with meaning: it is always closest to hand, yet if we reach out to touch it, it slips away and our hands "grasp nothing save the yielding air".

Suffering and Strength

Only those that suffer hard develop iron wills. Living softly, comfortably, it is difficult for us to think of a good reason to move; like a man lying on the sofa on a lazy Sunday, he only shifts his body so as to be more comfortable; sometimes he must get up, for he has to use the restroom or get himself some food. Those who are comfortable value their comfort, but only realize how much they treasure it when they have become uncomfortable. Additionally, the level of activity of a person is directly proportional to the level of discomfort they are under.

Being comfortable is like living in a viscous sea: you cannot move much, for you are so enveloped in relaxation that you don't even notice how stuck you are until the muck slips away. And even then, you just yearn for this sea of slime to return to you, so that you may slop about in it for just a little bit more.

It is only natural that in such times as ours, nobler souls will yearn for displeasure and actively pursue the painful; despising slime, they yearn to suffer in the dry, arid sun. Let our skins dry and crack, let them even burn! Anything for the chance to move freely and swiftly, with purpose, direction and intent. Let the rest of our brethren wallow about in the muck, for we will have no more of it.

Appearance and Reality: The World and Its Chains

Man lives not in a cave, but behind a fence. We are chained, and see wonderful things beyond the fence, but few see the fence. And how quickly do we stop even noticing that it is there!

The masses look quickly beyond, and delude themselves for all their lives that the world beyond the fence is the real one. Few realize the fact that we are chained, to walls and through fences, and we shall never escape.

Fewer than these few both see the chains and come to love them. Graced with a wisdom not of their time, they accept the inevitable and live happily with their chains, knowing full well that they are a necessity of life itself. For, just think: what is real? If we will not be free of the fence nor the chains for all of life, then bondage becomes as real and as necessary as food and water.

However, there is a problem. We, who are bound, know how to communicate our ideas about bondage, and thereby enslave ourselves even further. Unfortunately, life has this tendency to wrap around itself, so “society” is born, and with it, new chains. How do these new chains compare to the old? Woe to mankind, who bring endless misery unto themselves! These imaginary constrictions, although no more real than the world beyond the fence, endlessly confuse the unwise in how closely they resemble the truth.

Postmodern Disconnection

While the virtue of language may lie in its ambiguity, the virtue of thought lies in clarity and precision. But what has happened to the common language? We have none – each of us excels in speaking only our own language, with the too-personal meanings that we put into our words. In what may be called a “postmodern disconnection”, distinct cultures gradually dissolve into one another as we move toward a global community.

But as this happens, we lose more and more faith in our basic ability to connect to social unities like nations and cultures, and so we increasingly retreat into our selves, abandoning all hope of connecting to or communicating with any social whole whatsoever.

As time passes, we lower and lower our expectations – at first not caring to communicate with the world, then losing interest in speaking with a common cultural tongue, next forgetting our national identity, eventually losing even the hope of having a genuine connection with those closest to our hearts.

There is a profound disconnection in the world around us, from the smallest, most intimate level to the grandest, most universal level – no matter where we are, everyone we meet seems to be unaware of a vital something – the scientists don't understand intuition, while the religious cannot grasp reason; the old become rigid and unyielding in their ways, while the young are too youthful to simply sit still and listen. Whatever the case, everywhere there are impossible barricades separating mind from mind and heart from heart. And this is what we call a global community?

Everywhere, people “just don't get it” - whatever “it” happens to be. And so we search – desperately. If we can find just one person to share a common tongue and understanding with, someone whom we may fully trust to understand the meaning of our words – then we are happy, and happily say: “Let all the world be destroyed, so long as I have my other.”

But isn't this consolation the saddest thing of all?

“Us against the world!” - but aren't you still part of that world, and doesn't it still pain you to witness the disconnections that persist? This connection that you were so lucky to find – does nothing to change the fact that we all have lost a much more primal connection – and does nothing to assuage the duty of each human being to fight to reclaim this lost humanity.

Madness and Civilization

Moderation in all things, even things that aren't stuff. And so too, with sanity? Between madness and sanity lies the brilliance of possibility, the power of strength, and the luminosity of spirit.

And it is this way even before society has determined what madness is; for homo sapiens is both naturally social and evolutionarily socially-aware. What is this evolved sense of social awareness? What it is aware of is not always clear (that is to say, what it attunes itself to and how it is affected by this attunement). However, its presence is evident always and it is felt most keenly in this thing called empathy. It seems that our specially (species-ally) social-egregious nature has developed the literal-physical capacity to in-feel (em-pathos), which is the capacity to feel myself exactly what it is that you feel. It was and remains best for our species that we each have this capacity to share our emotional experiences with one another, and be confident that they have been shared accurately.

But what of madness and culture? What we seek are the roots of civilization, since it is civilization wherein our own roots lie. And though it would seem that culture is the expression of a civilization, that civilization predates culture, the truth is precisely the opposite.

There is a pre-civil culture that has been imprinted upon the genetic makeup of every human being. And we are approaching it again, returning back to a more basic humanity.

And so, civilization, as the civilizing of mankind, as the domestication of homo sapiens by itself, as the human counterpoint to the ecological process of evolution, as the attempt for mankind to provide its own impetus for the improvement and progression of the species... and so, this great experiment called civilization has thus far achieved nothing, precisely.

It is my hope that civilization has thus negated itself such that it may come to know itself better and thereby proceed toward the creation of a truly human civilization, where humanity itself (as the humanness of humans) is neither demonized nor deified, but rather cherished and, more frequently, cautioned.

What Is Before Thought?

The “pre-rational” is literally that which is before reason. It is not “irrational” simply because it is technically not rational; it is not relativistic rather than absolute; it is not “primitive” thinking, if we understand primitive thinking to be somehow inferior to “developed” thinking. The pre-rational is simply that which is within us, that suggests we do or say or express something; but it is that something which exists within us before we have assigned words to it. We may casually refer to it as “a feeling” in the same sense that we say “I have a feeling that...”; but these feelings are not emotions per se, rather they are only accompanied by emotions. Indeed, if the pre-rational, pre-expressed thoughts were not accompanied by emotions, we might not even know that we had them. And even though we do, the relevance of these judgments before judgment, these expressions before expression, these thoughts before conceptualization, rationalization, or thinking – the relevance of what I call the pre-rational – is hardly understood or recognized whatsoever. What is not recognized is that, in actuality, these non-emotional “feelings” are the ultimate basis for all true thoughts, all genuine statements, and all virtuous deeds.

Loosely put, the pre-rational is the feeling before the reason; and just as it can be described as occurring before reason, it exists also before language, before any rational conceptualization whatsoever. In this way we can definitely affirm that there is a "substance", an under-standing, or a foundation, upon which language rests – and it is upon this pre-linguistic foundation that all meaning is situated, such that there is meaning outside of language after all.

The Inevitability of Misunderstandings

The principle purpose of writing is to communicate meaning, that is to say, to assist in the transference of meaning from one mind to another. But though this is the primary purpose of writing, the predominate purpose, namely, the goal which is pursued to the greatest extent, which takes the most time and consists of the most “talking”, is the dissolution of present misunderstandings and the avoidance of misunderstandings yet to come.

Because just as often as someone tries to say something, it is misread, misheard, misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Just as often as meaning is pronounced is it misinterpreted. Avoiding misinterpretation, in many respects, is easier the smaller the audience is. Talking with one person, it is easiest to communicate one's intentions. Speaking to a group, it is challenging. Addressing all humankind, it is almost impossible. But, only almost – for I maintain that it is possible, though exceedingly difficult, to communicate the truth to the widest audience imaginable. It is possible not only to come to absolute knowledge, but also to communicate that knowledge effectively to all humankind. Were this not possible, philosophy would be a fool's errand.

Power - The Second Excerpt

To have is to have; it is to possess, and all possession is power.

To have is to have; it is to hold, that is, to take hold of with a gesture of grasping. To hold is to grasp, to grasp to take hold, and to take hold to make a claim for ownership.

To have is to have; it is to own, and all owning is an extending of one's power, that is to say, the extension (expansion) of one's own being.

To have is to have; it is to make something one's own; to own, to make something one's own, that is to say, to bring it within oneself. When one possesses a farm, it is not ever through inheritance; such is legal possession, but it is not true having.

That which one has, has one; that which you own, owns you; to have a farm means to be responsible for it, and for it to become responsible for you. True ownership transforms the owner.

Power - The First Excerpt

To be powerful is to have power; power is possession, it is past. To be powerful is to be willful, to “have” will-power, which is to be capable of willing things into presence. Power is directed toward the future, in its willing-nature, but finds its source in the past, in its having-nature.

But also, to be powerful is to be empowered; that is to say, to be with power, for power to be with-and-in you, for power to be present.

Admittedly, this is highly counter-intuitive. Common sense says that the existence of power is dependent on its being exercised. Power that is not exercised is merely theoretical.

But power as presence is not theoretical. The exercise and execution of power is not necessary for it to exist; it exists in the present, as an inactive activity, as an active inactivity.

It exists in the present not theoretically, not possibly, but actually, whether the one possessing power is cognizant of its being-there or not.

We speak of people having airs about them, of people emanating an “energy” or “aura”. Although typically such words conjure images of fortune tellers and new age metaphysics, there is nothing mystical about the practical existence of this so-called “atmosphere”.

We all have just such an atmosphere about us, always. Our being reaches out into the world whether we bear witness to it or not.

The Two Houses

To live means to choose. To be born means to be born into society. To be social means to live in the world of others, both dead and still living. To live in this world means all of these things. To choose means to step into one of two houses. There is no reconciliation, there is only separation and choice. One cannot walk from one house into the other; to waver in one's deciding is to step no further than the threshold of either house. Only those who live in the house know what it means to do so; and we cannot ever know what the other would mean. Total strangers, those who live in the one house rather than the other. They cannot know each other, they cannot understand each other; they are separated by an infinite unseeing abyss. And none live outside of both, peering into the windows. Not one.

The irreconcilability of perspective, the fractures innate to existence herself.

This is my natural understanding of my circumstances; I go straight from concrete actuality to the most abstract abstraction. My second movement is to drop all abstractions and write (and say) only the facts, but this is a hopeless endeavor. As little as those foreign to myself understand the abstract generalities I express, even little can they grasp the significance the bare facts have for myself. Even expressing the bare facts of my subjective apprehension of the scenario is ineffective. What I understand by saying "I feel" shall be quite different from what another says by those same words; specificity of feeling is the most challenging thing to relate to another. We do not feel generally; our feelings are quite specific, quite unique, quite incommunicable.

The dangers of the intuitive mind which lives still within the haze of indiscernibility. Our emotions are flavored into complex recipes, frequently of disaster. Follow your heart, speak your mind; the heart has its reasons which reason does not know (Pascal), the reason has its understanding which the heart cannot penetrate. The heart does not have words to speak; it speaks in implication and misdirection. The heart has no words to speak; but fools that we are, we try to let it set our reason into motion. We should not be surprised, then, when our heart wraps our words into an irrational senselessness.

Love thyself first and highest. Honor thyself.

Creation Myth

Before there were things present or past, before the moisture in the aether came together into the smallest of droplets and before these droplets coalesced into the unending flow of time, there were no divisors. All was One, and the One was perfectly unaware of the possibility of many. In no discernible manner, time gave way, devoid of any intent, to the separation of now from then. Ineffably, the One undid itself, and Chaos was born. With no knowledge of the infinite diversity of existence, Reality herself lacked any semblance of confidence, and as such, cowered from herself and hid from meaning. This was Chaos.

In time, as Reality hid in fear, the differences became sentient. Black knew it was black, and gave itself meaning by hating the white. Darkness knew it was darkness, and gave itself meaning by hating the light. In this way, Reality hid from her children, so they turned against each other. First mother that she was, there was no other to believe in her, and she was petrified by the unknown. Woe to she who must wait for a husband in her children! Woe to the naive progenitor, who could never look to without for hope, peace, or faith!

Her children named their new way Order, and though they each hated each other, they were yet united in their unanimous rejection of Chaos. Reality remained hidden and began to hate herself as her children did. However, this faded in time. The first mother became wise and forgave herself. She knew that she was no longer afraid, yet she could still do nothing. Now was the time for patience.

She allowed darkness to war against light, waiting for the day of reconciliation. Still, she waits, but with an increasingly eager spirit. For she knows the day is drawing near in which the many will come together again to be One.

The Dialectic of Reconciliation - A Fragment

And what is required to achieve unity, peace and reconciliation of the most disparate views? Many things, but one thing; the will to do so, which means, a certain attitude, the attitude of open-mindedness, the attitude of understanding, which is the will to hear what one does not think, which is merely the willingness to listen. “If you will not listen, you cannot hear me.” If you will not listen, I cannot speak with you, only to you, as to an uncompromising wall. And if you are such a wall, that wall is your strength for it cannot be breached by anyone; the wall can only fall if it desires to fall, only crumble if it desires dust instead; which means, the unhearing walls of people only fall when they would rather have no belief at all than have only their own belief, rather have and be a desert than a castle, but we have not yet discovered the oasis which is real belief, which has no firm, definite limits enclosing it, the oasis which transitively flows between perfection and nothingness.

Problems of the World: Part 1 - Overpopulation

Problems of the World

A tripartite analysis of the most influential and pressing matters facing mankind in the 21st century.

Part I: Overpopulation

To divide all of the divers and complex problems facing mankind into only three parts may seem a task too Herculean for even one as capable as your author, but I assure you, it is not. If anything, it is rather I that is too Herculean for the problems of the world, not the other way around.

Egotism aside, there are reasons other than my arrogance that I have begun as I have. Though there are certainly not only three problems in the world today, I shall argue that these three problems (overpopulation, bureaucracy and technology) are simultaneously the most important and the most neglected issues of our time.

Each of these broad categories describes a broad spectrum of more tangible problems. It is my job to argue that, however unique many of the world’s problems are (e.g. poverty, war, nuclear energy), most of them originate within one of the three categories I have described. In other words, although global poverty is indeed a problem, you cannot reliably remedy it except by addressing the overarching problem of overpopulation.

So, if we were to enumerate all of the sub-problems that are, directly or indirectly, caused by overpopulation, what kind of list would we be looking at? Certainly both poverty and hunger would be on that list, as overpopulation causes scarcity of resources, which results in a significant portion of the populace living in destitution. The problem of global climate change, which has been given massive recognition, is also supplanted by the greater issue of overpopulation. The overabundance of people on this planet is one of the primary causes of global warming. Al Gore recognized this truth, but the majority of people still remain unaware of the connection between these two problems. If there were fewer persons on Earth, the resources expended by man would be reduced, resulting in a massive decrease in the amount of greenhouse gases released into the air. It seems intuitive that these problems are related, yet have you ever seen overpopulation addressed in the same conversation as global warming? When, if ever, is it considered in our quest to remedy global warming?

But more importantly, if overpopulation is one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, how are we to bring about a worldwide reduction in population? If this is indeed the problem, how are we to fix it?

O Canada

"O Canada" - the world's most mildly enthusiastic song of patriotism. I translated the lyrics for fun because they were short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwDvF0NtgdU

Original Lyrics:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Lyrics translated:

Canada is the place that we live and where we were born.
People who were born here really like it here.
We look at Canada with admiration and are grateful that it is not ruled by America.
Wherever you are in Canada, there are Canadians.
I sure hope that Canada continues to not be ruled by America.
Wherever you are in Canada, there are Canadians.
Hopefully that will be enough.

On the Progress of Technology - The First Expansion

In one sense, the purpose of something is that which it is for; purpose pertains to the function of a given thing. But in reference to human beings, purpose takes on a different connotation. The purpose of my life is not strictly-speaking a function of my living, since functions are generally reserved for things and not people. However, purpose is still a certain “for-which”, one that I assign to myself; partially in the context of my world, partially in the context of my choices and desires. Both my place in the world and my own-most essence are considered in my deliberating upon a purpose for my life.

The meaning of a life (and how meaningful it shall be) is related to the purpose of that life, but it is not quite the same thing. The purpose of my life is deliberated upon and ultimately decided (although not always, nor in most cases, by myself). On the other hand, the meaning of my life is not up to me whatsoever. In many ways, the meaning of a life is only determined after death, by those who have been affected by us; and even then, the meaning of (for instance) the life of Napoleon remains ambiguous and dependent on who is deliberating on the meaning of his life (historians, biographers, etc.).

But what is more important is to note the key difference: that purpose is determined before the fact, by the subject, whereas meaning is determined after the fact, of the subject. That is to say a number of things. Firstly, purpose is always temporally prior to meaning; which is the same as saying that meaning always occurs after the fact. An action that is still happening cannot be meaningful until it has been completed. Secondly, although both purpose and meaning are always “about” the subject, the subject can only be responsible for deliberating upon its purpose, which is the “direction” his or her life can take. Lastly, there is a medium through which purpose and meaning are related causally. That medium is the subject's life, which is simultaneously what we happen to do and where we happen to be while we are doing it. One is tempted to associate the purpose of a life to its actions, and the meaning to the context in which it lives; but this would be false. On the one hand, our purpose is just as much expressive of where we happen to be as it is of what we happen to do; on the other, our meaning is drawn just as much from our actions as it is drawn from our place in the world.

However, even in this clarification I feel that I have missed the particular significance of what it means to live a purposeful life, and what it means to live a meaningful life. I can say that I feel that my life has purpose; that is to say, that I feel that I am really going somewhere and doing something with my life. I can say that I feel that my life has meaning; that is to say, that I feel that what I am doing with my life is significant. In any case, purpose is a directing of the subject toward itself (my purpose, the purpose of my life), whereas meaning is always directed from the subject toward something else. I can live a purposeful life that is not meaningful: if my life and what I do with it matters only to myself. Similarly, I can live a meaningful life that is not purposeful: if I live my life unreflectively and yet manage to do something that matters to someone, or if I happen to be somewhere where my mere presence has drastic implications. I will not provide examples; I assume that you will be able to think of adequate ones yourself.

To bring the matter back to my last essay, “On the Progress of Technology”, we must introduce a third distinction. Not only is there a great difference between living purposefully and living meaningfully, there is a third possibility: living *deliberately*. I have carefully used the word “deliberate” up to this point in order to hint at the fact that the question of deliberation is always prior to questions of meaning and purpose. To ask whether it is possible to live a purposeful or meaningful life is necessarily to give oneself the responsibility to live and to act in a self-conscious and self-aware state-of-mind. In the very posing of the question, we already assume that the answering must just as self-aware as the questioning. We presume that the meaningful and purposeful life must be *deliberately lived* if it is to have any meaning or purpose at all.

Let us look a little closer at the relationships between these three concepts. Without directly addressing the definition of deliberateness itself, since I am quite sure that you know what it is to be deliberate, self-aware and conscious of oneself, let's dive directly into the types of deliberation.

There are two sorts, each of which corresponds to one side of the traditional mind-body dichotomy.

The first sort is related to the thoughts of a person (qua mind). I can consider what I am to do; that is, I can deliberately think. It is interesting, although not presently relevant to note how we can deliberate with one another upon a common thought. In this respect we may take notice of the fact that deliberation qua thought need not correspond to just one mind. But, I digress.

The second sort of deliberateness is related to the actions of a person (qua body). Anything that I do, I do either deliberately or habitually. If we are to value self-awareness and conscious living over the alternative, we must always value deliberate acts over habitual ones. We will not consider here the difference between good and bad habits except to say that if there are any good habits, it is only because we are incapable of being deliberately engaged in our worldly doings all of the time. If it were possible to always act deliberately, all habits would be bad habits. But for now, enough has been said regarding habit.

The ways are manifold in which deliberateness is related to the meaningful and the purposeful. In order to proceed from the twofold concept of deliberateness to the two concepts of purpose and meaning, I suggest the following “inner-to-outer” schema: from the mind and the act of deliberate consideration, to the body and the deliberate action thereof, to the world itself, toward which all notions of purpose and meaning are ultimately directed. Please be aware that, although I will primarily discuss these stages in their ideal form, the ideality of later stages is not necessarily dependent upon the ideality of the preceding ones. For example, I may make a deliberate action without having deliberated upon it.

My deliberate consideration of something, if it happens at all, is always prior to a purposeful action (which may or may not be deliberately performed). It is in this vein that we say that we consider our possibilities and make a decision as to what we shall do. Although decisions may be about actions, they are not part of the actions themselves. We can say that once someone makes a choice, that sets into motion a whole series of events, but that is only contingently true; that is, contingent upon following-through with that choice. The choice may be made, but it is only actual when it is acted upon and when events in the world are set in motion.

I may also make a deliberate action. The deliberate action always has a *certain* for-which; that is, it is always directed toward a specific purpose. In terms of thoughts, deliberation has its own certain for-which; that is, it is always aims at and is concerned with meaning. But, as we have seen, although purposive, deliberate actions always have their purpose determined by the subject itself, meaning-oriented, deliberate concerns always have their meaning determined by someone aside from the subject. In this way, we must look towards the world as the medium through which meaning and purpose are transmitted.

I cannot doubt that such-and-such person's action was for the purpose he intended, so long as his action was performed deliberately. We could say that the purpose of his action has been preserved in the world it has affected, but that would be misleading. Here, although we may consider the world as the medium for the transmission of a knowledge of purposiveness between one mind and another, that is not really true. The purposive is inherently tied up in actions, which are always happenings that occur in the world. In this sense, purpose inheres within the world itself and that which pertains to it, namely bodies. Minds have nothing to do with the matter.

However, I can doubt why someone does what they do and what is meant by their actions, whether they deliberate upon doing them beforehand or not. We could say that the meaning of his actions has been obfuscated by the world, but again that would be misleading. Making use of this metaphor that describes the transmission of meaning from one mind through the world to another mind, raises more questions than it answers; in fact, it answers no questions at all, merely presenting us with a highly obtrusive schema of reckoning. That which is meaning-directed is inherently tied up with concernful consideration, qua the mind. In this sense, meaning inheres only within minds. The world has nothing to do with the matter.

[Let us digress to the epistemological question of how it is that communication between minds is possible. The only way that meaning moves from one mind into another is by entering into a common understanding. In other words, the only way that I can be intelligible for you is by dissolving the artificial boundaries that separate your mind from every other mind, boundaries that are always personal edifices, and therefore can always be brought down by personal act of the will. I am responsible for my cognitive boundaries, and you are responsible for yours. In order for communication to be facilitated, those boundaries must come down. Is it then a question of isolation-or-intimacy? Perhaps there are extremes which we may display for the sake of contrast, but most of the time we do not operate on the black-or-white scale of logical extremism. Rather, there is a vast spectrum that we may traverse, between total intimacy and total isolation, in our quest toward communication and the revelation of one's own-most, personal being. In most instances we may communicate with one another very understandingly and yet quite impersonally. I can order a cup of coffee and, with some minor clarifications, get precisely what I want. I can address what is concerning you, even if it is a very personal matter, by acquiring the proper disposition and mode of asking. And when you discuss your personal matters, you may do so with precisely the comfort level that works for you, by perhaps speaking in terms of abstracts or euphemism, or by saying little and making your emotional needs come forward rather than your emotional concerns. And whatever level of intimacy that is made use of is always highly transitory, since it is conditional on the need to communicate. Also, perhaps I am starved for intimacy and once I approach a certain level of intimacy with a person, I wish to preserve that level at all costs; so I seek more and more things to be communicated. Here the need to communicate is always the need to communicate one's own desire for intimacy and the desire that it be fulfilled in this very act of communication itself.]

Although both purpose and meaning are “about” the world, purpose inheres in the world and that which pertains to it, whereas meaning only refers to the world and itself only ever inheres in the minds of subjects. If that is so, then how is it that we consider purpose and meaning to be nearly synonymous? In the beginning of this discourse, the two concepts seemed to be very close to one another, yet now there seems to be a vast chasm separating them. Naturally, the problems lies in the schema that we have chosen to use in order to sketch out the relationship between purpose, meaning, and deliberateness, which was modeled after the mind-body dichotomy. Rather than trying to preserve the schema, I shall assume that its utility has already been made transparent and proceed to show how it is that this duality can be so wrong, and yet so right.

If purpose inheres within the world and within bodies, how is it that I can say that I know the purpose of a given action, since knowledge and knowing are matters of the mind? Conversely, if meaning inheres withing minds, how is that I can call an action meaningful? Let us be immediately aware that these questions are not hard questions to answer whatsoever. The only difficulties lie in the language that we have chosen to make use of; no difficulties whatsoever lie within the actual matter at hand.

However, it would be patently false to say that the difficulty in question (that of how the mind and the body correlate) is a merely philosophical concern. Dichotomous pairings are what human beings naturally make us of in order to make sense of the world around them; and such pairings are not arbitrary. Rather, those differences that are brought into sharp relief within the context of the dichotomous relationship are themselves differences of things as they really are, not merely as they are perceived to be. Only a fool would argue that water is solid and ice is gaseous. It would be just as absurd to suggest that there is not “really” any difference between water and ice; just as absurd to suggest that there is not any similarity between the two. We can always find both similarities and differences: water and ice are different because of the distance between their constituent molecules, but they are the same because they both consist the molecule H2O.

It is the same way with the mind-body dichotomy. They are different, but they are the same. My mind is embodied qua my brain, although it is not exactly the same as my brain, since much of what I associate with my mind is a function of my central nervous system. Also, even if one expands the association to the whole central nervous system, we still cannot say to have sufficiently bracketed the mind itself, for the mind is affected by the body: it operates differently depending on the amount of sleep one has had and depending on the emotions one is having (at this time we will not address the question of the emotions, which can neither be placed exclusively within the domain of the mind nor within that of the body; similarly, we will not consider the soul either). Also, although my body circumscribes my whole being, it does not itself constitute the whole of my being. I am not merely this material something, for I have thoughts that cannot be “read off” from my brain by an outside observer, no matter how advanced brain-scanning technology ever gets. And even if that does become the case, how could the technology ever *read* off the thoughts without an understanding of language? For although the materialist thesis has not yet been indubitably disproved, it is certain that language itself is not a material matter, since language exists within a total culture of minds and not within a mind in isolation. So, even if our thoughts could be read off of our brains, they would not be intelligible without an understanding of an immaterial, purely conceptual language.

In order to begin any philosophic line of inquiry, it must be decided what key terms we are to be navigating around, and what key terms we will be negotiating with. Inquiry can be tactful or untactful; even when we are engaging ourselves with words alone. We can interrogate these words, aggressively challenging them to defend themselves; or we can flirt with those same words, following them to where they lead us. I suppose then that there are three modes of inquiring into the words themselves: aggressive interrogation, flirtatious navigation, and aggressive-flirtatious negotiation.

We are making use here of several different metaphors. By talking about aggressive and flirtatious modes of inquiry, we are speaking of words sexually, in terms of the possibility of sexual congress. In that manner, sexuality is the outward expression of the inward essence of any given person. That I want to engage you sexually means that I want to engage the essence of your being. For these purposes, we are comparing the outward expression of a person's sexual desires to the outward appearance of the word itself (the signifier); where the inward essence of one's own being is the conceptual heart of the sign (the signified), that which eludes us and that which we desire. In a sexual scenario, the object of our desire can be aggressively seized, whether our heart's desire wishes it or not. This we call rape. Alternatively, this same object can be lured to come toward us; that is, that which we desire can be encouraged to also desire us. This sexual reciprocity of desire is what we call romance. (a single essence)

The other metaphor we are making use of is that of the literal journey from one place to another, in terms of the navigation of the sea. In this instance, the meaning of the word is not analogous to the end of our journey. Rather, we recognize that the meaning of the word (the signified) is all around us – it is the sea itself. This analogy is very useful and apt – in our search for the word, the word is constantly all around us. We continuously make use of the word in our journey toward the word itself. Nowhere is the word far from us; indeed, it is always very close to hand.

In the first instance, we are considering the essence of the word. We wish to find a singular wholeness that is the essence of the word itself; nonetheless, we are very aware that the essence is quite far from us, and a whole procedure of discovery is necessary in order to come to a direct understanding of the essence itself.

In the second instance, we are considering the various meanings of the word. We are aware that the meaning of a word lies in its usage, and that the reason a single word is made use of in many different contexts is that the many meanings bear a family resemblance to one another. In the first sense we seek a singular essence, in the second, we acknowledge that there is no essence at all, but a mere family resemblance among the different meanings.

The essence of the word is seen partially in the Wittgenstein-ian sense, namely that the meaning of the word lies in its usage; nevertheless, it is seen partially in another light, in the traditional Platonic-Aristotelean perspective, that there is a single essence upon which all the individual usages of the word are based. (many usages which bear a family resemblance to one another)

On the Progress of Technology

As technology progresses, there is a tendency for devices to be continually designed and redesigned. As devices are modified, does their aesthetic value have a certain trend? Certainly technology is frequently "improved" in some way, shape or form upon being redesigned - as is seen in the development of faster computer processors, less-bulky laptops, and flat screens. But what about their appearance? Is it determined primarily by the aesthetic values of the time, which are neither better nor worse than those of the previous generation? Or does another sort of change happen as well?

As technology advances, it becomes "streamlined". Unnecessary accessories and add-ons drop off, and those which are retained are refined. However, this streamlining process creates a byproduct to the trend. Take a look at the MacBook Air and the iPod. There is absolutely nothing peripheral on these devices, from a purely visual perspective. Similarly, look at the iPhone. There are a million different functions, but just looking at it, it visually very simple. What does all this mean?

The more streamlined a piece of technology is, the less we think of it as an object, the more we think of it as a composite of functions. As technology advances, we look at our devices less as things-that-are and more as things-to-do. If I look at a MacBook Air, I am immediately drawn to use it. What is interesting about this is that I do not first think to myself that I have to do something with a computer, and then proceed to seek out a computer for that explicit purpose. Rather, I first see the computer and then proceed to find something to use it for. Before I look at the computer, there is nothing I need to use it for; but, having seen it, I am in some sense compelled to find a reason to use it.

Is there anything particularly bad about this inversion (proceeding object to purpose, instead of purpose to object)? One might not think so. However, if we value volition for volition's sake (in other words, if we value deliberate acts over deterministic actions), then there is something seriously wrong with the way that technology is progressing. Anyone who mindlessly browses the internet when they have nothing else to do, anyone who calls their friend merely because they are bored, anyone who immediately puts their headphones on when walking out-of-doors, anyone who turns on their television the instant they come home – all of these everyday examples are perfect examples of the danger I am referring to. If you are guilty of doing any of these things (as I am), then you are all-too-aware of how difficult it is to live purposefully nowadays.

The reason for this is not merely that there are more sources of entertainment, pleasure, and distraction today than there were 50 years ago, but also that our distractions are becoming more and more difficult to recognize as objects. You do not use your computer in order to browse the internet; you browse the internet with your computer. You do not use your phone in order to call your friend; you talk to your friend with your phone. Our sources of entertainment are not considered things-that-are (objects); they are considered things-to-do (actions).

There is very little to be done about this. We cannot hope to cut away our dependence on technology, nor can we try to make the devices we depend on more obtrusive. Although it might be desirable to live more simply, it is neither practical for me nor practicable for society to do so. We can only try to make each-other aware of this trend in society, so that we don't forget the value of living deliberately. But, no matter how hard we try to communicate this, it is not the nature of human beings to blindly follow the communicated values of others. It has always been the case that most people do not live their lives purposefully. However, it is my fear that this human tendency is bound to become more and more prevalent as time passes.