<commit_before>---
layout: post
title: Patterned Meaning and Polytheistic Materialism
date: 2019-05-11
# Should be longer than 20 words, so it will appear as post summary
description: Some meaningful activities nest within others, but most don't, and we can develop the skill of appreciating meaning wherever it arises.
# tags will also be used as html meta keywords.
categories: ["philosophy"]

show_meta: true
comments: true
mathjax: true
gistembed: true
published: true
noindex: false
nofollow: false
---


# Table of Contents

1.  [Eternalism and Nihilism](#orgfe90523)
2.  [Nested Patterns of Meaning](#org6170b63)
3.  [Loosely Connected Meanings](#orgb799851)
4.  [A Third Way to Destroy Meaning](#orgd77a0e7)
5.  [Meaning Upon Meaning](#org444de56)
6.  [Laughing at Nihilism](#org8be885f)
7.  [This Essay is a Waste of Time](#org58c8be7)
8.  [Sources](#orgc41b4a8)

> Alvy Singer: Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, someday it will break apart, and that will be the end of everything.

> Mrs. Singer: What is that your business? He's stopped doing his homework.

> Alvy Singer: What's the point?

> Mrs. Singer: What has the universe got to do with it. You're here, in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding.

> Dr. Flicker: It won't be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we've gotta try and enjoy ourselves while we're here. Huh? Huh? Huh?


<a id="orgfe90523"></a>

# Eternalism and Nihilism

For several years I was a nihilist, without knowing it. This was a fairly rough
way to live. I would seize at the latest project to inspire me - a personality
failing of mine at the best of times - only to gloomily watch its promise fade.

Had you asked me at the time, I'd have said something like this: To find
meaning, we must act within an inspiring story that makes sense to us. However,
all our societal frames of meaning are subjective - or intersubjective - and
mutually created fictions that guide us. When we see through these fictions,
they don't inspire us anymore. 

As a result we have to keep finding larger fictions, grander societal stories,
to guide our achievements. Extending life, colonizing Mars! Such meanings are
also agreed-upon fictions, but the stories are large enough for us to fool
ourselves, at least for a time.

My almost-unconscious philosophy here was not unsophisticated, but
dissatisfying, and you can see how I'd cycle down into despair before revving
myself up again.

Honestly, maybe most secular people today feel this attitude to some degree.
Considered *sub specie aeternitatis*, goes the story, our life is meaningless.
Our sense of meaning is false, illusory, but at least it's there.

Look a little closer, and you'll see that this argument can be expressed in a
syllogism - but actually it is an enthymeme, leaving out the most important
step. 

> (A) Compared to the cosmos, we are insignificant. 

> (B) **Unless we matter to the cosmos, life is meaningless.**

> (C) Therefore, our lives are meaningless. 

Few philosphers make explicit this second step, skipping straight from (A) to
(C), probably because it does not occur to them to question it.


<a id="org6170b63"></a>

# Nested Patterns of Meaning

A precious few have weighed and found wanting this second step. Before I join
them in gleefully attacking it - and describing a better way to approach a sense
of meaning - I want to defend it.

Meanings can form a sort of pattern language. In architecture, software design,
city planning, and [lifestyle choices](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/01/10/rolling-your-own-culture-and-not-finding-community/), multiple patterns fit together more or
less well, and they have to fit within larger patterns. 

Suppose I enjoy the small ritual of brewing and drinking coffee: the drip of
rich liquid as water filters through the grounds, the pouring of the brewed
coffee into fine porcelain, the wafting of luxurious steam above the cup, the
peaceful sinking into a reclined position, the cautious sipping and cupping. 

I feel the pleasures of all these sensations and more, and together they form a
ritual I feel is meaningful. *What* it means, and *how long* or *how deeply* I
feel the meaning, are different matters.

Regardless, what it means for me to enjoy a cup of coffee is related to what it
means for me to be sitting here working, and that might be related to providing
for my family or achieving certain goals in life. The coffee ritual's meaning<commit_msg>Clarify sentence<commit_after>---
layout: post
title: Patterned Meaning and Polytheistic Materialism
date: 2019-05-11
# Should be longer than 20 words, so it will appear as post summary
description: Some meaningful activities nest within others, but most don't, and we can develop the skill of appreciating meaning wherever it arises.
# tags will also be used as html meta keywords.
categories: ["philosophy"]

show_meta: true
comments: true
mathjax: true
gistembed: true
published: true
noindex: false
nofollow: false
---


# Table of Contents

1.  [Eternalism and Nihilism](#orgfe90523)
2.  [Nested Patterns of Meaning](#org6170b63)
3.  [Loosely Connected Meanings](#orgb799851)
4.  [A Third Way to Destroy Meaning](#orgd77a0e7)
5.  [Meaning Upon Meaning](#org444de56)
6.  [Laughing at Nihilism](#org8be885f)
7.  [This Essay is a Waste of Time](#org58c8be7)
8.  [Sources](#orgc41b4a8)

> <NAME>inger: Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, someday it will break apart, and that will be the end of everything.

> Mrs. Singer: What is that your business? He's stopped doing his homework.

> <NAME>inger: What's the point?

> Mrs. Singer: What has the universe got to do with it. You're here, in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding.

> <NAME>: It won't be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we've gotta try and enjoy ourselves while we're here. Huh? Huh? Huh?


<a id="orgfe90523"></a>

# Eternalism and Nihilism

For several years I was a nihilist, without knowing it. This was a fairly rough
way to live. I would seize at the latest project to inspire me - a personality
failing of mine at the best of times - only to gloomily watch its promise fade.

Had you asked me at the time, I'd have said something like this: To find
meaning, we must act within an inspiring story that makes sense to us. However,
all our societal frames of meaning are subjective - or intersubjective - and
mutually created fictions that guide us. When we see through these fictions,
they don't inspire us anymore. 

As a result we have to keep finding larger fictions, grander societal stories,
to guide our achievements. Extending life, colonizing Mars! Such meanings are
also agreed-upon fictions, but the stories are large enough for us to fool
ourselves, at least for a time.

My almost-unconscious philosophy here was not unsophisticated, but
dissatisfying, and you can see how I'd cycle down into despair before revving
myself up again.

Honestly, maybe most secular people today feel this attitude to some degree.
Considered *sub specie aeternitatis*, goes the story, our life is meaningless.
Our sense of meaning is false, illusory, but at least it's there.

This argument can be expressed in a syllogism, like so:

> (A) Compared to the cosmos, we are insignificant. 

> (B) **Unless we matter to the cosmos, life is meaningless.**

> (C) Therefore, our lives are meaningless. 

Few philosphers make explicit this second step, skipping straight from (A) to
(C), turning our syllogism into an enthymeme. Probably they skip the all-important second step because it does not occur to them to question it.


<a id="org6170b63"></a>

# Nested Patterns of Meaning

A precious few have weighed and found wanting this second step. Before I join
them in gleefully attacking it - and describing a better way to approach a sense
of meaning - I want to defend it.

Meanings can form a sort of pattern language. In architecture, software design,
city planning, and [lifestyle choices](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/01/10/rolling-your-own-culture-and-not-finding-community/), multiple patterns fit together more or
less well, and they have to fit within larger patterns. 

Suppose I enjoy the small ritual of brewing and drinking coffee: the drip of
rich liquid as water filters through the grounds, the pouring of the brewed
coffee into fine porcelain, the wafting of luxurious steam above the cup, the
peaceful sinking into a reclined position, the cautious sipping and cupping. 

I feel the pleasures of all these sensations and more, and together they form a
ritual I feel is meaningful. *What* it means, and *how long* or *how deeply* I
feel the meaning, are different matters.

Regardless, what it means for me to enjoy a cup of coffee is related to what it
means for me to be sitting here working, and that might be related to providing
for my family or achieving certain goals in life. The coffee ritual's meaning
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