A meaningful life does entail one is serving something greater than oneself, but that does not necessitate one is not serving oneself. By realizing one is one with the greater thing one serves, other- and self-servitude becomes one and the same; both in theory and in practice. — Ø implies everything

A social animal feels incomplete without a society. A human life is more productive and rewarding when its activities include shared undertakings, companionship, helping and being helped by others. Humans are rarely happy and fulfilled in isolation.
Is this true?
Why does it have to be described in terms of data delivery?

Without you and her and him and me, there no society. Society is not greater than us: it's just us. It doesn't need minion 'serving'; it needs individual cooperating. When you put your own essence and purpose in the context of another's requirements, you become a voluntary serf, subsumed by they "greater" entity.
I think it's individual life is more valuable, that it should have more integrity and dignity than chypherdom.

Can meaning not reflect utility? — universeness

No. Both meaning and utility are external; they are assigned by the maker, agent or user. You described how a rock might serve humans - entirely in human terms, in a human context. Not rock terms. Rocks existed long before humans. Did rocks have meaning for those billions of years when there were no hominids to make use of them? Did some creator god make all the rocks in the universe in anticipation of a species that would eventually give them a purpose on one little wee planet?
Does that mean that humans were also created to serve a species that has not yet claimed ownership? In that case, we have a purpose: to wait. The meaning will be given by the new owners when God hands us over.

TBC - i have to go.

Yes, imo, as they facilitated new combinatorials, such as rocky planets, moons, asteroids etc. — universeness

That's one of the things rocks did. You describe relationships that could not have formed without the existence of two or more entities, and processes that take place with conscious agency to mediate them. To say 'something happened' means only that something happened; it conveys no further information.
Similarly, you have put the meaning of rock, an earthworm and blue in the context of their exploitation by other entities. Not in terms of what a worm means to himself. As if everything in the universe existed to be used by another.

What does the word 'ghanommetriea' mean? Nothing. That's why there is no such word. Words were invented to convey a message, to stand for and signify something real. So were musical notes invented to stand for sounds, and Morse code is patterns of single sounds that stand for letters, that stand for sounds that combine into words that stand for things and ideas. They all have specific meanings assigned to them by their creators.
Were humans and earthworms created to convey specific meanings?

Or did we just use a word "meaning" metaphorically to stretch over self-assigned and externally defined functions, superstitions, aspirations, social bonding, creative endeavour, personal relationships, self-aggrandization and -depracation, value and purpose?

My contention is that far too many different ideas have been stuffed into this one little word. It's reasonably elastic, but by now it has so many definitions, it's lost its ability to convey information. I.e. Nobody seems to know what anyone else means by "meaning", but everyone makes assumptions based on their own definition.

I raise another question, which I think is related to the topic: What does it mean to be human? — JWW

That question is just as pointless as the other. What is the meaning of a rock? What is the purpose of an earthworm? What is the significance of blue? There are no answers, because they are not mere symbols that represent, stand for [mean] some thing or convey some idea: they are the actual thing or manifestation.
You can ask meaningful questions about humanity: How does a human differ from other great apes? Do humans have any traits unique in the animal kingdom? Do the specific characteristic confer advantages on the human? In what way do humans use standard animal faculties differently from other species?
Of course, those questions have answers based in empirical fact, which makes them far less enticing than these wide-open-to-interpretation 'philosophical' ones.
The most outstanding human characteristic seems to me an obsession with mirrors of every kind: we never tire of examining, admiring and discussing our own image.

In any event, I'm sort of paused on this project because I started another one about people living for generations in an infinite house (labyrinth of rooms in every direction), and searching for a way out, interspersed with some modern story lines. It allows for a lot more dialogue and humor, less "genre fiction," and so I figured it likely has the wider appeal. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's an intriguing concept. A little spooky, too. Could make a really good story, but I - and I assume many other readers - would be sore vext if it had no resolution.

8 billion galaxies is a splash in the cosmic ocean, never mind 8 billion people. A human is currently one of the rarest objects in the known universe. — universeness

You don't see a logistical problem? https://qz.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-visit-the-international-space-1850461158 That's just getting one person into orbit, not across the galaxy or over to Andromeda, and does not even include the initial cost of constructing suitable containers. Where is all that metal and fuel supposed to come from?
I begin to suspect that your expectations of the future are less than realistic

I'd like to go into both stories in more detail, but it's 5 am and I'd like to get back to bed, and I need some sleep before I can think clearly.

I don't think it needs to be longer; I think it could use a little tightening here and there. It seems to me a bit hesitant at the start, a bit vague. How did she get there? Where did she meet her lover, without the old man knowing? Then the pack animal resolves into a horse. I like that he has a name, but find it odd that he and the absent lover have names, while the main characters have none.
Is that nit-picking?
The mythology is interesting, though I don't quite follow all of it. There is some wonderful description and imagery.
I can definitely see this in a larger context - I suppose the novel would have to be about the adventures of the heroine and her mercenary, so this would be at the beginning.

I finally put a sample chapter up, if you or anyone else is interested. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's supposed to be a first draft?? I'm hard put to get something that polished with three edits. Very sophisticated writing.
The subject leaves me lukewarm, I'm afraid and there is too much explanation at the beginning. I think it might work better interspersed with some dialogue and activity, or even a description of the surroundings.
One tiny note: to call a man Frau might be misleading.

So why don't they declare themselves King again? — universeness

One of them is hoping to - already has the throne and succession lined up; another is shooting for godhood.

These powers which wear expensive suits, seem to me to pale, in comparison to what I traditionally understand as the total power of a King of old. — universeness

You're the one hung up on monarchy, not them. They're mostly okay, pulling the strings, enjoying the benefits of control, without having to show up for tiresome ceremonies, marry pallid princesses and getting overripe fruit thrown at them. A few like to put on a show.

Or you get to travel around the solar system in a very comfortable, robust, protected, life sustaining, exoskeletal suit, whilst engaging with your built in AI system, which controls your navigation and directly works with your brain to provide all the inputted sensor data you need to take whichever actions are required, to get you safely to the next, stepping stone space/moon based/ facility on your journey towards your exciting destination, to perform the very interesting task you have been assigned. — universeness

Sure.... All 8000,000,000 of us, plus the next generation and the next....

So we scared them so much, they are now in heavy disguises and working only in the shadows. — universeness

Hell, no! They're wearing $6000 suits and sitting in boardrooms on top of very tall glass buildings or flying around in private jets, being served endangered species on platinum skewers, surrounded by mercenary armies with higher standard gear than the national army. Of course, some of them command national armies. They have nothing to fear: a hundred ranks of expendable commoners stand between themselves and any danger.

Human lifespan is also improving and may go exponential, due to tech advances. — universeness

Yeah. You get to be old, useless and helpless much longer.... assuming the bomb or tornado or riptide doesn't flatten your rooming house. Of course, with national healthcare schemes gutted by Covid and right-wing politics, that tech-assisted longevity will soon be available only to the aristocracy and their top-level catspaws.

I just have not tasted the kinds of wines you mentioned you make. — universeness

Home wine makers use all manner of fruits and flowers and herbs, some with great skill. I was an enthusiastic experimenter and not terrible at it. I even made a passable coffee wine that paired well with dessert. All the Hungarian and Italian home winemakers I've known stuck to red grapes -- where's the fun in that?
I stopped making them when the space I used was repurposed. It's quite a messy business.

Our sensory dependence upon light creates a false, moralistic dualism between darkness and wretchedness and light and goodness. — chiknsld

Well, it goes back a long, long way through our ancestry. Monkeys are easy prey at night, and even the strong, aggressive hominids were at a disadvantage against some heavy-duty feline predators. Not to mention the literal pitfalls and quagmires waiting for a diurnal species with no artificial light at their disposal.
In civilized times, right up to the present, spies, guerillas, burglars and murderers operate at night, as well as the purveyors of illicit pleasure.
Also, more people die between 2 and 4 am than any other time period, again, because we are a diurnal species. In the hours of deep sleep, our bodies are at their lowest energy level. Since this has been so through our entire existence as a species, it's not surprising that we associate night with death.

Maybe the trouble is expecting grammar to be logical in the first place, when mostly what matters is what’s conventional, i.e., standard. — Jamal

That doesn't mean it stops annoying me. I expect songs to have a tune and lyrics and it annoys me when they don't (Oh, man, does it ever!) even though the standard convention is to repeat the same two-note, three-word loop with several overlaid tracks of the same thing.

I wouldn’t criticize you merely for preferring try to; it’s the implied criticism of my way of speaking and writing that I cannot take — Jamal

Isn't every expression of annoyance an overt criticism of something and thus an implied criticism of those who, knowingly or otherwise, cause that annoyance?
If the criticized persons are injured by this, I petition to have this thread locked and erased forthwith. Know any sympathetic mods?

So how come Kings and aristocracies don't still rule in every country? — universeness

Because they took different titles. It's a good enough disguise to fool many.

Two hundred years is no time at all considering a scale of almost 14 billion. — universeness

Only it's not measured on the cosmic scale, but in human life-cycles. It takes about 8 generations to build a viable nation; two to corrupt it and a single cohort to shatter it. In global terms, the next two hundred years will feel to the survivors like two million. Even without the several anticipated deployments of WMD withing the next two years, imminent climate changes will do us enough harm.

that's about the extent of my knowledge of quality wine. — universeness

I never said I made "quality wine", and if California is your hallmark, you'd be content with many Canadian vintages.
Yes, as far off into the rough of this topic it may be, you can ferment pretty much anything organic. (I do not recommend blood.) Apples, cherries, plums and pears can make acceptable wine and go on to become excellent brandy. To bring it a little closer to the fairway: in every culture I've heard of, alcohol and other psychotropic substances have played significant roles in social bonding, medicine, ritual and taboo.

I might ask, is it possible that darkness could ever be considered good? — chiknsld

Certainly, by bats, jaguars, clandestine lovers and prisoners in fluorescent-lit cells.
Our association of night with all things sinister arises from fear, due to our inability to see potential dangers in the dark.

I've just opened another case of wine. — universeness

I've never tasted Scottish wine. Your whisky, OTH, is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.... We dabble in both, make some decentish potables. Parsnip wine was the most potent of my amateur efforts; elderberry was the most palatable.

Only up to a point of that which is survivable. If the only input from the other side is to unleash hell upon us then, we will put the placards down and pick up/steal/make armaments, until we also have them up the wazoo. — universeness

Yeah, right. Every two hundred years of so, we rise up against the oppressors and cut off their hydra heads. Even while the revolutionaries are binding their own wounds, new evil head grow and swallow up the gains. Time is always on their side. While we're rebuilding and improving, they're growing more heads and feed them. It always takes longer to build than it does to destroy. There comes a point when you don't realize it's not survivable until you are actually dying.

A similar response Vera, only true up to a point of collapse, we can become evil to defeat evil but I agree we pay a terrible price when we choose that final option. — universeness

There is no return from evil. When you become as they are, you are one of them.
When projected ends justify means, those means determine the actual end.

With 25 pages and 736 replies - that's a helluva long, wine-soaked night. — Amity

Just as well it was virtual; don't want to imagine the morning after.

That’s entirely arbitrary. — Jamal

I thought it was logical. Guess not, then.

I finally put a sample chapter up, if you or anyone else is interested. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Put it up where?

I first would ask, how would you combat such? — universeness

I can't. And I have tried, while I was physically up to volunteering and marching. I still give money when I can, and write a lot of utopian guff. But that is, at its longest possible stretch, an ounce of mitigation to every pound of harm.

The points you and some other (shall I say doomsters or would you at least accept pessimists) folks make, when projecting the future of our species, based on reflections on our past, — universeness

And the effect of that past upon the present. Three main obstacles to the progress you envision:
It took 13 years to build the World Trade Center (badly) and 15 minutes to knock it down.
The good are armed with placards, shovels and stethoscopes. The bad have armaments up and down the wazoo, financed by the good and the indifferent.
Good people's actions are constrained by ethics, scruples and compassion; evil people's is not similarly hampered.

This thread is full of philosophy. — Amity

It's so full of disparate topics and ideas and individual convictions, in no coherent pattern, that it belongs nowhere in particular. It reminds me of some long, wine-soaked nights of my youth. Nostalgic, y'know?

That's a horrible view you have of what humans do. — universeness

The footage of a beach covered in oil, all in motion with floundering fish and waterfowl and some good guys attempting to save them was shown on broadcast news. The oil industry had to pay some money, which it quickly recovered in government subsidies. Car sales did not decline.

according to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel handouts hit a global high of $1 trillion in 2022 – the same year Big Oil pulled in a record $4 trillion of income. In the United States, by some estimates taxpayers pay about $20 billion dollars every year to the fossil fuel industry.

Feel free to tell me where to shove my sadness/pity. — universeness

It's yours to bestow or withhold, just as my disillusion is mine to carry or abandon.

Today it's used with go and come ("Go and ask them," "Come and see"), as well as with other verbs: "Wait and let me finish," "Stop and chat for a while." — Merriam-Webster

Not quite the same. In those examples, it's reasonable to assume that the recommended action will result in the predicted outcome. In the case of making an attempt, it isn't.

That's funny, because I'm often annoyed by people losing letters that are supposed to be there or substituting them - helmut for helmet.
It's not nearly as intense, however, as using 'I' as object of a preposition. "This means so much to John and I!" Urrgghhh! If John were out of the picture, would you say "This means so much to I!" ? Or the phrase "try and" instead of "try to".

Aye. — Leontiskos

Aye. And do we also understand that everyone's rhetoric is meaningful, even though they have different notions of 'meaning' or even, gods help us, 'meaningfulness' ?

Do you have more than rhetoric? — Leontiskos

No, I understand that people believe this. I just find it sad that they don't consider life itself valuable enough not to require a meaning added to it. Sad, and frightening.

Uh, sorry. I guess, then, I should have said the lack of external demand makes life meaningless.
Somehow that doesn't improve the situation that life has no meaning unless it's given up to something other than itself.

There is nothing to make a claim on them. — Leontiskos

Insufficient external validation renders life meaningless?

You seem to me to be quite dismissive of the notion of the global unity of our species, due to our individual notions of personal freedom, but I accept that might just have been my misinterpretation. — universeness

Right and wrong. I think global unity is a very good idea that will continue to fail - just as the EU is failing. But not because of any notions of personal freedom. Because of stupidity, gullibility and myopia.

My idea of freedom is quite different and way, way off topic here. Might be worth a thread of its own to see whether people's idea of freedom as varied as their idea of meaning.

I think, because that's were I think our future lies — universeness

Well, fine. You can fly off and contaminate other solar systems, but it's still not relevant to Athena's ambitions to reset US educational standards to pre WWII.

Why do you not also type, 'There are many many Americans who were against the American invasion of Afghanistan. Would you say that today, most Americans consider wounded knee an atrocity? — universeness

Many may be against invading Afghanistan, but the nation as whole supported it. Minorities don't make the crucial decisions - but still have to pay the costs. If you said "Wounded Knee" to them most Americans would stare at you like fish on ice at the market. If you said "atrocity" to them, most Americans would say "9-11... baaastaards!" But some might recognize Wounded Knee and say, "Well, they didn't know any better back then."

No attempt at balance? — universeness

What for? There is no balance. One nuke can take out two dozen of those wonderful improvements, just as one Christian mob took out the library at Alexandria. And there are lots and lots of nukes out there, pointed at all of them. Thing is, you can list all the progress you want, but it's been done before on some smaller scale, and it's all been destroyed before. As long as this scale of destruction is in the control of the least stable, least reliable, least nuanced and most self-assured people in the world, nothing is safe. The particulars change; the situation remains the same.

Did you not recently post here that many good folks are still fighting the good fight? — universeness

Yes, I'm aware of them. My heart goes out to them.

I then must assume (but again I admit I may be projecting again, as you have not actually stated this) that you think those who don't fit into your category above, are too few and too weak to defeat the group you disdain. — universeness

Yes.

Perhaps it is on that point, that we disagree most. — universeness

Yes. The difference is that, though I still have the same ideals, my illusions have been blown to ratshit. I preserved their remains in fiction, like Cinderella in the glass coffin. Who knows - maybe someday a prince will come and resurrect them.

They lack the conceptual capacity. Only man is so blessed and cursed, afawk, with the ability to add concepts onto what is. — hypericin

Only man is cursed with the capacity to consider himself less significant than he actually is.

I don't agree with either of your notions of 'true freedom' — universeness

On what what do you base your opinion of my notion of freedom when it was never mentioned - except by Athena in a misunderstanding. I was referring to the American myth: land of the free, home of the brave.

It's the 'big picture' that's far more important. — universeness

To what? Not a discussion of American history and education.
Why do you keep going off into space?

Do you not agree that our species is still in it's infancy? — universeness

No. I believe this is our dotage. Bucket list time. We stopped evolving some 40,000 years ago. Since then, it's been accelerating technological progress, but only one major change in social direction at around 7,000 BCE: from the first city states to the present, there has been no appreciable progress in our thinking. Everything the philosophers and political organizers and legal reformers have done since Ur was a repeat of some experiment that had already been tried somewhere, sometime for some duration.

You are suggesting that those in history had the same ability as we have today, to make better decisions than they did. — universeness

Of course they did. Same choices, same decision we're still making. "Better" and "worse" are a matter of perspective. Good for one, bad for another; winners and losers.

That's true freedom for me! The freedom to seek that which we currently don't know. — universeness

Commendable. Entirely off topic, but lovely.

My question to you then becomes. Do you think many more humans, all around the planet, now utterly condemn those events, than ever have in the past? — universeness

I doubt it. Everyone is nostalgic for the recent past (especially if they were on top) and disparaging of the distant past, when people didn't know any better. "So sorry for the massacre at Wounded Knee. Support our troops in Afghanistan."

If you agree, then does that not speak well for the progression of the general enlightenment of our species? — universeness

Not with all those missile silos and landmines, deep water oil rigs and container ships, it don't.

My main argument with you Vera , is, as you know, your at times, general disdain of your entire species, because of the vile actions of a nefarious few. — universeness

And my disdain comes from the vile actions of multitudes in the service of the nefarious few, whom vast crowds worship and obey.

Not a term I am familiar with? — universeness

Okay. How about horsepuckies? It's less polite.

It's got to do with the very large range of monotonic greys between your rather black and white treatment of the area. — universeness

Athena claimed that Americans had true freedom as long as the western wilderness existed. I pointed out that the freedom was limited to few Americans at the expense of many others, both human and non.
Nothing to do with big pictures, space travel, Scottish independence or brain capacity. The white settlers and their government were perfectly aware of the consequences of their actions and considered it within their right to do whatever it took to get what they wanted. It's not that complicated.

I am not suggesting you are doing that, but you do seem to be suggesting that every member of the 7th Cavalry who was killed at little big horn, was as bad and as guilty as Custer. — universeness

I wasn't allocating individual guilt. Only mentioned that Custer could not have forced any soldier to slaughter Indians if most of them were unwilling, any more than Custer himself was forced to accept the commission.
The fact is: the American polity wanted westward expansion. Settlers and prospectors were already in the territory, the Lakota, Arapaho and Cheyenne were in their way. So the government, rather than move the relatively few white people, chose to break its treaty and sent in the army to move the Natives. The Natives won that round and there followed a major military campaign to force them into reservations - where they still are, pale blue dot or no. Somebody takes; somebody dies. If that stark reality doesn't fit the grey spectrum or the American mythos of rugged individuals taming a wilderness, too bad.

The appearance of our consciousness and intelligence put us there. They make us the only known thing that conceives of these ideas. Someone conceived of the concept of meaning beyond the cycle of life and death. Now we can each decide the meaning for our lives, if we choose to. To our knowledge, nothing other than humans can do that. — Patterner

Ah. So, now that you're omniscient, your life isn't enough; it needs to contain some message. OK.

Everything (we are aware of) in the universe exists simply as part of the cycle. Only we are above that. — Patterner

How did you climb above the universe?

But they did know a lot less about 'the big picture,' the planet they lived on and the universe they exist within. They had no notion of 'pale blue dot,' for example or the cosmic calendar scale. — universeness

What's that to do with robbing, killing, dispossessing and enslaving other people, in the name of their own freedom?

True for the ones in control, not so true for those given the choice to kill/abuse those who their masters instructed them to, or face their own demise and the deliberate demise/starvation of their loved ones. — universeness

You mean most of the pillaging and killing was done under duress? An even bigger pile of horsefeathers! The ones in control wouldn't be in control without all the willing henchmen, lackeys and mercenaries who expect rewards for their service. Settlers wanted the land; the government sent the army to clear the Indians off it. Prospectors wanted gold; farmers wanted water; cattle ranchers wanted grazing rights; lumber barons wanted the redwoods. Thieves don't all steal for Fagin and drug dealers sell to kids, knowing it's bad for them. Neither ignorance nor coercion are acceptable excuses: they know what they're doing and why.

We even had the theists trying to appease their god invention by having the likes of Jesus, speaking to his trinity self with the words 'Forgive them father , for they know not what they do" — universeness

I always thought that was incredibly silly - not unlike your excuse for Custer.
Jesus was always meant to be a redeemer. He was created expressly to pay for the sins of that young couple who pissed off Jehovah by nicking one apple, literally before they knew any better. The cutest part is, they were cast out of Eden in order to keep them from taking also of the Tree of Life and becoming immortal. So, Jesus was to die as a human, to issue humans a ticket to heaven so they could live forever.
*(of forgive them trinity) The trinity wasn't invented until 400 years later.

I wonder whether it was natural selection.

Does a lion search for a meaning to his life? Does a dolphin? Why should they? They are themselves, integral and complete, in harmony with their environment.
Only man has been diminished in his own eyes; made to feel insignificant and flawed. Told by 500 generations of prophets and philosophers that he is wanting, fallen short, fallen from a loftier position, and that the only way he can redeem himself is by dedicating his life to something greater than himself: a god, a liege lord, an empire, a noble cause, a brotherhood of warriors, monks or mobsters. His own little life is of no consequence: it is a conveyance merely, like a deed of sale or a summons, disposable once it's served purpose.

Those bad things were not rights. — Athena

They were rights under American law. You have no power to rescind them, and they continue to go unpunished. Indeed, many of the fortunes acquired then, by those methods, continue in the possession of similar people through inheritance and consolidation. The privilege accruing to those robber barons is still enjoyed by their descendants.

They were a failure to know better. — Athena

Horsefeathers! When you kill someone they end up dead - you can't fail to notice. You can't not know that someone chained up in the damp, dark, rat-infested cargo hold of a ship is unhappy. You don't whip them to make them feel better: you do it to hurt them.
People were not any dumber than we are. Human brain capacity hasn't changed much since Neanderthal man. And morality wasn't invented in 400BCE Athens: stone age people knew right and wrong. They also knew that what is detrimental to one person may benefit another, so as long as the benefit is to them and the harm - no matter how much or how grievous a harm - is to a designated scapegoat, it's fine.
People then, just like the people now, just like the people in ancient times, knew what they were doing. They didn't care, just as they don't care now, what damage results from serving their short-term gains.
Who gives a damn what happens three generations down the line?
Much worse, they very often go out of their way to do harm when they have nothing to gain, out of hate, fear, resentment, to satisfy a lust, or simply for entertainment.

Immediately, we would see huge improvements if we replaced autocratic Industry with a democratic model and we had education for democracy preparing the future generations to be self-ruling no matter what happens. — Athena

That would have worked in 1270 or 900BCE or 1795 or 1928. Didn't happen then; doesn't happen now. Not because people didn't know it would be better for most of them, but because the ones with the power to bring about that change will exert every erg of that power to prevent it.

The OP seems well aware of what life means. It seems clear what he seeks is the significance, purpose or meaningfulness of life. — Corvus

That's exactly the same thing. It assumes that life is no more than a means to something greater than itself.