Teleology important for science

[STT]

It has to be more than merely “long lasting,” precisely because we get tired of things after a time. So, primarily, meaning has to be all-encompassing or answers every possible question and eventuality – ties everything together, so to speak – before it is made to go on forever.

I completely agree with you. That as I mentioned is necessary considering the fact that the most astonishing experiences also cannot last forever.

Well, it seems to me that meaning must be a “quest” in the sense that if it isn’t something that we hold at this moment, it must be “obtained” in some sense by a “movement” of some kind towards it. That movement may be a change about or within us, but that still requires that something – even if that “something” is ourselves – changes.

To me meaning is something which we gain at the end of our quest.

If you have true meaning, then nothing need change. If you don’t then, apparently, something has to – unless you have predetermined that meaning itself is inconsequential, but that seems self-contradictory: i.e., it is a self-refuting claim that meaning is meaningless.

I don’t understand you here. Could you please elaborate in plain English?

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t understand you here. Could you please elaborate in plain English?

Let’s call it the principle of sufficient meaning, similar to the principle of sufficient reason.

If the reason or explanation for everything is completely sufficient then that explanation must explain itself as well as everything else. There cannot be any remaining need for some remaining aspect to be explained.

Likewise, meaning would have to be complete and full, in itself, without any further need for something else.

 

[STT]

Let’s call it the principle of sufficient meaning, similar to the principle of sufficient reason.

If the reason or explanation for everything is completely sufficient then that explanation must explain itself as well as everything else. There cannot be any remaining need for some remaining aspect to be explained.

Likewise, meaning would have to be complete and full, in itself, without any further need for something else.

I understand what you are saying. What you said makes sense but I don’t understand why meaning has to be self sufficient.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I understand what you are saying. What you said makes sense but I don’t understand why meaning has to be self sufficient.

If any sufficient reason is to explain why anything exists at all, it has to do so sufficiently and completely – that would include with regard to endowing the inherent meaning on that which does exist. Meaning cannot be independent of actuality. To be meaningful, something must exist – and must exist necessarily, i.e., a se. Otherwise, it neither explains nor renders meaning since in both cases meaning and explanation would have to come from somewhere else.

 

[tonyrey]

As with our bodies, the physical universe makes sense only when we go beyond the mere material activity. Attempting to describe what is happening here as we communicate, in terms of concepts such as atoms, molecules and cellular function, one will totally miss the truth of what it is that we are doing. It is the same with the universe. The cosmos makes sense only by bringing God into the picture, actually at its centre. The universe no more revolves around the material than the firmament revolves around the earth. As the sun is the centre of the solar system, God is the Centre of creation. Material substances exist as they are, doing what is in their nature, countless forms and transformations of being emerging from the eternal Font. In us they act as the substrate for our relational nature, our being in the world. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen behave as they do; and, united with the spirit of God in us, they participate in the perceptions, considerations and actions of the unity that is the person. Ultimately, time and space, and within it we ourselves, having a free will to God’s glory and infinite love.

As far as the physical universe is concerned there is no such thing as truth - nothing but meaningless non-sense…

 

[inocente]

As with our bodies, the physical universe makes sense only when we go beyond the mere material activity.

From the Last Rites of the Bokononism:

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.

The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!

Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!

Good night.
I will go to heaven now.

• Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut