Projecting Meaning
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@Dara said
"Q: Did Issac Newton project a meaning he called gravity after an apple fell on his head, or was gravity in a meaningful sense already there before he noticed it and deduced a meaning from the event? Also - in what fashion was this meaning 'arbitrary' - if at all?"
Gravity, of course, was there. It just didn't mean anything that it's there. (Still doesn't.)
All meaning is arbitrary, btw.
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I'm not saying gravity is arbitrary. I'm saying that any meaning you ascribe to gravity is arbitrary.
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@Dara said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I'm not saying gravity is arbitrary. I'm saying that any meaning you ascribe to gravity is arbitrary."Meaning may simply be an evident proposition, as gravity is itself.
If not then you could arbitrarily say that gravity is pink, and mean nothing by that."
Of course. Not everything you say has meaning. (Not just you personally
- true of anybody.)But when there IS meaning ascribed to a thing - a valuation, an emotion, a characterization, a decision about it - these are manufactured. Like most manufactured things, they have a particular value.
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"After knowing this, its hard for things to feel meaningful without them being pleasurable or fulfilling some unmet personal desire of mine; achieving some goal."
There may be no inherent meaning in anything, but that doesn't mean things don't matter to YOU. Like Jim said before
"when there IS meaning ascribed to a thing - a valuation, an emotion, a characterization, a decision about it - these are manufactured."
You can manufacture meanings that empower you to fulfill on those things that matter to you. AND, you can discard meanings that disempower you.
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That sounds like magick, 'Reef!
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Causing change in conformity with Will! HU-RA!
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@Al-Shariyf said
"You can manufacture meanings that empower you to fulfill on those things that matter to you. AND, you can discard meanings that disempower you."
I heard somewhere that there are people who call this sort of process "True Will"
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@Dara said
"Meaning = whatever needs to applied to the circumstances of the moment that most conforms with the evident? "
"Meaning" comes from the same root as "mind." Meaning is what a person's mind adds to a thing, situation, or occurrence. These things are not inherent in the thing, situation, or occurrence.
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@Dara said
"Why not? Orch OR theory has it that qualia is inherent to the thing, or things, and thus situations, and so consciousness does not add to it (although it can do) but essentially just reads what is there before the senses do. Thus - consciousness is a quality of the universe thats inherent to the qualia of it and not divisible to it as long as energy and gravity occur, and so F1 drivers can turn into a corner before their senses register it.
"The act of perceiving the object inherently changes the object.
I feel this is why the attaining of the samadhi technique is so important in Yoga, for it is not until then that a being may say they perceived an object free of projections.You can say, it begs the age old question : does energy and gravity occur when no one is around?
Furthering the notion, towards the idea that energy and gravity do not occur in of themselves.
Rather, they are elements which come into play when there is an initiation,
When something is begun, set it motion.
Essentially, a thing exists as an entity due to the establishment of linear time by a conscious being.
Where we may say a thing existed at this time until this time, suffering various effects.
As opposed to being intermingled with time
(and space... remember time-space is a single entity[Special Relativity),
thus having no discernible beginning or end ( an existence without qualities). -
@Dara said
"I wouldn't like to say if yeast experiences linear time, but I will venture that when consciousness perceives energy and gravity it reflects upon fundamental component of the system that powers consciousness, or it does not reflect and rather fully experiences those fundamental components during states of consciousness."
One thing to consider is that while gravity can act powerfully upon large bodies (such as planets) at microscopic levels (and lower) it has little to no effect.
In other words, for something to be effected by gravity it must have a mass perceivable to human senses.
While Relativity, on the other hand, effects any system with more than one object.
Both cases are dependent upon the interaction of objects (whether they are big as planets, as small as particles).The question, possibly starting with "does yeast have a conception of linear time?"
Better posed as : "How much yeast must there be for linear time to be perceived?"More poignantly: How many yeast organisms must there be before one becomes Self-Aware?
Some thing I have personally pondered to a great degree is:
If I was the only human to exist would I be Self-Aware?
Would the notion of Self ever even enter my awareness?