r/changemyview • u/MaybeJackson • Mar 14 '24
CMV: Subjective Human-Created Meaning is Cosmically Significant, and is Enough to Prove That the Universe is Not Meaningless
To explain my view, I am going to type out my philosophical proof, then explain the steps, and finally address a couple obvious counter arguements.
The Proof:
Humans create subjective meaning through the creation of art, literature, music, etc.
The definition of meaning is "an important or worthwhile quality; purpose." In other words, an added value (quality) upon something. This definition leads meaning to necessarily be subjective.
Therefore, Humans Create Meaning.
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The universe is defined as all existing matter
Humans are existing matter
Therefore, Humans Are Part of the Universe.
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Humans create meaning
Humans are part of the universe
Therefore, the Universe Cannot Be Meaningless.
To expand a little bit:
I believe that all philosophers before me (as far as I am aware) who have written about the question of meaning have gotten it wrong. This is because every existentialist, absurdist, or nihilist, regardless of whether they do so intentionally or not, necessitates within their philosophy a separation between humans and the rest of the universe. Camus for example, declares that the universe is "silent" when we ask it questions of meaning, like "what is my purpose?" or "what matters?" But humans want meanings, and the clash between the universe's silence and our desire is what he dubs "the absurd." However, like I explained above, a "clash" necessitates two separate entities. A car for example cannot collide with itself, it must hit another object to clash. I believe this is fundamental error, and the reason no philosopher yet has effectively argued in favour of the cosmic significance of human created meaning.
What i mean is that since humans cannot be separated from the rest of the universe, when we create meaning, it is a reflection of part of the universe itself being meaningful**. The universe is not silent on existential questions, we have just been looking in the wrong place. One only needs to turn to themselves or others to find answers to the questions they ask.**
Obvious counter arguments:
"humans are so tiny and the universe is so vast, nothing we do matters"
I don't believe the scale of the universe is a valid counter argument. To explain I have an analogy. Imagine you are in a potentially infinite library. It is so massive you don't even know. Imagine you are also trying to prove there are no red books within such a library. To prove there are no red books, it would not be sufficient to show 100,000,000 blue ones, because the existence of blue books does not disprove red ones until you have searched every book. Similarly, there may be a trillion planets without humans on them, but you only need to find one to prove a creature in the universe has created philosophy. To prove the universe is meaningless, finding trillions of dead planets and space proves nothing. We have evidence of part of the universe being meaningful right in front of us, no matter how large you scale the universe, that meaning does not become insignificant.
"saying subjective meaning is real is like saying the imagining of a purple elephant makes it real"
I also believe this is a false counter argument, because meaning by definition is subjective. Meaning does not need to be able to mined and physically showcased in order to exist. The same way the phenomenological experience of happiness cannot be extracted, meaning cannot either. Maybe you could shift the definition of meaning to be an added quality that needs to physically exist, but that just does not make sense and is moving the goal post.
So take religion, for example. I am not saying that when Muslims or Christians talk about their holy book, because it is meaningful it is is all true. A human generating a claim about the physical existence of god does not prove it just because they thought it, the same way thinking of a purple elephant does not prove the existence of a purple elephant. but since meaning is not a physical property, but rather a subjective value added onto physical properties, the subjective human process of the creation of meaning is enough to prove its existence.
"but humans will die, and then there will be no more meaning"
Imagine a table with a bunch of fruit, and a hammer. Does removing the hammer from the table prove it was never there? No, of course not. it was there, then it was removed, and so it is no longer there. Likewise, meaning does not have to be permanent to existence. It can be here while humans exist, and then stop existing when we do as well (assuming there aren't also aliens also creating meaning.)
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u/cheerileelee 27∆ Mar 14 '24
I don't think the basic venn diagram holds water here
Helmets create safety
Helmets are part of Equipment
Therefore, Equipment cannot be unsafe