Meaning and Language – The Universe and Sapiens

Meaning is prior to language. Language is the tool used to express meaning, i.e. human meaning. The human relationship to meaning is a linguistic one: this means that whilst meaning is prior to language, it is dependent on language for its existence.

A circular relationship is thus formed between meaning and language. Language is the result of meaning and it would not exist without it, but it also stands before meaning in being necessary for meaning to be able to take shape in reality. Without meaning there would be no language and without language we cannot have meaning.

This kind of circle devours and is devoured by itself and is therefore well symbolised by the uroboros – the dragon swallowing its own tail.

It is the same uroboric-circle simplicity that we find in the relationship between the universe and self-consciousness.

The sapiens relationship to the universe is anchored in language. By naming things we give meaningfulness and form to existence and shape reality. A name is something we can grasp even if the thing being named is not present.

PROPOSITIONS:

In the beginning there was MEANING, and the meaning of the primal meaning was to GIVE FORM TO MEANING.The meaning of MEANING once FORMED is to give CONSCIOUSNESS to and for the form.

From this we can see that Consciousness (as a universal psychic phenomenon of intentional cognition of experiences) evolves from Meaning (as the point of Meaning and as the meaning of Meaning) via Forms, and that, subsequently, Forms are embedded within Meaning, just as Consciousness is embedded in meaning. The simple fact that Consciousness exists in a universe of Forms that gives it something to be conscious of is meaningful.

The essential dynamic force of Consciousness lies firstly in its ability to uncover, unveil or discover the forms that Meaning has created in order for the birth of Consciousness to be possible.

From this dynamic of discovery, Consciousness enters a second dynamic of learning, and a third dynamic of creativity.

Through the dynamics of learning and creativity, Consciousness is able to develop the experience of Meaning in the universe through time.

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It is important to remind ourselves that our consciousness is not an act of reflection needing a higher, absolute consciousness to give further reflection on what has been reflected on. The idea of consciousness created by an omnipresent mindfulness is absurd – because why would an omnipresent intelligence create what it is already full of? Creation comes from what is lacking. Meaning creates Consciousness because the Meaning itself is devoid of consciousness. Meaning will be fulfilled, and the absolute, cosmological and historical process will be fulfilled when Consciousness has evolved into an intersubjective, universal phenomenon.

Seeing the universe as a creation of Meaning implies that God does not exist, but that Its creation is a teleological part of the evolutionary process of the meaningful cosmos.

The object (and objective) of Consciousness is the universe. The object of an individual’s consciousness is a part of the universe. The object of Consciousness from Meaning is to become inter-subjective, or a conscious result of communicating, conscious parts.

If meaningfully structured, therefore, societies and cultures (even civilisations) should be constructs that favour meaningful communication between individual consciousnesses.

When civilisation, society or culture is not meaningfully structured, however, communication itself loses its meaningfulness. If consciousness cannot find its essential Meaning – which is the purpose for which conditions for creating consciousness were created – and has given up looking for it or has not even bothered to ponder the question of why consciousness should exist in the universe, then a dangerous cycle of nihilisms will take hold of the civilisation. Such is the case with our contemporary civilisation. We are spinning around a wheel that has become derailed from the track of Meaning.

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Meaning is immanent in the universe, but that does not mean that human societies – as being within the meaning immanent universe – must be meaningful. Quite the contrary, the evolution of human societies has been a movement away from a consciousness of immanent meanings, anchored in nihilistic transcendentness.

Humanity languishes in transcendental nihilisms and ignores the immanent meaningfulness of the universe and, by doing so, it becomes alienated from the universe and, hence, from authentic purposiveness.