Why do we try to find meaning in everything, evolutionarily speaking?
So this may be a weird question, since, like the beginning of time, we have ascribed meaning to things, whether it's Thunder and lightning, you know, the stars, moon, sun, all sorts of of stories and myths to make sense of these things. But evolutionarily speaking, there's a word for you. Why is it that we must apply meaning to everything? Is it a C self soothing coping mechanism?
Bernie Goldbach
@topgoldΒ Β·Β 1:05
Some look away from organized religion because of the hypocrisy of the practices. But I think that everybody wants a sense of meaning for the solace that that exploration brings them, in my opinion
Dewuan .
@FryedOreoΒ Β·Β 2:20
Interesting question. I think man and woman are just designed that way. One could argue that's how he survived as a species, seeking meaning beyond existing. But as human beings, as knowledge being the nectar for escapism. I guess you can say or as you were putting is is is is is it a coping mechanism? Interesting things. And now with the Internet, we can definitely see the broad spectrum of stuff that people are into
Georgie Dee
@GeorgieDeeΒ Β·Β 1:04
Evolutionarily. Transcendental transformational. Philosophical paradoxically. Meaning within meaning. Evolutionarily. Dental transformational. Philosophical paradoxically. I think it's because when the aliens planted us on this planet, they removed all of our knowledge and memory. And ever since, we have been serving, searching for that which we have lost meaning with it. Meaning
Georgie Dee
@GeorgieDeeΒ Β·Β 0:19
Hey, Dewuan, every Tim I see your moniker, your handle. I read Father Swell. It feels very comfortable. Like someone's in charge. Here comes Father Swell. Watch out. You better be good. Otherwise, they'll put you on the naughty list
Average Joe
@AverageJoeΒ Β·Β 1:46
I think we try to find meaning in things just because we are the creature on this planet that has consciousness. You know, we have intellect. And so I think that's why we're always trying and to understand the bigger picture. What's the meaning of all of this? Why are we here? Why do things bad things happen to good people, like, all that kind of stuff? I just think it's comfort mechanisms. I think it's fear
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardesΒ Β·Β 1:11
So I think in order not to be in that state in that thought loop of this is meaningless. You turn around and you say, oh, my God, this must have some kind of beautiful meeting so that I cannot be in the meaninglessness. It's a good exercise, actually, when you're in situations where you're like, what is going on, why am I here? Why have I engaged? Why is this happening to me? And then you kind of go to the opposite
Dewuan .
@FryedOreoΒ Β·Β 2:25
It can be crippling to think about it doesn't matter how much money you make, how good your grades are, how much College degrees you have, how much women you've had sex with or how much people you hurt. The universe doesn't care. It has no emotion or feeling. Only what we project onto it ourselves is just cold and sometimes hot, sometimes warm and magma and all types of variations of matter in antimatter
Okay, Dewuan, I'm gonna toss this your way. When my dad died, I did a podcast, and you may have heard it talking about how you can't truly, truly appreciate life and all that it is if you don't acknowledge and appreciate that death exists. And I wonder if this is the same kind of thing you appreciate meaning more when you acknowledge that meaninglessness exists. Maybe. Yeah
Okay. You, too, have got me thinking about animals and self awareness and humans. And now I'm thinking, Can you imagine what it would have been like to be there in that moment when suddenly we had some awareness, like, what would we be thinking and seeing? And I know it probably didn't happen exactly that way, but it's kind of fun to think it did
Star seeds. Okay. This is something I've recently learned about. Don't know much if anything about it. But apparently there is a belief that there are some people on Earth who are actually aliens from another planet who have been either born here into human vessels, if you will, or have transferred into a living human and now live in that body. And apparently there are different kinds of star seeds from places you might have come from. Yeah, it's the whole thing
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@MtwadamelaΒ Β·Β 3:23
The lady was on her earlier saying that her dad had died and she was looking for meaning. And I've been thinking of the same type of things lately myself. What is the purpose of all this? I remember I was raised in Church, and even though I'm not a religious person anymore, I'm not with any of the religions. But I was raised in Church, and there was always this idea that you die, you be good, you die, you go to heaven, okay?
Dewuan .
@FryedOreoΒ Β·Β 4:26
But that's one of those universal things as a person where you don't know, you don't know what it's like until or even like a child dying or getting kidnapped or abducted or something like that, you can never really know unless you've went through it. It doesn't matter how much you tell the person or how much you've researched, how much you studied. You can never really can know. So to be that opposite side of the coin. Yeah
Tim Ereneta
@TimΒ Β·Β 1:43
But then when there is not a clear cause and effect, perhaps then these same traits in our mind that have evolved to look at logical consequences combined with our ability to imagine foresee, predict, tell stories. What if the those combined just then, in cases where we don't see a direct cause and effect lead us to start to wonder about other explanations and therefore seek meaning
So true, Tim, it makes me think of I think this was from the TV show books called Outlander there's this scene where there's ruins, and when anyone speaks and anytime around them, they would become quite ill. And they had created this whole narrative, this whole mythology where the ruins were haunted. And if you spent time around them, you'd become possessed by demons. But the one character is from the future, and she knows it's actually something there
Eman Harazin
@EmanΒ Β·Β 1:51
And another reason for me, I like the idea I'm a human. I need to ask why this I need to know why these things exist. It makes me so excited. I think everything has a treason. That's why this was a human. I mean, human. We are people who have conscious. So we need to ask maybe for me, I think maybe because people try to find a purpose of living, why we live in this planet
Retro Hipster
@Retro_HipsterΒ Β·Β 4:04
There's a lot of things like that that really beliefs in some sort of sentience and things that don't have it bring us. But, yeah, I think that's what the original thought process was, though, is that by assuming that something is some sort of being, then you can run away from that being if it's dangerous. But I probably explained that poorly. I didn't really listen to all of the other messages. Maybe somebody explained that better than me already
Retro Hipster
@Retro_HipsterΒ Β·Β 1:15
Oh, dear. I'm afraid that I misheard the original question. Why do we try to find meaning in everything? I was thinking like, yeah, I was kind of thinking of that wrong. I'm not sure why we try to find meaning everything. Yeah. I don't really know what that evolutionary mechanism is. It might be that it's either useful in some way for survival or trouble. Our ability to troubleshoot is useful to survival
And then the more language that comes in, the more complex those structures constructs can become, maybe that's pushing it, too. I think I'm stuck here and try to get something sleep
And this interesting question I believe we are trying to discover who we really are we only know a part of us but we can see on the surface I have no doubt that we are connected to everything and everyone and that has something to do with who we really are our dimensionality which we may not find out unless we consciously speak for it but I believe deep down we all want trying to find out and I think that is why we try to find meaning in everything
But when I listen to it the second time, I realized, like you made reference to us being connected to everything and everyone. And so that adds additional nuance and complexity to it, that I hadn't thought about that there is no way that all of the gaps could be filled in. There's no way that all the colors could fill in. There's too much unknown which does lead us or inspire us to want to know more and to never stop seeking. I really like this take