About the site

Curriculum vitae

The Book

Books archive

First Drafts

Lola's diary

Free-writing

Links

contact Jeremy
contact Ellen

A question I see frequently, most recently on the Sifter mailing list, is of the general format, "What does life mean?" -- The question is commonplace to the point of being trite. Why is it trite? Why do people continue to ask?

It seems to me that many different notions are bound up in the notion of "meaning"; to name just one, "purpose" seems often to be foremost in the mind of a person asking about the meaning of life -- which is why the question may be seen as a stalking horse for arguments about the existence of a Divine Intent. But I have an idea, that if we could strip away these misleading secondary ideas and get to the root of what is intended by "meaning", we would have made a lot of progress toward discovering this meaning.

I want to propose this definition of "meaning": "The interface between perception and reality". I have previously rejected three metaphysical paradigms, Dualism and the two reductionistic monist views of Solipsism and Materialism. (All these terms are shorthand and may not correspond precisely to definitions of these terms found in philosophical literature.) I think Meaning as I have defined it holds out a promise of a fourth way, an inclusive monism.