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> What's the point of our existence if we have no way to meaningfully contribute to our own world?

You may find this to be insightful: https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/

In short, "meaning" is a contextual perception, not a discrete quality, though the author suggests it can be quantified based on the number of contextual connections to other things with meaning. The more densely connected something is, the more meaningful it is; my wedding is meaningful to me because my family and my partners family are all celebrating it with me, but it was an entirely meaningless event to you.

Thus, the meaningfulness of our contributions remains unchanged, as the meaning behind them is not dependent upon the perspective of an external observer.

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lo_zamoyski 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

People talk about meaning, but they rarely define it.

Ultimately, "meaning" is a matter of "purpose", and purpose is a matter of having an end, or telos. The end of a thing is dependent on the nature of a thing. Thus, the telos of an oak tree is different from the telos of a squirrel which is different from that of a human being. The telos or end of a thing is a marker of the thing's fulfillment or actualization as the kind of thing it is. A thing's potentiality is structured and ordered toward its end. Actualization of that potential is good, the frustration of actualization is not.

As human beings, what is most essential to us is that we are rational and social animals. This is why we are miserable when we live lives that are contrary to reason, and why we need others to develop as human beings. The human drama, the human condition, is, in fact, our failure to live rationally, living beneath the dignity of a rational agent, and very often with knowledge of and assent to our irrational deeds. That is, in fact, the very definition of sin: to choose to act in a way one knows one should not. Mistakes aren't sins, even if they are per se evil, because to sin is to knowingly do what you should not (though a refusal to recognize a mistake or to pay for a recognized mistake would constitute a sin). This is why premeditated crimes are far worse than crimes of passion; the first entails a greater knowledge of what one is doing, while someone acting out of intemperance, while still intemperate and thus afflicted with vice, was acting out of impulse rather fully conscious intent.

So telos provides the objective ground for the "meaning" of acts. And as you may have noticed, implicitly, it provides the objective basis for morality. To be is synonymous with good, and actualization of potential means to be more fully.

	▲	nthingtohide 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Meaning is a matter of context. Most of the context resides in the past and future. Ludwig's claim that word's meaning is dependent on how it is used. This applies generally. Daniel Dennett - Information & Artificial Intelligence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arEvPIhOLyQ Daniel Dennett bridges the gap between everyday information and Shannon-Weaver information theory by rejecting propositions as idealized meaning units. This fixation on propositions has trapped philosophers in unresolved debates for decades. Instead, Dennett proposes starting with simple biological cases—bacteria responding to gradients—and recognizing that meaning emerges from differences that affect well-being. Human linguistic meaning, while powerful, is merely a specialized case. Neural states can have elaborate meanings without being expressible in sentences. This connects to AI evolution: "good old-fashioned AI" relied on propositional logic but hit limitations, while newer approaches like deep learning extract patterns without explicit meaning representation. Information exists as "differences that make a difference"—physical variations that create correlations and further differences. This framework unifies information from biological responses to human consciousness without requiring translation into canonical propositions.

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ionwake 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Please don't be offended by my opinion, I mean it in good humour to share some strong disagreements - Im going to give my take after reading your comment and the article which both seem completely OTT ( contextwise regarding my opinions ).

>meaning behind them is not dependent upon the perspective of an external observer.

(Yes brother like cmon)

Regarding the author, I get the impression he grew up without a strong father figure? This isnt ad hominem I just get the feeling of someone who is so confused and lost in life that he is just severely depressed possibly related to his directionless life. He seems so confused he doesn't even take seriously the fact most humans find their own meaning in life and says hes not even going to consider this, finding it futile.( he states this near the top of the article ).

I believe his rejection of a simple basic core idea ends up in a verbal blurb which itself is directionless.

My opinion ( Which yes maybe more floored than anyones ), is to deal with Mazlows hierarchy, and then the prime directive for a living organism which after survival , which is reproduction. Only after this has been achieved can you then work towards your family community and nation.

This may seem trite, but I do believe that this is natural for someone with a relatively normal childhood.

My aim is not to disparage, its to give me honest opinion of why I disagree and possible reasons for it. If you disagree with anything I have said please correct me.

Thanks for sharing the article though it was a good read - and I did struggle myself with meaning sometimes.

	▲	zdragnar 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To use a counter example, consider Catholic priests who do not marry or raise children. It would be quite the argument indeed to suggest their lives are without meaning or purpose. Aha, you might say, but they hold leadership roles! They have positions of authority! Of course they have meaning, as they wield spiritual responsibility to their community as a fine substitute for the family life they will not have. To that, I suggest looking deeper, at the nuns and monks. To a cynical non-believer, they surely are wanting for a point to their existence, but to them, what they do is a step beyond Maslow's self actualization, for they live in communion with God and the saints. Their medications and good works in the community are all expressions of that purpose, not the other way around. In short, though their "graph of contextual meaning" doesn't spread as far, it is very densely packed indeed. Two final thoughts: 1) I am both aware of and deeply amused by the use of priests and nuns and monks to defend the arguments of a nihilist's search for meaning. 2) I didn't bring this up so much to take the conversation off topic, so much as to hone in on the very heart of what troubled the person I originally responded to. The question of purpose, the point of existence, in the face of superhuman AI is in fact unchanged. The sense of meaning and purpose one finds in life is found not in the eyes of an unfeeling observer, whether the observers are robots or humans. It must come from within.