do humans accomplishment have long term meaning
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To answer your question I would separate “meaning” into three categories: 1) cascading consequences, 2) inherent cultural value, and 3) evolutionary significance.
In all of these categories, my suspicion is that we can’t ever really know for certain if human accomplishments will have enduring meaning. Our personal beliefs may inform some guesses on the matter, but we lack the perspective to have certainty. For example, as a species we are pretty inept at anticipating both intended and unintended consequences of human activities. Likewise, even the accomplishments that have enduring cultural value now may not have much value to humans in 10,000 years. And how can we know for certain which of our accomplishments will influence the evolution of our species or consciousness itself over the next millennia?
But this uncertainty does not negate the possibility of meaning propagating on its own, beyond the contexts we impose. For what if some TV broadcast from the 1950s has a profound impact on an alien culture millions of light years away (and therefore millions of years from now)? Or what if learning how to discipline our consciousness in certain ways will allow us to evolve into advanced beings, beings that can shape reality in ways that are beneficial to all life? What if what begins as human-engineered “artificial intelligence” becomes the dominant form of consciousness in our galaxy, for good or ill? Just because we can’t grasp the importance of our individual or collective choices in this moment does not mean they aren’t meaningful – again, we just may not know what that meaning is.
This is also relevant to “spiritual” or metaphysical matters. Although it seems many people would more readily accept personal belief as the basis for long-term spiritual consequences, as I see it the same would apply to all human accomplishments. Our experiences and the meaning we generate around those experiences are all cut from the same cloth – the pattern of our consciousness. Is that meaning “real?” If it becomes the context for our reality, how could it not be (at least for us)? So this is how many metaphysical perspectives would frame the answer to accomplishment and meaning, implying a more intimate relationship between mind and matter than mainstream scientism currently embraces.
For me all of this converges on a central theme: the importance of our intentionality. If we decide our accomplishments should have meaning, if we want our choices to have positive consequences, if we believe contributing something that has cultural value is important, and if we aim to impact the evolution of our consciousness and our species in positive ways, then cultivating a guiding intentionality seems crucial. In my own praxis, that intentionality is defined by the greatest good for the greatest number for the greatest duration - "the good of All" if you will. And of course what that looks like is constantly evolving as I continue to learn, grow and (hopefully) incrementally increase in wisdom, but it is grounded in a felt experience of compassionate affection for both the mystery and mundanity of existence. For me, the basis for all meaningful action is love - and more specifically agape (benevolence, kindness, charity, love-in-action) as driven by that felt experience of compassionate affection. Is this just one more self-justifying belief? One more avenue to meaning-making? Of course it is, but acknowledging that does not dilute its effectiveness as a guiding intentionality. In this way courage and doubt, humility and confidence, creativity and existential angst - all of these can all peacefully coexist in subordination to love.
A couple of final thoughts…You may be interested in the approaches to this question offered by Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning) and Joseph Campbell (Transformation of Myth Through Time). Both of their works touch on the pragmatic significance of human meaning-making.
To answer your question I would separate “meaning” into three categories: 1) cascading consequences, 2) inherent cultural value, and 3) evolutionary significance.
In all of these categories, my suspicion is that we can’t ever really know for certain if human accomplishments will have enduring meaning. Our personal beliefs may inform some guesses on the matter, but we lack the perspective to have certainty. For example, as a species we are pretty inept at anticipating both intended and unintended consequences of human activities. Likewise, even the accomplishments that have enduring cultural value now may not have much value to humans in 10,000 years. And how can we know for certain which of our accomplishments will influence the evolution of our species or consciousness itself over the next millennia?
But this uncertainty does not negate the possibility of meaning propagating on its own, beyond the contexts we impose. For what if some TV broadcast from the 1950s has a profound impact on an alien culture millions of light years away (and therefore millions of years from now)? Or what if learning how to discipline our consciousness in certain ways will allow us to evolve into advanced beings, beings that can shape reality in ways that are beneficial to all life? What if what begins as human-engineered “artificial intelligence” becomes the dominant form of consciousness in our galaxy, for good or ill? Just because we can’t grasp the importance of our individual or collective choices in this moment does not mean they aren’t meaningful – again, we just may not know what that meaning is.
This is also relevant to “spiritual” or metaphysical matters. Although it seems many people would more readily accept personal belief as the basis for long-term spiritual consequences, as I see it the same would apply to all human accomplishments. Our experiences and the meaning we generate around those experiences are all cut from the same cloth – the pattern of our consciousness. Is that meaning “real?” If it becomes the context for our reality, how could it not be (at least for us)? So this is how many metaphysical perspectives would frame the answer to accomplishment and meaning, implying a more intimate relationship between mind and matter than mainstream scientism currently embraces.
For me all of this converges on a central theme: the importance of our intentionality. If we decide our accomplishments should have meaning, if we want our choices to have positive consequences, if we believe contributing something that has cultural value is important, and if we aim to impact the evolution of our consciousness and our species in positive ways, then cultivating a guiding intentionality seems crucial. In my own praxis, that intentionality is defined by the greatest good for the greatest number for the greatest duration - "the good of All" if you will. And of course what that looks like is constantly evolving as I continue to learn, grow and (hopefully) incrementally increase in wisdom, but it is grounded in a felt experience of compassionate affection for both the mystery and mundanity of existence. For me, the basis for all meaningful action is love - and more specifically agape (benevolence, kindness, charity, love-in-action) as driven by that felt experience of compassionate affection. Is this just one more self-justifying belief? One more avenue to meaning-making? Of course it is, but acknowledging that does not dilute its effectiveness as a guiding intentionality. In this way courage and doubt, humility and confidence, creativity and existential angst - all of these can all peacefully coexist in subordination to love.
A couple of final thoughts…You may be interested in the approaches to this question offered by Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning) and Joseph Campbell (Transformation of Myth Through Time). Both of their works touch on the pragmatic significance of human meaning-making.
karthik4894:
do your planted trees frnd
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It is hard to say anything but "no" human accomplishments, all of them, individually or together cannot honestly considered to amount to anything meaningful. Every accomplishment of a human has a long term meaning for human, in general, and a great deal of long term meaning for a select group of humans in particular.
Hope you got it. :)
Hope you got it. :)
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