Purpose, Meaning, Value

“The beautiful…floats imperceptibly above the surface of the painting and underneath the gaze of the connoisseur - in the realm of pattern (logos).”

“Does it have any purpose, any meaning, any value?” Isn’t this approximately the first question we ask whenever we encounter anything novel? Notice I say ‘question’, not ‘questions’ – because these three ‘questions’ are actually the same question expressed in different contexts:

(1)    Can this entity further my projects? Can I put it to some use? Can I find a purpose for it? Techne.

(2)    If not, does this entity have a message for me? Does it contain information? “The signatures of all things I am here to read.” (Joyce) Gnosis.

(3)    If not, does the entity have value per se, in its own right, apart from any possible utility? Logos.

Unexpectedly, these ‘contexts’ reflect three facets of the Divine Nature, i.e. of the Good, manifest in the World as Beauty (logos), Truth (gnosis), and Justice (techne).

Purpose, Meaning, and Value (PMV) are vectors; they point beyond mere materiality. Purpose refers to the techno-sphere, Meaning to the noosphere, Value to the logo-sphere, three layers of Being that template the purely material (physis). They are what-is caught in the process of becoming what-is-not. They are what-is transcending itself.

PMV refers to an aspect of things that is not immanent in the things themselves:

“This painting is beautiful.” Heads nod in unison. But where does that beauty come from? From the eye of the beholder? Or from the physical painting itself? Or from values that transcend the painting, the artist, and the critic?

If the beauty lies with the beholder, then it is no more significant than my grandchild liking peppermint stick ice cream: nice to know…but end of! If beauty lies in the painting itself, then it is inseparable from the particular pigments and brush strokes used. But if that is the case, how is it that a second painting with exactly the same range of color and acumen of craft is butt-ugly?

The beautiful is grounded in the canvass and appreciated by the connoisseur but it exists in its own realm: it floats imperceptibly above the surface of the painting and underneath the gaze of the connoisseur - in the realm of pattern (logos, see below).

Against all of this, there’s Nietzsche: “One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” (Twilight of the Idols) 

This 19^th century proto-existentialist recognized that PMV transcends the material world but he denied that anything transcends ‘the whole’ and therefore he denied the possibility of any meaningful valuation.

Note: “I like it,” is a valuation of sorts but it is not yet meaningful; it is the semantic equivalent of a sigh. It refers to the painting, and it refers to the critic, but it makes no appeal to the transcendent. However, anything beyond ‘I like it’ or its equivalent invokes values that do not reside either in the critic or in the craft.

So, checkmate! PMV is how we ‘judge, measure, compare, condemn’; therefore, they cannot exist in a flat (linear) Universe such as proposed by Nietzsche and implicit in today’s reigning ontological paradigm, Scientific Positivism. Unless, of course, Nietzche is wrong!

Much as we admire Nietzsche’s take no prisoners style of philosophizing, few of us live our lives as Nietzscheans. The twin ‘illusions’ of agency and hierarchy are just too strong. I have to choose, coffee or tea, and I can’t reconcile myself to the idea that my choices are random, determined algorithmically, a matter of habit, or a product of fate.

Agency sets me apart from the World. Phenotypically, the distinction of not-self from self is our first exposure to the non-linearity of Being. Through me, the World experiences and acts on itself; ego is the vehicle and first fruit of recursion.

But Agency (self vs. not-self) is a specific example of the more general phenomenon of hierarchy. Remember Nietzsche, “Nothing exists apart from the whole?” But I do, I am of the whole, but I am also apart from the whole.

Philosophers love to split a hair, pick a nit, but there’s no splitting or picking here! Either Being is flat (linear) or it’s hierarchical (recursive). If it’s flat, nothing transcends anything else and PMV is an empty concept. However, if anything has purpose, meaning, or value, then Being per se is non-linear and everything has at least the potential to be useful, informative, or enervating. That potential is what defines an ‘entity’ in a non-linear world. To be is to have the capacity to convey influences.

There is a crucial ethical dimension to this. If the World is flat and without transcendent value, then we are free to use (abuse) our environment as we see fit. If those uses are unsustainable or inhumane, so what? We cannot be judged. But on the other hand, if entities have purpose, meaning, or value, they transcend mere materiality and that severely constrains how we may relate to them.

Perhaps the most developed ethic in this vein is that of the Eastern European Hasidim. According to this Orthodox Jewish sect, every entity contains a divine spark, a fragment of Shekinah, YHWH’s Presence in the World. Our mission is to release those sparks so that they can reunite, ultimately constituting the ‘Cosmic Messiah’ (as envisioned by Teilhard de Chardin et al.).

Here Asian and European philosophies overlap. Anaximander, the grandfather of Greek philosophy, taught that Being itself is the product of two potential or virtual entities granting each other ‘reck’ (respect) and thereby constituting each other as ‘actual entities’ with the potential to convey influences.

We fulfill our mission when we treat everything we encounter with that respect, when we grant ‘reck’, when we let everything around us ‘be all that it can be’ (US Army), i.e. when we transform daily living into a sacrament (“The grove needs an altar” – Ezra Pound).

Consider also Native American spirituality. It expresses respect and gratitude to the animals and plants that must be hunted and gathered to sustain human life.

Bottom line, I may not arbitrarily exploit or co-opt other entities solely to further my projects or satisfy my desires. Instead, I must meet every person, process, or thing on its own terms, using it according to its best purposes, respectfully, though not always deferentially.

Upon encountering a new entity, I must not ask what it can do for me; I must first ask what I can do for it (JFK). And it is by treating others with nurturing respect that I release the well-hidden spark within myself. In fact, care of others is care of self because your neighbor is yourself. (Great Commandment) By the grace of God, you save yourself by saving others: ‘Forgive us…as we forgive!’ (Lord’s Prayer)

And who is my neighbor? Well, you are, of course, dear reader, but also the stranger, the sojourner, the refugee, and the outcast. And the coral reef, the bumble bee, the quaking aspen and the wood wide web; Gaia, kosmos, ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon’. (St. Francis)

The Torah may be read as the user’s manual for Planet Earth - 613 ‘DIY hacks’ for dealing ethically, and effectively, with the world of persons, places, and things.

I only come to be in the context of you, the other: you individually (reader), you collectively (society), you transcendently (God). The network precedes the nodes. Therefore logos cannot be an emergent property of physis(sorry Muster Mark…Karl). Logos must be substructural. “It from bit.” (Wheeler)

You’ve heard of the Higgs Boson, the newly discovered particle that gives matter its mass? Well, it is logos that gives entities purpose, meaning, and value . But if anything has purpose, meaning or value, then everything, every entity, is potentially a signifier and therefore everything we do, however local, however trivial, has cosmic implications. Everything is in everything (Anaxagoras Hot Link) and we are called “to see a world in a grain of sand.” (Blake)

If every entity is potentially purposeful, meaningful, or valuable, does the Cosmos as a whole, Being itself, also have significance. Is what’s good for the goslings good for the goose?

According to academic logicians (e.g. Bertrand Russell Hot Link) the answer is ‘no’: no set can be a member of itself, and the set of all entities, the Universal Set (U), is not itself an entity. But this is obviously just a convention. For example, the set of all mathematical objects is itself a mathematical object. Of course, we’re free to define this relationship any way we want but to say that no set can be self-referential seems a bit silly and makes the whole enterprise suspect.

On the other hand, not every set is a member of itself. The set of all horses, for example, is not a horse. So which is it? Is the set of all entities (U) an entity in its own right, and therefore its own member, or is it merely an inert, purely conceptual, collection? This is perhaps Cosmology’s most important question.

It is a fundamental tenet of this site that concepts, if valid, should apply across all scales. There is not one rule for a quantum and another for a queen; the fundamental structure of the Universe must be scale-agnostic. 

The so-called Universal Set (U) goes by many names: Cosmos, Universe, World, Being, God.  What’s your Ultimate Reality? Regardless of labels, the question is the same: Is Reality, at the level of ultimate generality (U), a real thing or just an idea?

To answer this question, we need Gregory Bateson! So many phenomena can be defined by applying his catch-all criterion - a difference that makes a difference. The nexus of all entities is certainly different from any subset of those entities and from the mere multiplicity of the elements themselves. So, different? Check!

But is it a difference that makes a difference? For that, we need to take a step back. What would it mean for the Universal Set (U) to make a difference? It can’t make a difference to something outside itself since by definition there is nothing outside it. So if it makes a difference, it must make a difference to itself and that means it must make a difference to at least one of its members (elements). But if it makes a difference to one member it makes a difference to all members (Principle of Solidarity).

Of the world’s major religions, Christianity is perhaps the most explicit in its doctrines surrounding the reality and efficacy of the Universal Set: “In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and the logos was God and…the logos become flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 1 – 3, 14) Translation: the Universal Set is an actual entity and so it is a member of itself. U є U; Incarnation!

So we find ourselves in the position of the residents of Jerusalem c. 500 BCE, hearing the Book of Deuteronomy read out for the first time: “I set before you life and death; therefore, choose life.” (30: 19)

I set before you everything (panta) and nothing (nihil); therefore, choose everything. Either the universe is an unimaginably huge pile of steaming excrement (nihil)… or it is thoroughly saturated with Purpose, Meaning, and Value (panta). And if panta, then U itself is an actual entity that makes a difference in the careers of every other member, every other actual entity. In my view at least, there can be no middle ground.

“Mademoiselle, may I take your order? Will you have Panta or Nihil today?”