Adventures in Meaning

I'm going out on a long limb here.

One of the contemporary approaches to the psychedelic experience of universal connectedness is a version of panpsychism by which consciousness is seen as the single metaphysical (and thus spiritual) essence from which material reality has emerged.

I take a different approach, proposing that meaning is the metaphysical (but not spiritual) essence on which everything is based and that it is a compulsion towards meaning that sources and powers our material reality. I see life and consciousness having emerged as elaborate efflorescences of meaning.

What do I mean by 'meaning'? The fact that things can make sense. That things are capable of relationship. That 1+1=2. That logic is possible. That patterns exist. That any sort of order is possible. That games can be played. That objects interact according to rules. That there can be such things as harmony and beauty. That we share an objective reality. Einstein hit the nail on the head when he said something like "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."

Essential meaning may well be what is responsible for the order underlying mathematics and the laws of physics. Sex, beauty, music and language, even love - all the mysteries - could be expressions of the same fundamental drive towards meaning. I see consciousness too, whether human, animal or spiritual, to be such an expression. All these could be seen as fruits in a "garden of meaning", in which stands, among others, the tree of knowledge.

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Quantum physics says multiple outcomes are possible for any quantum event. Which outcome will be actualized - the one that the event 'collapses' to - is understood to be random. According to the principle of a compulsion towards meaning, one (and probably more) of these possible outcomes will be contextually meaningful, that is, coherent with - capable of relating with in some meaningful way - the outcomes of all other quantum events in its environment, thereby establishing a higher order of meaning, in this case a 'macro' order of meaning different to the 'quantum' order. It is always one of these contextually coherent outcomes that actualizes in the collapse, ensuring that all the outcomes are macroscopically connected to each other, and so with the entire macro universe. Not all the quantum possibilities could actualize in ways that are macroscopically meaningful, only some, and the principle says that it is one of these that will actualize (possibly the one with greatest potential for spawning even more orders of meaning). 'Meaningful' does not rule out 'random', only that the outcome make sense. A quantum wave function always collapses into macro meaning.

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A metaphysical compulsion towards meaning results not only in sense but a flourishing thereof. Our world hosts many orders of meaning, providing vast avenues for its expression. We and our spirits embody such higher orders of meaning.

The multifarious fields of meaning emerging from architective aggregation and connective interference (as described in Physical Spirituality) also constitute such orders of meaning. As new fields of meaning emerge, some are more fruitful than others. The evolution of biological gender, for example, has given rise to particularly rich expressions of emotional and social meaning; in this case not just a flourishing of meaning but a conflagration thereof.

Consciousness could well be the end product of this compulsion to meaning, since consciousness, as the comprehension of meaning, is meaning's ultimate complement.

Consider too how a processional narrative persists across architectures and is able to organize the serial meaning of its contributing architectures. The procession is not an object, yet it has an enduring theme that has a real and meaningful effect on the unfolding of reality. Here we see how the urge to meaning not only allows new orders of meaning to arise but could even be manufacturing reality as it goes.