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  • Mark me down for either/or.

  • What's the difference between the "meaning of an action" and the "purpose of an action"? ...I feel actions are interpreted through their purpose. I don't think "to invent a meaning" makes any sense when applied to "actions" unless you are including the possible purpose/motivation of the action as part of what you are inventing for it.

    Unless what you mean by "meaning" is "consequence".. but in that case, you are not "inventing" it.. consequences do happen, they are factual.. at most you can interpret the consequence of the action, in the sense of viewing them through different moral perspectives, but even this would be heavily determined by "purpose", since all moral frameworks judge reality based on a purpose/goal/ideal.

    I feel the popular concept of "the meaning of life" is equivalent to "the purpose of life".. and talking about "what should we do?" as the "only choice that matters" does implicitly set the weight on meaning/purpose, since that's what directs our choices.

    • Purpose is linked to Intention, meaning comes from reflection. So one is forwards looking and one is back.

      My take, for what it's worth.

      • That makes sense. However, that means they are just 2 aspects of the same thing, it's just the position from which you are looking at it which changes.

        In that sense, any purpose that is unknown will require reflection, and thus will be a meaning, because we would need to look back to our own deeper motivations to understand ourselves.

        I'd argue that purpose is like an onion.. behind each purpose there's a deeper purpose, and it often becomes more and more obfuscated, to the point that most purposes end up linking to deep subconscious wants, desires and instincts. I'd argue that most of our actions are done without being fully aware of the purpose we are following, or at least, not without a considerable level of "reflection" into ourselves. This further blurs the line between purpose and meaning.

        In fact, I wonder if it's possible to act being fully aware of your decisions.. because if you were capable of knowing every inch of your mind, wouldn't that information about yourself have also an effect on your mind? like a snake biting its own tail, the more you learn about yourself, the more new information is added to your mind which potentially changes yourself.. making you into a new person, different from the one you thought you knew.

10 comments