Meaning is just thought and so can only exist in the minds of individuals. Because of this, there cannot possibly be any objective meaning of life. Each and every one of us can determine our own meaning for ourselves and we need not impose them on others.
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I agree. I hope you don't feel such an imposition was attempted here. Just my thoughts.
That would be, by your own definition, your subjective view, as such an absolute statement depends on the transmission of meaning itself to be made, no?
The heart's "meaning" is to pump blood. I don't think anyone would argue here. To me, meaning and function are similar, if not the same thing, in many cases.
If morality can be objective, then meaning can as well. The heart's meaning is to pump blood. It "means" and "intends" to, biologically speaking.
The principle of self-ownership is an objective reality, but if nobody knows what it means, it cannot be anything at all.
As you say, though, "meaning" may be different from my "meaning of life," and it would be an exercise moral illegitimacy to attempt to foist and force my definition of "the meaning of life" onto others.
Words are packets of data that carry meaning that's agreed upon by the users of the language. So when I say "there cannot possibly be any objective meaning of life," it's a statement regarding the agreed-upon meanings of the words being used. In this case, the words in question would be "meaning" and "life." Ergo, the statement was one of objective fact, not subjective opinion.
The heart has an objectively observable function (pumping blood) but not a meaning.
Strictly speaking, I'd have to argue against morality itself being objective. To some cultures, the accumulation of power and the spreading of their genes are regarded as the highest good and ideas like the NAP would be disgusting to them. However, once we establish a common underlying moral principle, we can treat everything that follows objectively because of the agreed-upon meaning of the words used. In other words, once we establish a foundational principle like "using the property of others without their consent is bad," we can tie everything else logically back to this. This is why we should be highly suspicious of anyone that says "that's just semantics." Semantics are actually a super big deal because it's how we logically trace things back to our foundational principles and it's how we can spot logical inconsistencies and fallacies. It's how a subjective concept like morality can be explored, developed, and managed in an objective manner.
I hope this is making sense. I'd totally be down for a live chat sometime to hash it out over more bandwidth.
I like what you are saying here, and the clarification about your statement makes sense to me. We agree on the meaning of the words "meaning" and "life" and thus can understand your statement's meaning via shared definitions of terms (shared data packets).
I'll have to think about this some more.