Among the many differences between homo sapiens and other species, the keen intellect may single out a particular discriminant, which also happens to be a definitory characteristic of the so-called humanity: man is the only species capable of abstract representation.
The problem with abstract objects is that they are... for the lack of a better word, we shall call them lies. The more sophisticated among the readers may be inclined to point out the "nuanced" distinction between lie and approximation, supposing to say that the abstract object as represented in the human mind is slightly different in form as well as in substance to the "real" one, but that the former is "good enough" to be confused with the latter in speech as well as in thought. This argument is pure sophistry firstly because using plain English one cannot possibly call an ideal abstract "an approximation" of a concrete object -- for example you'd never say that the sphere is an approximation of planet Earth, would you? a model, sure, but approximation? While secondly, any object arising in the mind is in some sense "an approximation", including for (Aristotle's opening) example those directly perceived through a narrow field of view processing a very narrow subset of the electromagnetic spectrum. At which point we might as well say that in spite of all its valliant efforts, for the most part the archetypal human lives in a perpetual state of lie.
This state being perpetual, it imposes upon man the requirement of a perpetual effort to keep in touch with the ever changing minutiae of nature. In the lack of such an effort, the "errors" compound and as they do, you get stuff such as religion and more generally ideology, that is, more palatable approaches to explaining something that is otherwise unexplainable. Take for example the stereotypical rationalist argument against Christianity, i.e. how could it be that if God exists, then He is an old bearded man in the sky? when Christians state quite plainly that if such thing as a prime mover exists, then one may as well represent that as a singular personal figure. This so-called debate only gave birth to nonsense such as "how can we explain God through science", and in general debates coming from such different perspectives, that is, different representations of the world, cannot converge to anything meaningful.
That is not to say that metaphysics is not worth pursuing as an activity of the mind -- if anything, the systematically applied study of metaphysics is necessary if one desires to form a coherent view of the world. If there's any problem with the worldview-as-a-lie, it's that the "world view" and more generally all thought is derived, as all life is, from environmental conditions. In other words, just as plants are incapable of thriving in the lack of water, sun and a rich soil, thought is incapable of thriving in a sterile environment devoid of adequate representation -- which is a problem only inasmuch as through its reliance on empty forms, it generates animals in lieu of educated folks, to take but one example. As for the so-called "adequate" representation, I suppose its determination is somewhat of an art, which yet again is how you got all the various priesthoods.
At the end of the day, the life of the spirit, its authenticity, liveliness or lack thereof, these are not as much problems of humanity, rather they are the sort of stuff that each individual needs to deal with for himself. As for the materialist perspective (on anything, really), its main problem is that it's a "perspective", that is, a view, that is, as big a lie as all the others.
> As for the materialist perspective (on anything, really), its main problem is that it's a "perspective", that is, a view, that is, as big a lie as all the others.
Except, it's smaller than the bigger lies and bigger than the smaller ones.
Make of that what you will.
All in all, I prefer Jaynes' Probability Theory in which one of the desiderata is that the inference engine works by carrying out some definite physical process. The brain was built for survival, not truth.
While I'm not familiar with the book, from a cursory perusal I can definitely agree that certain probabilistic models are useful for the prediction of certain actions or properties of physical systems (of which humans are but an example).
The problem with scientific approaches (of which probabilistic approaches are a subset) is that in and of themselves they are sterile. They most certainly improve the understanding of physical phenomena and they may act as support for any practical purpose one may envision -- the problem is that you need someone to envision the practical purpose. For example, how do you determine the set of desirable (desirable, not expected) actions of an individual through science?
Science does not think, as Heidegger used to say. It says nothing about what is acceptable in a given context (and those who pretend it does are liars), it cannot distinguish good from bad -- in general, it is incapable of generating meaning. Everyone experimenting with "science-based approaches", from communists to pantsuits, have failed so far, although their definition of failure is most likely quite different from mine. Do you think they don't understand the science they practice? of course they do, they just won't admit to themselves that in hindsight their reasoning is ultimately unscientific, at least in most cases, from climate dynamics all the way down to the common cold and variations thereof.
Science is useful, that I'll grant it. But through its usefulness it remains no more than a mere tool.
Since apparently I have a knack for quoting myself lately,
> For example, how do you determine the set of desirable (desirable, not expected) actions of an individual through science?
I suppose marketing is doing a pretty good job at that. I'm sure Google, Meta, TikTok and the likes will boast the work they've put into automation that is nowadays fully capable of making people to buy stuff, among others. I won't deny that, just as they can't deny that the prime mover of this scientific-technological marvel (which they dub "artificial intelligence") is in fact political.
I really doubt humans are alone in their capacity for abstraction, but we are definitely the only species on the planet concerned with this "meaning" stuff.
As with the concept of a "soul", I for one think that meaning isn't as magical, supreme and ineffable as we make it seem. For one, it is not magical that which can be destroyed. And meaning can definitely be destroyed, just think of romantic, religious, political disappointments. Secondly, how can we be sure that "meaning" isn't just a fancy word we made up for "motivation"? We like to think that meaning produces motivation, but I think it's just as likely that motivation and meaning are the same, and the real driver of motivation is often either inscrutable or purely arbitrary, like biological instincts.
I'd say that if any species (including here artificial life forms) is capable of representation, then it's almost definitely concerned with some form or another of "meaning". "Artificial intelligence" "is" just capable, or rather, it was programmed solely for representation, if it has any agency of its own then we haven't been able to see it thus far.
I'm not sure that motivation maps unequivocally to meaning. This thing that I call "representation" is just another mechanism for survival, yes, but it is an instinct that's much more elaborate and which requires a great deal more nurturing than just motivation. Motivation might arise out of meaning, although I'm not sure how it would necessarily arise on one hand, while on the other it looks to be just another form of persistent attachment to particular objects arising out of meaning.
This might all be hogwash too. All metaphysics may be hogwash and there's no telling, it's just that the archetypal human has it wired socio-genetically (necessarily socio-, if we're to take feral children into account). To wit, on this count Christians were right once more: both the king and the lowest of the lowest require meaning, otherwise how would we explain astrology on one hand and... Hannah Montana twerking on a stage on the other.
That's why metaphysics is so interesting in my opinion: because it needn't be valid nor does it need to be falsifiable, it just helps one form a coherent view of an otherwise incoherent reality.
And thusly I have restated my article in another form.
As for the other point:
> And meaning can definitely be destroyed, just think of romantic, religious, political disappointments
It's certainly not magic, and I agree that it can be destroyed, just like anything else in this world. Besides, some meanings simply die with the passing of generations, which is how and why most folks today have no actual idea of how communism was built, for example, and what sort of representations drove the people behind it. Which is how most folks today are doomed to repeat the same mistakes too. Only with new meanings.
Meanings are simply pointers to things and the "validity" of meanings depend entirely on the "validity" of the underlying representation of reality with respect to reality itself -- when we refer to an electron, you know as well as I that we actually have very little clue what we're talking about, and the very same effort of discussing it in a consistent thought framework will result into the very same type of religious thinking as does... God, for example.
This is a more elaborate way of saying that reality is constantly changing and we civimalized folks are perpetually doomed to keep up with it. And thusly we have brought Derrida and Heraclitus on the same page.