> 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.

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 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.

> 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.

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.

Except, it's smaller than the bigger lies and bigger than the smaller ones.

Make of that what you will.