RE: What's the Use?
All of the "uses" seem to also suggest an underlying purpose for an individual's life. How to determine that purpose, or whether there is a purpose other than survival, would be the logical extension along this line of query.
I think Aristotle defined the Good in accordance to the function of a human or animal. A human or animal then lives well - according to the Good (you can add or take an 'o' here) - if he successfully discharges this function.
With my theory I make a similar claim, that the uses determine what an animal finds meaningful. So if you, say, only care about sex when it comes to women, then the only meaningful interaction you can have with them is that one, and if you can't do that then you find interactions with them meaningless, and that's one less meaning-unit to tally when you count the meaningfulness in your life.
I would posit that "why" is not the line of query science can answer; it is more the question of philosophy or religion. Science is concerned only with "how" and "what." After all, to paraphrase Frank Herbert, has not religion claimed monopoly on purpose of creation?
True. I was providing a causal why rather than a teleological one.
But surely, there is an objective standard upon which to measure our subjective choices of meaning? I guess, in a sense the end goal, or purpose, determines use-paradigm.
It was important to me to make my theories very inclusive, meaning that a beetle or cockroach could also have meaning in life, not just humans, and not everything would be subservient to the meanings we humans deem most worthy.
I tried to make my theory as "scientific" as possible, but expressed using non-scientific language. I tried to get into the skin of any organism, and see what determines meaning in its life. "Use" is one of the three main ideas I came up with. The other two I called "investment" and "contingency." All three explain how our values are related to the world, how for example if I value sex but can't use anything as sex, my life is less meaningful, how if I value health but my health is only contingently associated with me, then that "falsifies" my value, creating meaninglessness, and how values can also be seen as an investment, as a minus sign that needs to be made into a plus sign or at least an equals sign if life is to have meaning. The life of the dung-rolling beetle can be meaningful if it can satisfy its value of rolling dung. Us humans calling its life meaningless because it can't appreciate Beethoven is a misunderstanding: a beetle hasn't invested in a brain that can appreciate classical music, so its life is not less meaningful for not being able to appreciate it.
But you can rightly call a human life less meaningful for not being able to appreciate great art, because it has invested in that machinery that we can (scientifically) tell is partly "made for" appreciating art. In this sense, meaning is not subjective: you can say to someone "your life is less meaningful for never having loved/read Shakespeare/listened to Beethoven etc.", no matter how much he disagrees with you.
I will explore all these ideas in later posts!
Wow, such challenge! I guess I am more of a partisan for Heraclitus: all is fire . . . no, man is measure of all things. I did not even consider that other creatures had "meaning" to their lives.
I look forward to the next "Life" edition.