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Originally posted by noahfor
When something has meaning that means there is more to it than just the thing.
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I think you need to be more specific about what this "more to it than just the thing" actually is. My thinking is that meaning arises because a consciousness is applied to an observation. In other words, something that can recognize, remember, and break into patterns is applied to perception. The meaning of a thing, is the interaction between conception and sense. Something that has meaning, has to have meaning
for someone. I don't think meaning just exists out of thin air. So this extra you're looking for, may just be the person experiencing the thing.
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Think about this. When something happens to you, you judge its good or badness by the way it makes you feel (and forget what good and bad are, and that it might not be that way all the time). Something else tells us what is bad or good about a situation, and that is feeling, but what tells you if feelings are good or bad?
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I think you tell you. If you can use feeling to judge a situation. Then you can probably treat the feeling as another situation, and see what "feeling" you get from that. Your self-consciousness is reflexive, meaning it can observe itself. This is introspection, and I don't think there's any limit to how many "meta" levels you can go to. (How do I feel about this? How do I feel about feeling like this? ...). I hope this added something new to the discussion.