Unmeant

The fact is, humans need to experience meaning in our lives. [Emphasis in original.] According to research by the psychologists Login George and Crystal Park, this meaning comes in three varieties. First, there’s the kind of meaning acquired from ‘coherence’, or our sense that what we experience makes sense, and that we can understand and predict what happens next; for example, that clouds in the sky mean rain is likely.
You can be a materialist and find meaning in the universe

Of course, by this standard, bears also experience meaning, if it comes from something so simple as being able to understand the basic rules by which the physical world works. But, I will admit, this is a good way to get to a universal. Still it feels like a cheat; one may as well decide that meaning comes from water, that would also force humans to need it in their lives. Research articles are expensive to read, and I wasn't willing to pay for access simply to find out if Login George and Crystal Park used as simplistic a definition of coherence as Professor Tracy had done.

I'm going to take a moment and point out that the tripartite pillars of meaning are not the only formulation. Roy Baumeister, for instance, had a four-pillar definition, consisting of purpose, efficacy, value (moral justification) and positive self-worth. I once read a dialog on meaning where significance was the lone determinant. Compared to these simply being able to make sense of the world, to the degree that things don't change randomly from one moment to the next, seems like a very low bar.

But, as I said, this is what makes it useful as a buttress for the idea that people, as individuals, all need to experience meaning. I'm not even sure I can image someone with severe mental illness being completely unable to understand and predict certain events in their physical and/or social environments. And so the question for me becomes: of what use is establishing coherence as a source of meaning other than to universalize the experience of meaning, and thus have a ready-made answer for those people (like myself) who have no real use for a search for same.

Generally speaking, I understand how concepts such as purpose, significance or moral value fit into a sense of meaning that is intended to connect a person to the universe in such a way that they understand themselves to have some degree of importance to the whole exercise. How being able to predict that it will rain before it actually makes one wet is a little more difficult to decipher for me. Even as proof of the universality of the search for meaning, I find Professor Tracy's invocation of coherence somewhat odd; because rather than something that people need to experience in their lives, coherence, at least to some degree, is something that people have no option but to experience. No matter how random, or even actively chaotic, one's life becomes, gravity will still operate in a predictable fashion.

In that sense, I suppose the heavy lifting that coherence is performing in Professor Tracy's Psyche essay is heading off the question of why this supposed need exists. Thus far, all of the essays on meaning that I have read that claim that the need for meaning is universal have declined to explain why. As much as I understand that Professor Tracy was gratified by her ability to determine that her "existence actually matters to the universe" without recourse to a belief in the divine, I don't understand the basis on which she might assert that I am in need of coming to the same conclusion.

I am of the opinion that to be human is nothing more than to be a member of the species homo sapiens; perhaps more broadly including all of the various members of the genus homo, living or extinct. In this sense, humanity is primarily a factor of genetics. If one's parents are human (and to be the best of my knowledge, humans are incapable of interbreeding with anything else), then one is human. What more need be said? But I understand that for many people, that definition of humanity is too sterile, and something more is needed. And as such, there have been many candidates for some other trait that is required for "being human," with a need for meaning being a common candidate. I do not pretend to know which is right, but I am somewhat disappointed by the lack of interesting evidence for most pet theories.