What Counts as "Meaningful" Thinking?

The short answer is that is it can mean whatever you want it to mean, but the short answer presents a few problems.

The first problem is that it would set a terrible precedent as a blog. I could have a blog that poses a lot of deep philosophical questions, make every post the same nine-word answer as above and leave it at that, but that wouldn’t be a blog. It would be lazy performance art, at best.  Or I could post a one-page website with a list of questions for you to work out on your own. That would at least make this website more like a puzzle game.

I do want you to work all these questions out for yourselves, but not on your own. Every question represents a topic I would like to explore together.

The second problem is that doing so would carelessly open cynical post-modernism debates about the relative validities of perception and interpretation. On one hand, shutting down all lines of questioning and critical thinking has a suffocating effect on meaningful discourse. On the other hand, opening all lines of questioning and critical thinking at once can drown out meaningful discourse. The two polarities of the spectrum produce the same result. I prefer to take a metamodern approach because it strikes a practical balance between the two extremes of dogma (modernism) and relativism (postmodernism). I have much to say on Metamodernism, so I'll leave that topic for another day [PRTL].

The point being, this is a personal question that you'll have to work out on your own. But it's also an important question that I must work out on my own. The tone I want to set for this blog is me working this stuff out on my own, not as instruction or prescription but as example and illustration.

So… what do I mean by meaning? I like to start with Merriam Webster, my go-to dictionary for reference. Sense 3, the one we want for this question, defines "meaning" as "significant quality." The quality of something is the value that we assign to it, and significance speaks to both the degree of the quality and the arbitrarity or intentionality of the quality. A meaningful thought refers to ideas and concepts to which I assign personal and substantial value.

How do we assign value to concepts personally? That's a large question, but I can answer a small but important part of it. I make a distinction between practical value and speculative value. As I mentioned in an earlier post, "practical value" refers to the degree to which an idea or concept influences or affects my choices and determinations. Concepts that influence my actions are going to be more meaningful to me than concepts that don't. [The difference between "choice" and determination is also a good question for another day [PRTL].

[Side note: this means that the more choices you make and the more actions you take, the more significant and meaningful all of your thoughts are, no matter what they are. The more active you are, the more meaningful and significant your life is.]

Practical value is a large aspect of meaningful thinking, but it's not the only aspect. Another quality that I consider is personal significance. Some concepts will pique my curiosity more than others. This is more a matter of taste than practicality, as many concepts that interest me aren't necessarily that practical. The things we like to learn about, the areas that intrigue us, are going to fall into the category of personal significance.

Personal significance is the “accounting for taste” part. When we say there’s no accounting for taste, we largely mean there’s no accounting for other people's taste. We still have to account for our own taste. Personal significance is the applicable attribute. Whether we don’t understand why we like something or we don’t understand why someone else likes something, understanding the connection that object creates in the subject helps us to understand the personal significance that a thing has for a person.

Sometimes. Other times we don’t know why we like what we like, we just like it. And that’s okay too. That still counts as meaningful in my book.

Because I like my lists to be in odd numbers [PRTL] and I’ve mentioned practical value and personal significance, I want to add one more thing. So I’ll portmanteau the first two to include personal values as the third. By “personal values” I am referring to the core moral values to which we hold ourselves accountable.

Which may not be its own category. We could say that personal values are simply the most practical of our practical values, since our core values reflect the concepts that have the largest influence on our choices and actions. We could also say that personal values are the items of the greatest personal significance, since they represent the concepts that are most aligned with our core identity and reflect what we want the most out of life.

I could say all that, and in fact I just did. I’m going to count this as a third category even though it’s the Venn center area where the first two concepts overlap. I would like to include this because it adds a point of emphasis that our practices and preferences are interlinked. It also emphasizes that we have a responsibility to hold ourselves accountable for choices and our preferences alike, and that our core personal values reflect the standards of accountability we set for ourselves.

I also think that this is important as a third category because this is where civics and culture come into play. The activity and circumstances of society at large have a direct impact on our perspectives and attitudes. This can be a profound influence on our personal values which in turn drive our day-to-day actions and choices, especially in our interpersonal relationships. This is why I like to separate the application of our philosophies and values into three arenas: the social, the interpersonal, and the personal. I’ve referenced the three arenas in a previous post, but since they’re a huge part of the Agency Mandate I’ll delve more into them later as well. [PRTL]

It bears mentioning that what counts as “meaningful” is going to be on a spectrum. I can’t really imagine what “pure meaning”, or “absolute meaninglessness” would mean. If you want to go down the meta-meaning rabbit hole of whether this proves or disproves the polarities one way or another, I’m happy to do that in person. [I think that question is going to come with a two-drink minimum, so you’ll have to buy the first round.]

The point is that since it’s a spectrum, the question of “does it count as meaning?” Is not materially different than the question “how much does it count as meaning?” I don’t consider the latter question a follow up question to the former, I consider the questions to be one in the same.

I also think that as important as it is to ask the question “How meaningful is this concept to me?” It’s just as important for that question to beg the question “How is this concept meaningful to me?” The manner of the application is just as important as the value, if not more so. 

Now that you have a pretty good picture of this Venn diagram I’ve illustrated, you have a pretty good idea of what I consider to be meaningful thought. I’ll stop here and give you some space and time to envision what your Venn diagram might look like. Think about what you consider meaningful thought and think about how you can use that to apply critical thinking over sport thinking.