the meaning of importance

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Advocate
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the meaning of importance

Post by Advocate »

The distinction between important and meaningful is massively important and little understood. Meaning is entirely of the human spirit. It is your subconscious salience and your consciousness priorities, whatever you want it to be. Importance is pragmatic, practical, necessary.

Truth is important, love is meaningful. Truth is a prerequisite for justice but it is not meaningful in it's own right. Love is meaningful for no reason at all but not necessary at all.
Skepdick
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Re: the meaning of importance

Post by Skepdick »

Advocate wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 8:08 pm The distinction between important and meaningful is massively important and little understood. Meaning is entirely of the human spirit. It is your subconscious salience and your consciousness priorities, whatever you want it to be. Importance is pragmatic, practical, necessary.

Truth is important, love is meaningful. Truth is a prerequisite for justice but it is not meaningful in it's own right. Love is meaningful for no reason at all but not necessary at all.
That's not at all how language works..

Is the important/meaningful distinction important?
Is the important/meaningful distinction meaningful?

What does it mean for something to be important?
Is importance meaningful?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: the meaning of importance

Post by Terrapin Station »

Meaning, in the semantic sense, is simply the mental act of making associations between two things--those associations can range from applying names or concepts to implications, allusions, etc.

Meaning in the "meaning of life" sense, which is seems like you might be hinting at, is about overarching goals or purposes that someone has in mind.

Importance is a matter of someone caring about something, including in the context of something's utility for other things the person cares about (though it's not exclusively that--something can be important to someone just for its own sake, not for its utility for another end).

All these things are individual phenomena, so the way they're realized, what they're focused on, etc., varies from individual to individual.
Advocate
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Re: the meaning of importance

Post by Advocate »

>Meaning, in the semantic sense, is simply the mental act of making associations between two things--those associations can range from applying names or concepts to implications, allusions, etc.

There's a separate word for that concept, distinction. Clarifying these things is what allows progress.

>Meaning in the "meaning of life" sense, which is seems like you might be hinting at, is about overarching goals or purposes that someone has in mind.

I generalize that all the way down to caring, but not so far as distinction.

>Importance is a matter of someone caring about something, including in the context of something's utility for other things the person cares about (though it's not exclusively that--something can be important to someone just for its own sake, not for its utility for another end).

That's the way it's typically done, and my whole point is that it's insufficient, and there's a better way, and here it is.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: the meaning of importance

Post by Terrapin Station »

Advocate wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:54 pm >Meaning, in the semantic sense, is simply the mental act of making associations between two things--those associations can range from applying names or concepts to implications, allusions, etc.

There's a separate word for that concept, distinction. Clarifying these things is what allows progress.
No, that's not the same thing as "distinction." What I'm talking about can just as well amount to someone conflating things or blurring them together rather than making a distinction. Distinctions aren't associative acts, they're rather acts of separating (one association from another and showing a difference).
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