Meaning in the 20th century went missing. With the decline of religion, and the rise of science, for many in the modern world nihilism has taken hold. But this is a mistake. We must usher in the return of meaning, for the existential health of our selves and our culture, writes John Vervaeke.
As we move into the real possibility of what is called artificial general intelligence (AGI), i.e., intelligence that is like or surpasses our own, we move into a problem centrally entwined with our intelligence, viz., the problem of meaning. Two questions immediately emerge: what is the nature of this meaning so central to our intelligent cognitive agency, and what relation does this cognitive meaning have to the existential meaning that has been of concern to philosophers perennially but especially since the advent of modernity and secularism? When Pascal talks about the infinite spaces of the scientific worldview and how they terrify him or Nagel talks about the problem of the absurd as we pursue objectivity, they are invoking a sense of meaning that has something to do with psychologist and philosophers are calling meaning in life [1]. This is the sense that one’s life makes sense in a way that has depth or realness because it connects one to something larger than oneself that has a value and a reality beyond one’s egocentric concerns and individual existence. This connection makes life worth living in the face of the frustrations, failures, suffering and sorrows that reliably assail human lives.
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