{"id":4181,"date":"2007-10-21T21:42:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-21T21:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/10\/meaning-and-syntax\/"},"modified":"2007-10-21T21:42:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-21T21:42:00","slug":"meaning-and-syntax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/10\/meaning-and-syntax.html","title":{"rendered":"Meaning and Syntax"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Perhaps the <a href=\"http:\/\/exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\/2007\/10\/meanings-of-life.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">meaning in life<\/a> is its <i>syntax<\/i>. The meaning of DNA comes not from the four letters of its \u2018alphabet\u2019, but from their interpretations in longer \u2018sentences\u2019. Likewise our words take on precision and depth when joined with other words.<\/p>\n<p>Syntax is not something added to the words, but something that arises from their being placed together in frameworks of meaning. Perhaps the same is true in our relationships to one another. There isn\u2019t another substance added to the relationships, something we could examine and analyse. There is just meaning in the arrangement.<\/p>\n<p>The question then becomes whether this meaningfulness, the existence of which few of us would doubt, depends on a higher level of organization that \u2018reads\u2019 the sentences of our lives.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, meaning seems not to require what we might call a belief in the \u2018supernatural\u2019, in a dualistic sense. But it <i>does<\/i> seem to require the existence of <i>the transcendent<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>DNA cannot see its own meaning. Cells cannot observe the organism of which they are a part. Words cannot understand sentences. But if they could think, and reflect, as we do, would they have the ineffable religious experiences that many human beings have had, the sense of connectedness with a greater reality, that gives their existence meaning?<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-5599411130076980249?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the meaning in life is its syntax. The meaning of DNA comes not from the four letters of its \u2018alphabet\u2019, but from their interpretations in longer \u2018sentences\u2019. Likewise our words take on precision and depth when joined with other words. Syntax is not something added to the words, but something that arises from their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Meaning and Syntax<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Perhaps the meaning in life is its syntax. 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