System Superiority and the 'Real-ness' of Numinous Experience

It occurs to me: so often people scientistically figure we experience what we experience because of our evolutionary genetic 'program code', but what if they have it just reversed? Perhaps the purpose of our having the evolutionary genetic 'program code' that we have is so that that we experience the meaning and significance that we experience.

And this makes me think about why these East meets West grand theories are so problematic: while one side investigates the 'code' system (and infrastructure) and so sees its supremacy over experience, the other investigates the 'meaning' system and so sees its supremacy over the 'code'; one is scientism, the other ideology, but both are equally dogma in their absolutist claims. Perhaps more truthfully they may only be effectively superior to the other in some areas and ultimately neither is superior over the other in the larger picture. Perhaps together they make a single integrated interface with feedback loops on both scientific and experiential scales (both material and spiritual scales, both micro and macro scales, both individual and human-wide scales, both compact cosmological and diverse differentiated scales and 'both' etc. ad nuaseam).

And this naturally makes me wonder how such a system might come about, and it's a question I fear because I cannot fathom how there could be a single resolved 'originating both' (with real explanatory power on 'both' sides) as with the 'systematic both' cases above.

Andreas Kluth says here: "Sure, it might be helpful to see meaning (= believe in God), but that does not mean that there actually is meaning (=God). Sartre might be right after all." Yet I rather think Sarte had a belief, because he believed there no God, and this belief and its consequences had meaning for Sarte. Thus I agree with 'Phillip S Phogg' here when he says it may not matter whether we believe there is or isn't a 'God', what matters is that we believe something and thereby we have meaning. (Although unlike Phogg, I refrain from making any blanket [objective] statements about ' all so-called objective realities'.)

I somewhat agree with 'Solid Gold Creativity' who argues in the same place that "human beings are meaning-making machines". Although I'd use 'meaning-matrices' because machine connotes a certain scientism I'd avoid, and while 'making' underscores his thought that there is no innate meaning within the universe or cosmos, such a thought seems a dogmatic assuming presumption, as does that meaning is already there and that we simply 'find' it.

Similarly I believe I am an agnostic: while I believe humans can make no non-dogmatic statements about the absolute nature of the universe (or cosmos) or the (or any) divine, I yet derive meaning (and observe other humans deriving meaning) from the association of our numinous experiences with 'divine flavor'.

For me, meaning and the numinous experience are, and remain, my experiential bottom line, but I cannot resolve to place them in any hierarchy.

Fearing (the Programming of) the Numinous Chase

In a way perhaps it matters not whence cometh the numinous relationship meaning (see also here), perhaps if one found the source, the efficacy, the power, the mystery, or some other part of the process, might fade away. Again: unneeded differentiation can destroy effective symbolization of the experience - yet when can one say this is enough differentiation, that I need go no further than this, especially if the manner in which one is accustomed to furthering symbological meaning in their life by the process of differentiation. Where the line in the sand?

If we are here, living life, in order to experience the experientially derived meaning and purposes in life (again I wonder how many numinous nodes of human experience there can be, at least whether infinite or finite), then chasing the source of the numinous relationship experience must be like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: it works only for a little while and then one finds one's self lost with the rainbow gone.

And then I think about the idea of humans as 'programmed' for meaning, 'programmed' for the purpose of finding meaning, purpose and significance (perhaps why I find that article so interesting, the idea of human evolutionary genetic code, our 'programming', being scientific and sacred, without being scientistic). I happen to find meaning in chasing the numinous via the node of increasing differentiation (though I run the risk of over-differentiation) as well as through the node of a rather uxorious romantic relationship - I don't think the exact nature of the 'programming' is significant, other than what it is programmed for, e.g. finding meaning, purpose, significance, value and worth through experience.

This seems to me an especially powerful idea, potentially with great explanatory power. It admittedly has all the hallmarks of a (personal) 'grand theory of everything', but who doesn't seek to make their mental framework increasingly accurate and adequate for their human experience, or even all human experience?

Motivation, Negative and Positive Meaning

I think as an uxorious man I like to connect the meaningful numinous relationship experience to my motivation for everything, but I also think this motivation rarely works very far from the engendering numinous experience. Thus if my wife is not immediately and actively involved in my getting the task at hand done, then I do not feel meaningfully motivated by the numinous relationships experience - I have to find some other meaningful motivation. I don't think this is entirely a bad thing, that the power of meaningful experiences only radiate so far, because it occurs to me there is such a thing as negative meaning.

Positive meaning would be occasioned by the usual joy happiness and contentment, while negative meaning by horror, dismay and dread. I thought of this because negative things can be numinous too; for proof all one need do is have a near death experience or even simply contemplate one's death long enough. I think we often think of these negative meanings as 'evil', but perhaps good and evil are a scale of meaning as much as a scale of morality.

And then there are the 'positive negative things' such as 'at least this bad thing didn’t happen', which are good but only negatively so, because they are not positively good; yet they may be equally occasioned by joy, happiness and contentment. And this reminds me of hope again, and of the power of belief: "well this bad thing hasn't happened (yet), so I am happy (or hopeful) (for the future)."

This still leaves me wondering about where the numinous relationship experience comes from, how to maintain it and maintain other meaningful motivations at the same - all in one mental framework.

How many different numinous nodes of human experience can there be?

Searching For Meaning (Again)

I have ideas of where to continue tracing the numinous relationship experience.

For instance while I said materialistic, scientistic, theories and explanations don't work well for me, I recently rear a fascinating article that had explanatory power for standard gender stereotypes (the classic male trade-off of sex drive for 'greatness' balanced by female drive to protect her reproduction), but also for different motivation between men and women that I observe personally ("Perhaps nature designed women to seek to be lovable, whereas men were designed to strive, mostly unsuccessfully, for greatness"). It makes me wonder if this is part of the reason why female led relationships work for some people.

Another direction: Victor Frankl, a survivor of a Nazi concentration, suggests meaning equals suffering without despair (or despair equals suffering without meaning), which makes me wonder about the relationship between hope and meaning (hope equals belief in meaning yet to come?). It also makes me wonder if storytelling is so powerful because of the hope it conveys, because of the meaning it conveys, which makes me continue to wonder why some stories appeal more than others, and if empathy is one manner by which we attain hope, significance and meaning.