The Two Meanings of the Word "Meaning"
One of life’s most enduring questions is What are we doing here? or, to put it another way, What is the meaning of life? If you are a hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy fan, you might already know that the answer to that question is 42. This was the result delivered by the supercomputer Deep Thought, after searching for the answer to that question for 7.5 million years. The answer becomes even more meaningless, in the context of that story, because nobody could remember exactly which question was originally asked.
The difference between the meaning of life and the meaning of 42 pinpoints an ambiguity in the word meaning. When we ask What does 42 mean? we are framing it as a question about reference or interpretation. In this sense we might also ask What does a stop sign mean?, or what does the word “tree” mean? In each case we are asking what something stands for. This is the semantic meaning of the word.
When we ask the question What is the meaning of life? we are seeking a completely different kind of answer, one that relates to purpose, value or significance. This is an experiential question rather than a semantic or computational one, because it describes an organic process that only plays out within living beings. In this case, the semantic meaning of the word meaning stands for nothing without an understanding of the object of the preposition, life.
Victor Frankl
Victor Frankl and the Search for Meaning
Victor Frankl devoted his life to studying the subjective experience of life’s meaning. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he described meaninglessness as a state of existential vacuum that was experienced by roughly 25 percent of his European students. In the United States, however, 60 percent of his students described their lives as meaningless. He also referenced the research of Annemarie von Forstmeyer who noted that 90 percent of the alcoholics she studied suffered from abysmal feelings of meaninglessness. He goes on to describe the research conducted by Stanley Krippner on drug addiction which revealed that 100 percent of the addicts he surveyed felt life was meaningless. After decades of contemplating both the nature and expression of meaning in human lives, Frankl distilled it into this statement:
“[Meaning is] becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality or, to express it in plain words, to become aware of what can be done about a given situation”.
This definition may come across as lightweight when viewed against the vastness of life, but his intent might become clearer by considering the word hope. In neurobiological terms, hope is expressed through the action of dopamine on the nucleus accumbens—the main component of the brain’s incentive and reward pathway. This is the organelle targeted by most drugs of abuse. Hope is the way life expresses the anticipation of reward. We hope our surgery goes well, our stock portfolio rises and lunch time arrives soon. Each of these potential outcomes stand for a rewarding state: good health, financial security and the deliciousness of our favourite menu item perhaps. The feeling of anticipation (hope) we experience is the subjective perception of our nucleus accumbens in action. This brain region excites us, motivates us and rewards us for meeting our needs.
Hope Depends on Uncertainty
Interestingly, we can only hope for things over which we have partial or no control. There’s nothing we can do to ensure our surgeon completes the operation successfully, but we can follow his self-care instructions afterwards. We cannot control the performance of our stock portfolio, but we can hire the services of a professional financier to ensure that the risks and benefits are managed. We cannot make lunchtime arrive sooner, but we can be patient. In each case we anticipate these possibilities being realized.
Victor Frankl’s definition of meaning derived from his experience as a concentration camp internee. During this period of incarceration, it was the hope that he would bring his psychotherapy book into being that kept him alive. It was this possibility when considered against the reality of his captivity at Auschwitz that gave his life purpose, value and significance (meaning), but because he lacked agency, this possibility was a hope rather than a reality. In contrast, the people around him who stopped believing in a rewarding future were the ones who passed away.
Finding Meaning Through Choice
A constrained existence is sustainable in the presence of hope, but without it, nucleus accumbens function drops to agonizing lows and life becomes meaningless. When there is no possibility against the background of our reality, we will boost nucleus accumbens activity using strategies over which we do possess agency. This involves the use of dopamine boosting behaviours and substances.
Addictive behaviours do not promote meaninglessness; in fact, they emulate meaningful states by hijacking that part of the brain involved in the subjective feelings of anticipation, hope and possibility. The meaninglessness of the addict’s life existed before the addiction; indeed, the addiction became a strategy to escape those sensations that accompany meaninglessness, like emptiness, aimlessness and despair.
The normal addictive cycle involves engaging with a behaviour that brings relief from emotional pain, adapting to that behaviour in a way that reduces its effectiveness and experiencing personal and social harms through the pursuit of the behaviour, that now offers diminished returns. Despite its weakened influence, few will let go of the addiction because of these harms when the only prospect is a return to the agonizing hopelessness of a meaningless life. The solution is to nurture meaning into existence where it was formerly absent, to create a possibility, or future reward, against the background of a challenging reality. Read more about meaning in chapters 11 and 12 of The Science and Spirituality of Addiction.
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