We all know what we are saying when we talk about what is meaningful to us. These are first-person statements. If the Universe is imagined as "outside" and the mind is "inside", meaning is on the "inside". Einstein remarked that he was amazed that the fundamental laws of nature are discoverable and, by the way, beautiful. There is something behind this observation that seems almost spiritual - in fact, people talk about " Einstein's God ". Wilczek asks the same question on " A Beautiful Question ". He's noting the same deep beauty Einstein is talking about and asking the subtle question - is the Universe "really" beautiful? So here's a possible road to a "solution" to the hard problem: How do we experience meaning in the Universe? How does it feel to find meaning? Damasio builds his account of "mind" on this very question. This is not merely an "outside" mechanical idea. It...

This continues my discussion of an analogy between the human situation and that of a bee. I contend that neither of us knows the most important fact about our existence, namely that we are embedded in a "hive". " Surfaces and Essences " reminds us that analogies underlie our thinking, but to watch out. Some analogies are better than others. Humans are not bees. For one thing, as far as the hive is concerned, the individual bee is expendable and interchangeable with any other bee. We are tempted to regard our enemies this way. Enemy soldiers are robots but ours are heroes with families back home. But the fact is that humans are far from interchangeable. Even if we have been exposed to the same environment and the same education, we manage to draw different lessons from it. It's also true that humans are not expendable, or at least they have different degrees of expandability. The skills of individuals often contribute to the fate of the "hive"...