Make money doing the work you believe in
How I have used the word “meaning” in my writings:
1. Meaning as sensorimotor pattern (most elemental definition)
"Meaning", elementally, is simply patterns of relationship between sensation and motor action. Conventional "meaning", as in "the meaning of life", is emergent orders of abstraction on sensorimotorivity.
Meaning is constrained but not determined by what is. Everyday life is a display of what is, ornamented by meaning.
from: anielsen.substack.com/p…
2. Meaning as the sensation of affordances of projected pattern
Meaning is a reflection of the inner sky in the outer sky: it is the sensation of the affordances revealed by the projection of pattern. [...] The sensation of this possible interaction is meaning, the reflection of the inner sky in the outer sky.
from: anielsen.substack.com/p…
3. Meaning as the field of inseparable perception-action
The secret sky is meaning.
Meaning here is the field that arises from the inseparable co-arising of perception and action [...] Sensation constrains meaning but does not entail it. Within this constraint, meaning is a spontaneously arising shaping of sensation into artistic expression via emphasizing, de-emphasizing, and setting aside.
from: unpublished work-in-progress, “The Secret Sky of the Mandala”
4. Meaning as active implication map
Meaning is your active implication map; it need not be metaphysical to function.
from: unpublished work-in-progress, “The Option Attitude as Kadag”
5. Meaning as actual pattern of engagement
Meaning is an actual pattern of engagement. When there is congruent shared meaning, each individual's actual patterns of engagement are in coherence across body, energy, and mind.
from: anielsen.substack.com/p…
6. Meaning as affordance recognition / import
To be meaningless is to be without import; inrushing fresh meaning is full with import. This import is affordance recognition, the direct perception of what can be done.
meaning is a recognition of the possibilities of action in this moment, expressed by directionality of action.
from: anielsen.substack.com/p…
7. Meaning as dynamic flow (release and inrushing)
When mind is relaxed, if meaning is released, fresh meaning rushes in, as when body is relaxed, if the breath in the lungs is released, the lungs fill with air again of their own accord.
From a foundation of feeling without meaning, meaning is recognized to play across life like sunlight dancing on water.
from: anielsen.substack.com/p…
8. Meaning as fluid (nature of states)
Meaning becomes fluid when there is experientially both familiarity with allowing sensation to remain without transformation, and familiarity with kinetically fully realizing the potential for sensory transformation.
from: anielsen.substack.com/p…