meaning
Last modified on August 31, 2021
Links to "meaning"
What about meaning? (Positive Psychology > What about meaning?)
purpose => something greater
values => act consistent with my right/wrong
efficacy => make a difference
self-worth => I am good, worthy
Meaning-happiness disjuncture: high in meaning, low in happiness. E.g. revolutionaries, parents
Sources: Relationships/Community, Authenticity, Significant Goals. Working on stuff that matters, that "moves the needle." Struggle/Adversity
What's the point of a digital lab [/garden/whatever]? (Making connections)
perhaps adding new edges to our knowledge graph is more important than adding new nodes. That is, maybe discovering the isomorphisms/analogies between existing concepts is more powerful than learning new concepts
— Ketan Agrawal (@_ketan0) February 12, 2019
It seems like things gain more meaning when they are multiply-connected into the fabric of our reality.
Towards Causal Representation Learning (Some System 2 inductive priors)
Sparse causal graph of high-level, semantically meaningful variables.
Semantic variables are causal: agents, intentions, controllable objects, for example.
Changes in distribution are due to causal interventions (in the aforementioned high-level semantic space.) Provided we have the right abstractions, it would only take a few words to describe this change.
Everything that's happening can be reported in simple language. (Interesting that this is an example of report/access consciousness.) Mapping from semantic variables <=> sentences
"generic rules" of how things work are shared across instances – need variables / functions / some form of indirection.
Stability/robustness in meaning (e.g. of laws of physics,) even with changes in distribution, vs. things that do change. E.g.: early visual layers are stable after childhood. Later things like object recognition can be adapted to very quickly.
Causal chains to explain things are short. (Interesting: connection to dissonance reduction: we like simple explanations of the world around us (possibly because it helps us streamline our cognition.))