That’s a blog-tag I added recently. I’ve currently got two posts with that tag. This will be the third. I’ve got a vague impression that I’ve got other posts on that topic, but under a different tag for pretty much the same idea, but I can’t think of what that tag might be.
Anyhow, I’m writing this post to jog my memory and to cement some specific label – e.g. world-spanning thoughts – for the idea. I’ve had the idea kicking around for a while, but sticking a label to it has been tricky.
What’s the idea? It goes like this. We’re creatures that have to, are driven to, make sense of the world around us. Everything we see or hear or smell or taste or touch, everything has to have some account, some place in an overall scheme of things. “World-spanning thoughts” is a label, one label, I’m sticking on this impulse, this imperative, this desire.
I associate this with the theory of William Powers. It’s not that I got the idea from him. Rather, an organism with a mind that works according to his account, such an organism needs to make sense of everything. Hence world-spanning thoughts.
Actually, not all such organisms. To the extent that Powers is current, all animal perception, action, and cognition is organized in this way. BUT, we humans have language. And that changes everything. Now we’ve got an open-ended need to make sense of it all. That’s an all-together different kind of beast.
Why does language affect/effect us this way? Good question. I’ll take it under advisement.
It worked!
I think I’ve found the other label I’ve had for this idea: meaningful_life.
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