The meaning of meaning

Abstract

The world is too complex to manage without radical functional simplification. Meaning appears to exist as the basis for such simplification. The meaning that guides functional simplification may be usefully considered as consisting of three classes. The first class consists of meanings of the determinate world. These are meanings based in motivation, emotion, and personal and social identity. First class meanings are grounded in instinct and tend, at their most abstract, towards the dogmatic or ideological. The second class consists of meanings of the indeterminate world. These are meanings based on the emergence of anomaly, or ignored complexity. Second class meanings are also instinctively grounded, but tend towards the revolutionary. The third class consists of meanings of the conjunction between the determinate and indeterminate worlds. These are meanings that emerge first as a consequence of voluntary engagement in exploratory activity and second as a consequence of identifying with the process of voluntary exploration. Third class meanings find their abstracted representation in ritual and myth, and tend towards the spiritual or religious.

Full text

THE MEANING OF MEANING
Jordan B. Peterson
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
ABSTRACT
The world is too complex to manage without radical functional simplification.
Meaning appears to exist as the basis for such simplification. The meaning that
guides functional simplification may be usefully considered as consisting of three
classes. The first class consists of meanings of the determinate world. These are
meanings based in motivation, emotion, and personal and social identity. First
class meanings are grounded in instinct and tend, at their most abstract, towards
the dogmatic or ideological. The second class consists of meanings of the
indeterminate world. These are meanings based on the emergence of anomaly, or
ignored complexity. Second class meanings are also instinctively grounded, but
tend towards the revolutionary. The third class consists of meanings of the
conjunction between the determinate and indeterminate worlds. These are
meanings that emerge first as a consequence of voluntary engagement in
exploratory activity and second as a consequence of identifying with the process
of voluntary exploration. Third class meanings find their abstracted representation
in ritual and myth, and tend towards the spiritual or religious.
INTRODUCTION
Determinate: Having defined limits; not uncertain or arbitrary; fixed;
established; definite. Webster's English Dictionary.
The world is too complex to be represented and acted upon without radical
functional simplification (Brooks, 1991a, 1991b; Gigerenzer & Goldstein, 1996;
Hacking, 1999; Medin & Aguilar, 1999; Simon, 1956). The manner in which
human beings manage this complexity is the subject of much debate. It appears
that what we experience as meaning allows for such simplification – and more:
appears that meaning ensures that such simplification does not transform itself
into inflexible and dangerous stasis. Meaning is a very complex phenomenon,
however, even when provisionally defined as an aid to simplification. It therefore
appears conceptually useful to consider its manifestation in three broad classes.
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
1

The first class of meanings constitutes the mechanism for the establishment of
the most basic, universal forms of functional simplifications, commonly regarded
as motivations. This class, meanings of the determinate world, includes meanings
of emotion, role and social identity, in addition to motivation. The second class of
meanings constitutes the mechanism for the exploration and identification of
those aspects of the environment that constantly arise to challenge the integrity of
current functional simplifications or determinate worlds. This class, meanings of
the indeterminate world, includes the meanings of anomaly or novelty. The third
class of meanings constitutes the mechanism for establishing and representing the
integrated interaction of the first two classes. This class may be regarded as
meanings of the conjunction between determinate and indeterminate worlds. It
includes the meanings that arise in the course of exploratory behavior and in the
ritualization and subsequent representation of such behavior. Consideration of all
three classes provides a portrait of meaning that is simultaneously comprehensive
and differentiated.
1. Class 1: Meanings of the determinate world
1.1. Motivation as the first-order solution to the problems of self-
maintenance, self-propagation, and complexity: We must survive and
propagate, in a world whose complexity exceeds our representational and
functional capacity. Motivation serves to initially address these problems. A given
determinate world is engendered as a consequence of emergent insufficiency,
along a basic motivational dimension. The emergence of a particular motivation
induces a state of radical world-simplification. Someone deprived of sexual
contact, for example, increasingly treats the environment as a place where
intimacy might be sought; where lack of sexual gratification constitutes the
undesirable beginning state, and physical satiation the desired end state (Gray,
1982; Panksepp, 1999; Rolls, 1999). The motivational significance of beginning-
and-end states appears as something primarily given by biology, or secondarily
and rapidly derived from biology through learning. We confront the environment,
innately, with loneliness, playfulness, hunger, thirst and sexual yearning
(Panksepp, 1999) – even with the desire for a good story. We develop extensive
modifications of such concrete beginning and end-states through direct learning
and abstraction. We will work spontaneously to increase wealth, to take a general
example, after coming to understand the polyvalent nature of money.
Motivation does not drive behavior in a deterministic manner. Nor does it
simply set goals. A state of motivation is instead an axiom or a predicate of
experience; something that provides a delimited frame for perception, emotion,
cognition and action (Barsalou, 1983). Motivation provides the current state of
being with boundaries and values (which remain unquestioned as long as current
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
2

action produces its desired ends). These bounded states can be usefully regarded
as determinate micro-worlds of experience.
Such determinate worlds are manifold in number, as there are qualitatively
different states of motivation, such as hunger, thirst or lust (Rolls, 1999), and
manifest themselves singly and sequentially, as processes of perception, emotion,
cognition and action must be directed towards specified and limited targets
(Miller, 1956; Cowan, in press). Each determinate world contains particularized
conceptualizations of the current state of affairs and the desired end, which serve
as necessary contrast and target points for the extraction of percepts, the
specification of objects of abstract thought, the affect-laden evaluation of ongoing
world-events, and the selection of motor procedures. Currently functional
determinate worlds are productive, predictable and secure, composed as they are
of previously encountered, explored and familiar phenomena.
A Planned Sequence of Behavior
Point
A
Point
B
SELF-PROPAGATION
Affiliative Desire Sexual Desire
A Planned Sequence of Behavior
A Planned Sequence of Behavior
Thermoregulation Thirst Hunger Elimination
SELF-MAINTENANCE
Figure 1: The grounding of a determinate world in motivation.
The blueprint of a simple motivation-dependent determinate world is
schematically portrayed in Figure 1. This world consists firstly of
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
3

conceptualizations relevant to the movement from point a, the undesired
beginning-state, to point b, the desired end-state, and secondly of specific motor
patterns designed to bring about that movement (Carver & Scheier, 1998). Figure
1 also presents the structural elements of the simplest narrative or story (Peterson,
1999a): I was here, and I went there (by certain means). This simple or normal
story (Kuhn, 1970) is akin to the necessary fiction of Vaihinger (1924) and Adler
(Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956); to the Dasein of the phenomenologists
(Binswanger, 1963; Boss, 1963); to the expectancy schema of the behaving
animal (Gray, 1982); and to the life-space/field of Lewin (1935). Individuals
operating within the confines of a given story move from present to future, in a
linear track. Two points define such a track – such a line. A present position
cannot bedefined, without a point of future contrast. Likewise, a potential future
cannot be evaluated – judged affectively as better – except in terms of a present
position.
The construction of a simplified determinate world also establishes the
functional domain for object perception (Gibson, 1977). The perception of objects
is, after all, complicated by the problem of level of resolution: the dividing line
between a situation, an object, and the subcomponents that make up that object is
far from simply given (Barsalou, 1983; Brooks, 1991a, 1991b). Human beings
appear to be low-capacity processors, so to speak, with an apprehension capacity
of less than 7 objects (Cowan, in press; Miller, 1956). So it seems that our
working memory works in concert with our motivational systems: a good goal
requires consideration of no more things than we can track. Perhaps it is in this
manner that we determine when to deconstruct a task into sub-goals – all goals are
motivated; all reasonable goals are cognitively manageable. Figure 1, portraying
the frame for emotional response and action, also therefore portrays the most
basic schema for object and event-recognition.
1.2. Emotion as a solution to the problem of motivation: Motivations
constitute a basic set of solutions to the basic-level problems of human existence.
Unfortunately, solutions to problems frequently generate their own problems. The
construction of a simplified determinate world helps specify what ends action
should pursue, and what phenomena might be considered as objects in that pursuit
(Hacking, 1999; Lakoff, 1987; Tranel, Logan, Frank & Damasio, 1997;
Wittgenstein, 1968). Action implies trajectory, however, and movement along a
trajectory means the action-dependent transformation of experience (as the
absolute point of action is to produce desired transformations of experience).
Experiential changes produced in consequence of goal-directed maneuvering
necessarily have implications for goal attainment – but not only those
implications expected or desired. It is the evaluation of implications, including
unexpected implications, that constitutes the function of emotion. Emotion might
therefore be regarded as a process devoted towards the real-time maintenance of
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
4

motivation-simplified worlds; might be regarded as a marker indicating whether
the journey to a specified target is proceeding properly or improperly (see Oatley
& Johnson-Laird, 1987; Oatley, 1999).
Tool Obstacle
Positive Affect
Negative Affect
Create New Sequence
Continue Sequence
A Planned Sequence of Behavior
IRRELEVANT
(GROUND)
IRRELEVANT
(GROUND)
Point
B
Point
A
OBJECT
Figure 2: The real-time evaluative role played by emotions
Figure 2 provides a schematic representation of the role played by emotions.
Emotional relevance appears as something essentially two-dimensional, in
contrast to the multiple domains of motivation. This two-dimensional structure
manifests itself because events that occur within determinate worlds have the
essential nature of affordances (Gibson, 1977) or obstacles, rather than “objects”.
Affordances can be utilized to increase the likelihood that a desired end-state
might be reached, or to decrease the time-interval until that end-state’s
manifestation. Obstacles have the reverse nature. Affordances and obstacles can
be abstract, as well as concrete. A concrete affordance is a tool. An abstract
affordance is a cue that an end-state is likely to manifest itself, in the desired
manner – a smile, for example, from an attractive individual – while an abstract
obstacle is a cue that something has gone wrong.
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
5

Affordances are positively valenced – the first dimension of emotion – as they
indicate (1) that progress is occurring, and (2) that the structural integrity of the
currently operative motivation-world may be considered intact. The predictable
appearance of affordances is therefore experienced as self-verifying (at least with
regards to the delimited aspect of the self currently serving as a motivation-
world). Obstacles are, by contrast, negatively valenced (the second emotional
dimension), as they indicate that progress has been halted or is in danger – and,
more importantly, suggest that the current determinate world may not be
functional. It is less disruptive to encounter an obstacle that merely requires the
switching of means than it is to encounter an obstacle that invalidates a
motivation-world, as such. This means that emotional significance may be
usefully considered in its within and between-world variant forms (Peterson,
1999a). This is an observation with important implications for the meanings of
identity, considered next.
1.3. Identity as a solution to the problems of motivation and emotion: I am
capable of second-order representation, so I know that I will desire
companionship, and shelter, and sustenance, and exploratory engagement, so I
conjure up a determinate world where I can work to obtain tokens that may be
exchanged for such things. The pursuit of those tokens then becomes something
meaningful. And I conjure up such an abstracted, delimited space to keep my
basic motivational states regulated, and act cautiously so that I do not accidentally
fall under the domination of negative emotion. And so one might say that a third
form of determinate-world meaning can be identified – one that is much closer to
abstract conceptualization and to social being than to basic motivation or emotion.
I have a stake in the maintenance of my determinate worlds, regardless of their
particular content. They take time, energy and courage to construct, and are
therefore valuable. They simplify the world, and hold its complexity in check.
They suit my needs, and regulate my emotions. I am emotionally attached to
them. I identify with them. So personal identity is in its most simple form the
acceptance of a given motivation-world as a valid aspect of the self.
More complexly, however, identity constitutes a solution to the problem of
organization posed by the diverse motivational aspects of lower-order meaning.
First is the issue of sequencing: in what order should particular motivation-worlds
be allowed to manifest themselves, in the course of a given day, or week, or year?
Second is the closely related issue of hierarchical import: what motivational
worlds should be granted priority of value? When I am faced with a conflict
between affiliation and productivity, for example, which do I choose? This
problem is of course rendered far more complex by the fact of social being: the
others who surround me are also rank-ordering their values hierarchically, and
implementing their motivational worlds, while constantly exchanging
motivational and emotional information with one another. The structure of my
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
6

identity is therefore determined not only by my own motivations and emotions
(and my decisions with regards to their relative rank) but by the fact that all others
are making analogous decisions. That means that personal identity shades into the
social; means that personal and social identity is the emergent and even
“unconscious” – that is, automatic and unplanned – consequence of the co-
operative/competitive establishment, sequencing and rank-ordering of determinate
worlds. So the third form of meaning tends towards identity in the personal guise
and ideology in the social, as specific modes of being are integrated under the
rubric of general ritual and abstract conception, at levels of order that transcend
the individual (Peterson, 1999a).
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Figure 3: Identity as the sequencing and rank-ordering of determinate worlds.
Figure 3 schematically portrays a representation of identity, which constitutes
the organization of motivational and emotional states. At the highest level of
resolution, identity consists of the motor patterns that constitute a given behavior
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
7

(“write sentence,” in the current example) and the perceptions, cognitions and
emotions that are relevant to that behavior. At lower levels of resolution (or
higher levels of abstraction), behaviors are organized into functional and
theoretically homogeneous groupings, which may reasonably be considered
classes. High-resolution levels of behavioral operation constitute sub-elements of
low-resolution conceptualizations (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Powers, 1973) and
are governed (that is, sequenced, hierarchically rank-ordered, and evaluated) in
consequence of their relevance as affordances, obstacles or irrelevances,
construed in relation to those lower-resolution conceptualizations. So I write a
sentence, and attend to the specific topic of that sentence while doing so. Then I
decide where that sentence should be placed, calculate its comparative
importance, and evaluate it for quality – but I do this by switching to the lower-
resolution determinate world “author manuscript” and use that world as the frame
for my decisions. In turn, I consider “authoring manuscripts” as a sub-element of
the determinate world “practice science,” and so on, up the hierarchy of
abstraction from the purely personal to the shared social (Peterson, 1999a).
2. Class 2: Meanings of the indeterminate world
2.1. Anomaly as a consequence of the insufficiency of determinate
motivation-worlds: Personal identities and social roles are also unfortunately
characterized by emergent insufficiencies. The most serious of these might be
regarded as the problem of the dead past. The environment is entropic, while
tradition is static (hence “the state”). The sequenced and hierarchically arranged
determinate worlds generated by those who inhabited the past may therefore
become inadequate, because of the dynamic transformations that constitute the
present. This is the problem of constraint by the world: the problem not of matter,
but of what matters; the problem not of the object, but of what objects (see
Norretranders, 1998). The environment is complex beyond comprehension, yet I
must act on it. So I simplify it, in a functional manner –relying on motivation and
tradition – but its complexity still emerges, when I least expect it. Such emergent
complexity manifests itself, uncontrollably, in numerous ways: as flood or war or
illness, as new technology, as new belief or ideology (Peterson, 1999a). This
means that world-delimitation may solve a particular problem, but can never
provide a solution to the more general “problem of problems” – the ineradicable
emergent complexity of the world. This implies, as well, that tradition can never
satisfy, in any final sense. Too much human vulnerability necessarily remains
present. This is true regardless of the content of tradition (lawyer vs. doctor, say,
or Muslim vs. Jew) or its existence as personal role or social identity (Peterson,
1999b).
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
8

This all means that meaning is the significance of our determinate worlds, the
implication of the events that occur during the enaction of those worlds, and the
sequenced and hierarchical structures that we use to organize motivation and
emotion psychologically and socially. And this explication is relatively
comprehensive, but still fails to deal with a whole complex class of meaningful
phenomena. Determinate positive and negative events occur, as the world unfolds
in the course of goal-directed activity. Irrelevant things occur, too, of course – but
are in some important sense never realized (as you cannot pay attention to all
activity, but only to all relevant activity). But what of anomalous events? Some
occurrences are neither evidently good nor bad – nor immediately eradicable as
meaningless. These are generally occurrences that are not understood, not
explored – that cannot be placed into the context of the current motivational-
world. What can be done in such cases? What is not comprehended but is still
undeniably extant must logically be experienced as paradoxical (Jung, 1967,
1968; Gray, 1982; Peterson, 1999a): negative, in potential, and positive, in
potential, and irrelevant, in potential (and self and world in potential, as well).
And there is something even deeper and more mysterious about the anomalous
event. At some point in the process of psychological development, however
hypothetically localized that point must be, all events are anomalous. And that
implies that the construction of forms of reference that allow for the determinate
classification and utilization of objects, situations and abstractions is something
dependent on the extraction of information from the overarching and ever-
emerging domain of the anomalous. And it is for all these reasons that the
anomalous must be regarded as meaningful, a priori – and for all these reasons
that the meaningful anomaly might well be regarded as the ground of determinate
being itself.
Figure 4a and 4b schematically portray class 2 meaning, associated with the
emergence of world-complexity or anomaly, of the “within” and “between”
determinate-world types. Figure 4a portrays the consequences of emergent
anomaly, rapidly adjudicated as non-revolutionary. This means the encounter with
something unexpected, in the course of goal-directed activity, within the context
of a given determinate world. An anomalous occurrence is not initially an object
(an affordance or obstacle). It is, instead, the re-emergence of ignored ground. As
such, it first produces an undifferentiated state of affect, weighted in most cases
towards the negative – as caution is an intelligent default response to evidence of
error (Dollard & Miller, 1950; Gray, 1982). A within-determinate world anomaly
is something that can be merely circumvented, however, without eradicating the
protective and simplifying structure of that world. If you are accustomed to
walking down a hallway to an elevator, a carelessly placed chair in the middle of
that hallway would constitute such an anomaly. You can still get to the elevator,
but you have to step around the chair. Such a situation will produce a brief flurry
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
9

of indiscriminate affect, immediately quelled by classification (“misplaced chair”)
and appropriate action. This is process within normal limits.
Point
B
Point
A
Affordance or Irrelevant:
Continue Sequence
ANOMALY
Classify: Within
Determinate World
A Planned Sequence
of Behavior
Obstacle/Relevant:
Create New Sequence
Positive Affect
Negative Affect
ANXIETY
Fear Hurt Anger
Guilt Shame
Confidence
Interest Exhilaration Curiosity
HOPE
Figure 4a: Emergence of within-determinate-world complexity
Insofar as the goals of current behavior remain unchallenged, the means may
switch repetitively without undue alarm. If a dozen plans fail to reach a given
goal, however, the functional integrity of the determinate world itself becomes
questionable. This questioning process may occur because of the emergence of
“anxiety” or “frustration” or “disappointment” or “anger” as a consequence of
repeated failure. Under such conditions it becomes reasonable to rethink the
whole story, the current determinate world. Perhaps where you are isn’t as bad as
you think; alternatively, another somewhere else might be better. This process of
more dramatic error-driven reconsideration and categorical reconstruction is
portrayed in Figure 4b.
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
10

A Planned Sequence
of Behavior
(Unattainable)
HOPE
Interest Exhilaration Curiosity
Confidence
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ANXIETY
Negative Affect
Positive Affect
ANOMALY
ANOMALY
Classify: Between
Determinate World
Positive Affect
Negative Affect
DESCENT INTO
CHAOS
Figure 4b: Emergence of between-determinate-world complexity
Figure 4b portrays the consequences of anomaly resistant to categorization
within the confines of the current determinate world. This situation arises when a
problem that cannot be easily solved makes itself manifest. You have a career, for
example, as a typesetter. But new technology makes your skills obsolete.
Experience can no longer be properly constrained by your habitual role. This
means that you must construct a new determinate world – even a different
hierarchy – to deal with the new situation. Such construction does not occur,
however, without energy (Roland, Erikson, Stone-Elander & Widen, 1987),
without cost (and the cost is signaled by the emergence of negative affect). Re-
construal of the environment is substantively difficult. What should be done,
when one’s livelihood disappears? What should be felt? What should be
perceived? In the interim, before such things are specified, experience consists of
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
11

a descent into chaos – the place, the no-man’s land – between decisions. This
frequently hellish place is ruled by conflicting motivations. Basic regulatory
systems strive there to obtain dominance over and bring order to the currently
dysregulated world. Emotions compete there to guide behavior (anger, fear, guilt,
hurt, even exhilaration, if the disrupted world was ambivalent in value – perhaps
you did not like your job, anyway…). More complexly, new information reveals
itself there, as a consequence of the eradication of the limits placed on perception
by the now-disrupted determinate world. Perhaps you are hurt beyond tolerance
by your invalidation. But perhaps you learn a valuable lesson. The information
that makes such learning possible is in the same “between-decision” domain as
the emotional and motivational chaos attendant upon failure (Jung, 1952, 1967,
1968; Peterson, 1999a).
2.2. Orienting and exploration as a solution to the problem of anomaly: We
know that whatever exists is more complicated than whatever is specified by our
current determinate world. We know that we must perform radical simplifications
of the world, in order to operate in it. This means that whatever exists might be
regarded as the sum of all we assume, plus all that is left over. This implies that
“all that is left over” may constantly present itself as something with the capacity
to “correct” the insufficiencies of our current simplified but situationally
+functional stance. Then the question immediately arises: what is the
consequence of the emergence of such corrective information? And here might be
proposed a radical answer: it is the direct revelation of meaning (Binswanger,
1963; Boss, 1963). And this all implies that the world as it truly exists reveals
itself as paradoxical meaning, long before it reveals itself as determinate
significance, or as irrelevance, or even as object or fact (because something is
novel long before it becomes a recognizable object; because the construction of
fact requires the active participation of other people).
It is something fascinating to note that the facts themselves appear in
concordance with this pragmatic inversion of materialist reality. Let us take for
example the processes underlying a diverse range of animated activities – animal,
much as human. It is an accepted axiom of neo-psychoanalytic (Adler, in
Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956; Jung, 1952), cybernetic (Weiner, 1948),
behavioral (Gray, 1982), cognitive (Miller, Galanter & Pribram, 1960),
psychobiological (Panksepp, 1999), narrative (Bruner, 1986) and social-
psychological (Carver & Scheier, 1998) theories that human behavior is goal-
directed, rather than simply driven. Let us start with an attempt to integrate the
well-defined animal-experimental/behavioral formulations of Jeffrey Gray (1982),
Jaak Panksepp (1999) and Edmund Rolls (1999) and work from there.
These modern behaviorists speak the operational, empirical language of
stimulus and reinforcement. When such a researcher refers to broadly positive
emotional states, for example, he says “consummatory” or “incentive reward.” In
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
12

general, the experience of such states will produce an increase in the future
likelihood of immediately preceding behaviors. Consummatory reward,
specifically, means occurrences that will bring the current determinate world to a
satisfied end. Incentive reward means occurrences. Incentive reward, specifically,
signals or cues consummatory reward. When a modern behaviorist refers to
negative emotional states, by contrast, he says “punishment” or “threat.” In
general, the experience of such states will produce a reduction in the future
likelihood of immediately preceding behaviors. Punishment, specifically, means
occurrences that will produce angry, depressive, or flight-oriented responses.
Threat, specifically, signals or cues punishment.
Why is all this relevant? Well, consummatory and incentive rewards have
meaning – “repeat preceding behavior” or “continue on the same (potentially)
productive path” – experienced as affect. That affect is somnolent pleasure and
the momentary lessening of general motivation, in the case of consummatory
reward, and hope, curiosity, excitement and interest, in the case of incentive
reward. Punishment and threat have opposite meaning: “do not repeat preceding
behavior” or “discontinue movement on this counterproductive trajectory,” also
experienced as affect: hurt (disappointment, frustration, anger, pain), in the case
of punishment; anxiety (fear, worry, concern), in the case of threat. And it should
be stressed that such meaning is not only relevant for behavior, but for entire
determinate worlds. Such worlds are supported (“reinforced”) by their success,
and eradicated or at least threatened by their failure – even when that success or
failure is something only imagined.
But what of anomaly, once again? A meaningful goal-directed schema is
established, serving to specify the objects of apprehension and the motor-
programs matched to those objects. A goal-relevant world of comprehensible
simplicity emerges, accompanied by procedures known to be effective in that
world. And virtually everything irrelevant to that domain of concern is ignored
(and that is virtually everything). And when the plan is a good plan the desired
end is obtained – but nothing novel is learned. And it is because things are learned
only when desired ends are not obtained that error, signaling anomaly, serves as
the mother of all things.
The appearance of the informative anomalous produces its own determinate
world, manifested as the orienting complex (Gray, 1982; Halgren, 1992; Halgren,
Squires, Wilson, Rohrbaugh, Babb & Crandell, 1980; Ohman, 1979, 1987;
Sokolov, 1969; Vinogradova, 1961, 1975). The beginning point of that world
constitutes the insufficiency of present knowledge, and the desired end point the
functional classification of the presently anomalous emergent phenomenon.
Anomaly draws attention inexorably to itself, so that increased intensity of
sensory processing and increased exploratory activity may be brought to bear
upon it. Such processing and exploration means examination of the anomalous
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
13

from the perspective of various alternative determinate worlds (is it relevant to
another motivational state?) and from various emotional perspectives (can it serve
as an affordance or obstacle? Can it be classified into the same domain as other
irrelevant “objects,” and regarded as ground?). This process of effortful
classification constitutes (1) the elimination of possibility from the infinite,
indeterminate domain of the anomalous to the finite domain of a determinate
world; (2) the reworking of identity, which is the sum total of all such determinate
worlds; and (3) the process by which identity originally comes to be, in the course
of spontaneous exploratory activity (Peterson, 1999a). The determinate world that
guides anomaly exploration has as its end-point the promise or potential of the
unknown, which has more the nature of an incentive (Gray, 1982), than a
consummatory reward (as promise is a cue for consummation, rather than its
object). So it might be said that the exploratory spirit is something under the
control of incentive, serving a consummatory function. This is in keeping with the
more abstract “need” of curiosity.
3. Class 3: Meanings of the conjunction between the determinate and
indeterminate worlds
3.1. Meta-identity as a solution to the problem of identity: Now, just as the
meaning that creates the determinate world guiding exploration is more abstract
than the meaning that constitutes primary motivation, so the identity that
incorporates the exploratory spirit is more abstract than the primary identity
organizing basic-level motivation. Meanings of primary identity are solutions to
the problems that emerge as a consequence of operation within the determinate
worlds of motivation and emotion. Individual roles and beliefs, merged through
ritual or ideological means into social identities, regulate the intrinsic meanings of
life, bringing intrapsychic and social order to the conflict-laden chaos of need and
want. Members of identifiable groups become predictable to themselves and
others by sharing a hierarchy of determinate motivation-worlds. This
predictability, this cooperative reduction to ground, is a great cognitive and
emotional relief. It remains, however, eminently vulnerable. All roles and
ideologies, no matter their level of sophistication, can be undermined by emergent
complexity. We therefore gerrymander specific solutions, in the manner of
engineers, and strive to maintain our identities – but these are not and can never
be complete. This means that a third class of meaning must emerge, to address the
meta-problem of emergent complexity. This third class manifests itself directly in
two situations, and indirectly as a form of meta-narrative, when its situation-
specific processes attain symbolic embodiment and representation.
Class 3 meanings arise first when a determinate world has been rendered
invalid, as a consequence of the emergence of some troublesome anomaly. The
anomaly manifests itself initially, experientially, in the guise of a war of
motivations and emotions – emotions that are primarily negative, for defensive
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
14

reasons, in the immediate aftermath of task failure (Dollard & Miller, 1950). But
anomaly does not only signify failure. It signifies possibility, equally –
information – as the manifestation of the previously unrevealed complexity of the
world. This complexity may be transformed, may be utilized as an affordance or
as a means of reconstructing failed determinate worlds. The very act of harnessing
emergent possibility is meaningful.
Class 3 meanings arise, as well, in the case of full satiation – in the case where
all basic-level states of motivation have met their consummatory destiny, and
have therefore temporarily ceased to dominate the determinate world of
experience. This second situation arises because the meta-problem of the possible
problem still lurks ineradicably when full satiation has been reached – and
because exploration constitutes the only possible solution to that meta-problem.
Immersion in exploration, undertaken for playful, curious and fantasy-driven
reasons, also constitutes a higher-order encounter with meaning.
Simple determinate worlds find their communicable expression in the simplest,
normal story: I was here, and that was insufficient, so I went there. Description of
the vicissitudes encountered in the course of such a journey adds interest to the
basic plot (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987; Oatley, 1999). Complex characters,
pursuing many simple stories, represent hierarchically structured identities. But
the most complex and fascinating story is a meta-narrative – a story that describes
the process that transforms stories (Jung, 1952; Neumann, 1954; Peterson, 1999a).
And it is identification with this process of story-transformation that constitutes
meta-identity, predicated upon recognition that the human spirit constructs,
destroys and rejuvenates its worlds, as well as merely inhabiting them. Such
identification constitutes the most fully developed revelation of class 3 meaning.
Figure 5 portrays the process of voluntary determinate world eradication and
exploration-predicated reconstruction. This transformational process is both
perilous and enriching. It is perilous because descent into the motivational and
emotional chaos extant between determinate worlds is stressful, in the truest sense
of the word. It is enriching because unexplored anomaly contains information
whose incorporation may increase the functional utility or the very nature of one
or more determinate worlds. This makes involvement in the process of
transformation a “meta-solution” (a solution to the problem of problems). It
appears, at least in principle, that this meta-solution constitutes a capstone of
emergent meaning – a true capstone, beyond which no further emergence of
solution is necessary. The complex structure of this solution has to this day
remained essentially implicit in mythology, as abstracted and compelling drama,
and may be acted out usefully and productively in the absence of explicit
understanding. Its implicit existence is the consequence of the imitation and
dramatic abstraction of the ideal – that is, the consequence of admiring, and
distilling the reasons for admiration, and portraying those reasons in ever-more
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
15

potent ritual and literary forms, in a process of highly functional fantasy, spanning
generations (Peterson, 1999a).
A Planned Sequence of Behavior
Point
D
A Planned Sequence of Behavior
A Planned Sequence of Behavior
Point
C
Reintegration
Ascent
A Planned Sequence
of Behavior
(Unattainable)
HOPE
Interest Exhilaration Curiosity
Confidence
M
o
t
iv
at
i
o
n
al
C
o
n
f
l
i
c
t
L
a
t
e
n
t
E
n
v
i
r
o
n
m
e
n
ta
l
I
n
f
o
r
m
a
t
i
o
n
Point
A
Guilt Shame
Fear Hurt Anger
ANXIETY
Negative Affect
Positive Affect
ANOMALY
ANOMALY
Classify: Between
Determinate World
Positive Affect
Negative Affect
DESCENT INTO
CHAOS
Figure 5: Meta-identity, or the transformation of determinate worlds
Figure 5 has the structure classically identified as central to complex narrative:
steady state, breach, crisis, redress (Bruner, 1986; Jung, 1952; Eliade, 1965) – or,
more metaphorically, paradise, encounter with chaos, fall and redemption
(Peterson, 1999a). This third complex class of meaning is dramatic in its means of
representation, and religious in its phenomenology. Direct religious experience
appears equivalent to immersion in the meanings driving exploratory activity –
has been described by Rudolf Otto (1958), for example, as a paradoxical
combination of mysterium fascinans and mysterium tremendum (awe and terror in
the face of the absolute unknown). Dramatic representation of this transformative
process, presented “unconsciously” as an aid to mimicry, takes the form of hero
mythology. Such mythology is the abstracted portrayal of courageous approach to
anomaly, investigation of its properties, functional categorization and
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
16

recategorization as a consequence of that investigation, and subsequent
communication of the results to the social world.
Although such dramatic representation is abstract, and is communicated
symbolically, it is not entirely explicit, and remains embedded in the patterns of
myth and literature. We are motivated, and know we are motivated – so we can
represent and understand the state of motivation. Likewise, we are emotional, and
can represent the state of emotion. We are novelty-processors, no less universally,
but do not completely understand this ability, nor explicitly appreciate its
absolutely central place in our adaptive striving. It is a remarkable and telling fact
that such appreciation has emerged, nonetheless, in an implicit fashion, and is
headed up the hierarchy of abstract representation (Peterson, 1999a). And here we
will take a detour into grounds that are richly meaningful in the “third-class”
sense, and provide a psychological interpretation for phenomena that have as of
yet remained opaque to the searching eye of science.
If a phenomenon is truly universal, it should pick up abstracted representation
over time, just as the constituent elements of personality have become
encapsulated in the languages of the world (Goldberg, 1992). But the processes
that make up class 3 meaning are complex and dynamic – more like “procedures”
or “contexts” or “situations” than things – and cannot be easily named. So they
have not precisely garnered lexical representation. Instead, they have been
represented dramatically, as characters, immersed in plots (Peterson, 1999a). The
basic character is the hero, as we have said; the basic plot, confrontation with the
unknown, and the subsequent creation or reconstitution of the ever-threatened
determinate world of experience. The creator of culture – that is, of the personal
and social identity that regulates object perception, abstract thinking, motivation
and emotion – is the individual who voluntarily faces the unknown and carves it
into useful categories.
The ancient Sumerian arch-deity Marduk, for example, voluntarily faces
Tiamat, the abysmal monster of chaos and the mother of all being. This voluntary
encounter enables Marduk to create “ingenious things,” in consequence (Heidel,
1965; p. 58, 7:112-115), and to serve as the creator of the habitable world of man.
Mircea Eliade states, with regards to such stories (and to the terror of the
encounter): “it is by the slaying of an ophidian monster – symbol of the virtual, of
“chaos,” but also of the autochthonous – that a new cosmic or institutional
“situation” comes into existence. A characteristic feature, and one common to all
these myths, is the fright or a first defeat of the champion…”(1978a, p. 205). The
courageous capacity embodied by Marduk was also the process upon which
functional reconstruction of traditional categories and habits rested (Peterson,
1999a; 1999b), according to the Sumerians: as Namtillaku, Marduk was the god
who restored all “ruined gods, as though they were his own creation; The lord
who by holy incantation restore[d] the dead gods to life” (Heidel, 1965; p. 53,
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
17

6:152-6:153). Whatever Marduk represented also served as the ritual model of
emulation for the Sumerian emperor, and as the very basis for his sovereignty.
This all means that the Sumerians implicitly recognized, at the dawn of history,
that particular beneficial modes of being (determinate worlds) were dependent for
their existence on the general pattern of action incarnated by Marduk (Peterson,
1999a).
In the great Egyptian dynasties, similar ideas prevailed. The Egyptian Pharaoh
was simultaneously regarded as the force that created truth, justice and order
(ma
c
at) from chaos, and as the immortal embodiment of Horus, who brought his
once-great father, founder of Egyptian tradition, back from the dead (Eliade,
1978a). Similar patterns of narrative ideation necessarily underlie religious
traditions of diverse origins and times, as the social regulation of determinate
worlds drives individuals to universally embody and then to dramatize adaptive
forms: the collapse of Buddha’s protected childhood existence, attendant on his
discovery of mortality, and his rebirth, illumination, and return to the community;
Moses’ exodus from tyranny, his descent through the water into the desert, and
his subsequent journey to the promised land; Adam and Eve’s tempted fall, the
profane subsequent existence of mankind, and humanity’s eventual redemption by
Christ, the second Adam (Jung, 1968; Peterson, 1999a). Figure 5, which describes
the archetypal processes of the transformation of category and habit, also
schematically portrays the death of the childhood personality, its descent to the
underworld, and its reconstruction as an adult, dramatized and facilitated by
initiatory ritual (Eliade, 1965; 1985), as well as the hero’s voluntary journey into
and return from the lair of the treasure-hoarding dragon (Jung, 1952; 1968).
Figure 5 also presents a cognitive stage transition (Piaget, 1977), an epiphany, an
awakening, and a paradigmatic revolution, in a somewhat broader sense than that
originally meant by Kuhn (1970) (Peterson, 1999a).
CONCLUSION
The determinate world of experience, simultaneously internal presupposition
and external social construction, constitutes order, security, tyranny, yang, set up
against chaos, indeterminacy, unpredictability, danger, possibility, yin. Order is
inherently unstable, as the chaos or complexity encapsulated by previous effort
continually conspires to re-emerge. New threats and anomalies continually arise,
as the natural world ceaselessly changes. These threats may be ignored, in which
case they propagate, accumulate, and threaten the integrity of the current mode of
being. Alternatively, the unknown may be forthrightly faced, assimilated and
transformed into a beneficial attribute of the renewed world. Upon this
grammatical edifice is erected every narrative, every theory of personality
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
18

transformation – perhaps every system of truly religious thought, as well
(Peterson, 1999a). Error must be recognized, and then eliminated, as a
consequence of voluntary exploration, generation of information, and update or
reconstruction of skill and representation. Things that are bitter, feared and
avoided must be approached and conquered, or life finds itself increasingly
restricted, miserable and hateful. Our greatest stories therefore portray the
admirable individual, engaged in voluntary, creative, communicative endeavor;
portray that individual generating a personality capable of withstanding the
fragility of being, from such endeavor. We are thus prepared to find sufficient
sustenance in stories portraying the eternal confrontation with the terrible
unknown, and its transformation into the tools and skills we need to survive. If we
act out such stories, within the confines of our own lives, then the significance of
our being may come to overshadow our weakness. It is in the hope that such a
statement might be true that we find the most profound of the many meanings of
meaning.
Peterson, J.B. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In Wong, P. et al. (Eds.). The Positive Psychology of
Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver, Canada: INPM Press.
19

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Author Note: This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada.