lowercase-m meaning

There are a lot of people who work at my company. We all have different reasons for working there. Some of us want to provide for our families, some of us want to feel like we are contributing, some of us want pride, some of us just want enough financial freedom to afford nights and weekends, etc. These different goals do not prevent us from looking across all workers’ reasons and trying to come up with some Ultimate Reason for working there, but you could only do it in the vaguest and most half-formed way. For example, I could say the Ultimate Reason for working at my company is because it pays us. That’s true-ish, but it’s not very useful or meaningful, because the more important question is why do we care about getting paid? Why do we care about working? We’re all doing it, but why? And why look for a shared reason? What’s wrong with having our own? And what’s wrong with having many reasons?

It should be clear that reasons vary across individuals – some people are more interested in pride or contribution or families or weekends than others, etc. etc. – but it may be less clear that they also vary within individuals. Is anyone working at my company for the exclusive reason that they want pride, or for the exclusive reason that they want to provide for their family? Probably they are weighing a whole bunch of reasons, and probably a whole bunch of them conflict, and in all likelihood their satisfaction with working at the company will depend on the day or even minute you ask them. You can look for coherence, but I don’t understand why you would, because I don’t see how that’s useful when brains are inherently incoherent.

Hopefully you saw where I was going with that. If not, I’ve replaced the key words below:

There are a lot of people who live at my universe. We all have different reasons for living there. Some of us want to provide for our families, some of us want to feel like we are contributing, some of us want pride, some of us just want enough financial freedom to afford nights and weekends, etc. These different goals do not prevent us from looking across all livers’ reasons and trying to come up with some Ultimate Reason for living there, but you could only do it in the vaguest and most half-formed way. For example, I could say the Ultimate Reason for living at my universe is because it pays us. That’s true-ish, but it’s not very useful or meaningful, because the more important question is why do we care about getting paid? Why do we care about living? We’re all doing it, but why? And why look for a shared reason? What’s wrong with having our own? And what’s wrong with having many reasons?

It should be clear that reasons vary across individuals – some people are more interested in pride or contribution or families or weekends than others, etc. etc. – but it may be less clear that they also vary within individuals. Is anyone living at my universe for the exclusive reason that they want pride, or for the exclusive reason that they want to provide for their family? Probably they are weighing a whole bunch of reasons, and probably a whole bunch of them conflict, and in all likelihood their satisfaction with living at the universe will depend on the day or even minute you ask them. You can look for coherence, but I don’t understand why you would, because I don’t see how that’s useful when brains are inherently incoherent.

I think this analogy can be used to illustrate why “satisfaction” or “happiness” are awkward as goals. They’re just that Ultimate Reason we are looking for. They’re tautological, which is another way of saying meaningless.