Meaning and its variants
The theory measures significance and does not say what to do with it. This is the only page about meaning, and here the word means one thing: the answer to "what for".
The theory has one ruler, impact, with three axes:
- I, magnitude — how many minutes of other people's were shifted, and how deeply. Measured in Vitas.
- S, sign — for the better or for the worse. An arbiter sets it: by intention, by result, or not at all.
- Q, coherence — whether what you meant to shift matched what you shifted.
Then two forks: whether the trace counts at all and, if it does, what to do with it.
1. Does the trace count
- The trace. Meaning is what remains outside you, in other people's heads. Visible from outside, comparable between people, outlives you.
- From within. Meaning is what was lived: experience, intention, being true to oneself. It needs no trace, cannot be compared and has no witnesses.
- None. The question has no answer, or the answer does not matter.
Ideonology takes the first answer and does not refute the other two. To someone who chooses "from within" it has one reply: such meaning cannot be shown, compared or passed on, and once it has been passed on, it has become a trace. A life lived fully and without witnesses scores zero on this ruler; that is an axiom, and it can be accepted or not. Meditation is the borderline case: impact is zero, but coherence grows. To someone who chooses "none" it answers with a choice of horizon: on an infinite horizon everything fades out, the Anonymous included, but the account is kept while there are heads, and within that span the difference between 0.2 Vt and 400 kVt is real.
2. What to do with the trace
If the trace counts, it remains to choose which function of the three axes to take as the goal. There are more options than "as much as possible".
| Variant | Goal | Who lives this way | What it does not see |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum in absolute terms | max |I| | Nietzsche, the conqueror, the influencer | The sign: Hitler and Gandhi are indistinguishable |
| Maximum in a direction | max I × S | Utilitarianism, effective altruism, Marxism, religions of salvation | Who sets the sign: the arbiters disagree |
| Being right rather than large | S and Q; magnitude is indifferent | Kant, the Stoics | The result: a flawless intention with zero trace |
| Minimum | min |I| | Epicurus, the hermit | The debt: their own Vita came from others |
| Threshold | I ≥ 1 Vt, free after that | Raising children, teaching students, returning what was taken | The difference above the threshold: 1 Vt and 400 kVt are the same to it |
| Length rather than sum | R₀ > 1, a far horizon | Diotima, the three imperishables, longtermism | Those living now |
| The name | max mentions of oneself | Fame, Herostratus | That the name fades faster than the content |
| Without a name | max I at zero attribution | Taoism, a Wikipedia editor, the author of a proverb | Verification: there is nobody to present such an account to |
| The near circle | max G in a few heads | Family, kin, Confucianism, the teacher | The distant: minutes outside the circle do not count |
| The incoming account | the best possible Vita on the way in | The student, the reader, the traveller | Repayment: Nietzsche's "last man" |
The variants combine. Direction plus length is longtermism. Absolute magnitude plus the name is Herostratus. The near circle plus the threshold is an ordinary decent life. The pure minimum is unreachable: "live unnoticed" has been read for twenty-three hundred years. What each school does with these axes in detail is in the Comparison; Marcus Aurelius, who noted that posthumous fame is "an echo of an echo", was the first to state the rule of dissipation.
3. What the theory chooses
- It measures magnitude but does not call for maximizing it. "Significance is how much you changed other people's heads" is a definition, not a command. The first row of the table describes the ruler, not the goal.
- The only norm the theory itself proposes is the threshold. Parity: return what you received on credit; the working threshold is one Vita. Above the threshold it prescribes nothing.
- Direction is plugged in separately. The sign is on the ruler, but an arbiter sets it; the second row of the table is a choice of arbiter, not a measurement.
- It rejects the name. The name dissipates faster than the content, so the debt is more conveniently repaid in anonymous ideons.
Why the trace and not "from within": only the trace is visible from outside and comparable between people. Meaning from within can be judged by one person only, the one who lived it, and the ruler cannot be applied to it.