Verily, and so much for all that.

I just posted to the SDMB something that concluded:

I tend to think that the overarching purpose of people really does come down to constructing meaning from things -- people make patterns, and respond to them. I don't have any opinion on whether some god put that there, whether evolution put that there, or whether it's a happenstance; it's just something I've observed about people. I tend to think that some of the patterns people come up with are neat, and some of them are beautiful, and some of them are horrible, and some of them are bugfuck nuts; I select the patterns I prefer on the basis of aesthetic and utility to me, and while I'm willing to be convinced about other criteria for selecting patterns, the fact that other people think that my tastes and purposes are quaint, silly, or asinine has not yet done so.

( Diversity, religion, syncretism, truth and fact, plurality, the original Rohrshach. )

That was long. I don't know how much sense it makes outside my head.