Meaning and Transcendence in Natural Human Philosophy
Abstract
What gives human life meaning, what do humans actually need, and why do they seek something beyond themselves? This paper develops NHP's answer. Meaning-seeking belongs to the established human phenotype of represented goals. Third Nature gives represented objects motivational value and enables continued expansion of goal space; its functional unity, biological-developmental nature-status and proximate functional independence hold on current reliable support. Explanatory construction, value reorganization and open-ended goal generation interact with culture to provide investigable sources of meaning and meaninglessness; their specific contributions are evaluated by corresponding studies. Material needs for survival and reproduction are bounded, whereas Third Nature allows successive goals involving knowledge, honor, creation and meaning. The paper analyzes a misdirection pathway channeling open pursuit into positional, resource-intensive consumption, while retaining the fact that material improvements can enhance well-being. NHP's transcendence proposal pursues relative stability and harmony from individuals to the biosphere under the Six-Level Framework of Good and Evil, combining the lower bound of good, measurable intermediate achievements and an open direction toward the highest good. The lower bound retains fundamental needs and all six-level constraints; Principle-Derived Ought supplies scientific guidance for meeting these requirements and improving further. The paper argues that this proposal is the most realistic and greatest by criteria of public investigability, observable progress, attainability without exhaustion, participation, protection of survival conditions, scale, inclusiveness, time horizon and benefits to others. Persons with Human Superposition and organized Superpowers implement action; the factual claims, normative contents and practical consequences of intangible Superpowers undergo Comprehensive Cultural Reordering and Error Correction. Individual lives thereby acquire a real, shared and continuing highest goal to which everyone can contribute.
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BibTeX
@misc{yuan2026meaning,
title = {{Meaning and Transcendence in Natural Human Philosophy}},
author = {Xihao Yuan and Haidan Yuan},
howpublished = {Zenodo},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23445387},
url = {https://zenodo.org/records/23445387},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Meaning and Transcendence in Natural Human Philosophy
AU - Xihao Yuan
AU - Haidan Yuan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/18
PB - Zenodo
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23445387
UR - https://zenodo.org/records/23445387
AB - What gives human life meaning, what do humans actually need, and why do they seek something beyond themselves? This paper develops NHP's answer. Meaning-seeking belongs to the established human phenotype of represented goals. Third Nature gives represented objects motivational value and enables continued expansion of goal space; its functional unity, biological-developmental nature-status and proximate functional independence hold on current reliable support. Explanatory construction, value reorganization and open-ended goal generation interact with culture to provide investigable sources of meaning and meaninglessness; their specific contributions are evaluated by corresponding studies. Material needs for survival and reproduction are bounded, whereas Third Nature allows successive goals involving knowledge, honor, creation and meaning. The paper analyzes a misdirection pathway channeling open pursuit into positional, resource-intensive consumption, while retaining the fact that material improvements can enhance well-being. NHP's transcendence proposal pursues relative stability and harmony from individuals to the biosphere under the Six-Level Framework of Good and Evil, combining the lower bound of good, measurable intermediate achievements and an open direction toward the highest good. The lower bound retains fundamental needs and all six-level constraints; Principle-Derived Ought supplies scientific guidance for meeting these requirements and improving further. The paper argues that this proposal is the most realistic and greatest by criteria of public investigability, observable progress, attainability without exhaustion, participation, protection of survival conditions, scale, inclusiveness, time horizon and benefits to others. Persons with Human Superposition and organized Superpowers implement action; the factual claims, normative contents and practical consequences of intangible Superpowers undergo Comprehensive Cultural Reordering and Error Correction. Individual lives thereby acquire a real, shared and continuing highest goal to which everyone can contribute.
ER -