Meaning.

There was a banana up until the 1960s that was largely considered better than the banana eaten today, called the Gros Michel.

A technical name for bananas is Musa paradisiaca.

I have never had a real banana split with a friend.

These are some examples of facts (banana facts) that most would find nearly meaningless. I have set a few philosophical bars within these digital pages pertaining to meaning, but it feels as if their degree of significance is not understood. Here are a couple of them:

"Meaning must be retained."

"Consciousness must either persist forever, or at some point cease (forever)."

This second point has always felt critical, massive, to me. I have been surprised at how minimal it seems to impact others, even others who acknowledge its accuracy, especially others who both acknowledge its accuracy and hold the belief that death is the cessation of consciousness (forever).

Today I realized that a consciousness cannot fathom true meaninglessness. Much like the difference between conceptually infinite and functionally infinite, the conceptual form is vague, shrouded perhaps, in the mind until the mechanical/functional limit is considered. For functionally infinite, I have found that considering finite numbers like Graham's Number or TREE(G64) is helpful for illustrating how poorly understood conceptual infinity is. The Doctor, 12, Peter Capaldi, presents a story along these lines regarding a bird in the Doctor Who episode Heaven Sent. In a similar way, it seems the mind cannot fathom what a complete cessation of meaning would be like.

If consciousness ceased, the meaning that you hold for your dearest loved one (or your wealth, your job, etc., if this does not feel like it applies), would be less in that moment, and forevermore, than how meaningful you find my banana facts right now. Additionally, if something like a brain wave scan- for the soul or what have you (one's core consciousness)- could identify the present meaning gap between what you hold most meaningful/dear, and how meaningful you find these banana facts, and replace your most meaningful state with your least meaningful state, every second from now until the end of the universe, you would still not reach the threshold of truly meaningless. Even Graham's Number of seconds spent doing this meaning replacement step down would not reach true meaninglessness. Much like any functional, measurable, process, you would approach full meaninglessness asymptotically, but never reach it. This is as close as a consciousness can conceive of the meaninglessness of not existing.

The issue with this truth- consciousness must either persist forever or at some point cease- is that the conceptually infinite timeline of "forever" is included in the statement, marrying a state of meaning that can only be influenced step by step, with a timeline that will never see an end. If the timeline does see an end, this post, like everything else, is meaningless beyond comprehension. 

What's worse then: the true meaninglessness of the cessation of consciousness, or asymptotically approaching meaninglessness from a conscious perspective, forever? If meaning is not retained, as I have claimed is a necessity, to a functionally infinite degree, one of these two things will happen.