Does everything (people and things) have inherent meaning, or just the meaning we give them?

Answer 1

They only have the meaning we give them. Everything is relative!

This is from Wikipedia;
Many cognitive psychologists hold that, as we move about in the world, we create a model of how the world works. That is, we sense the objective world, but our sensations map to percepts, and these percepts are provisional, in the same sense that scientific hypotheses are provisional (cf. in the scientific method). As we acquire new information, our percepts shift.

That's why as we grow older we see the old things in a new way. I had a doll when I was a kid that I slept with. My grandmother had given it to me just before she passed away. To me, the doll was like a reminder of my grandmother. I would even talk to the doll, thinking that it was like a direct line to her. As I got older, I saw the doll as a reminder of my grandmother but no longer felt the need to talk to it, because I didn't feel the need to talk to my grandmother. I still have it. The doll is not important.. what the doll provided for me was. But as a child I perceived the doll to be the link.

Answer 2

Given that every person interprets things differently, I think it is just the meaning we give them. Besides, apart from our perceptions of things, how could they have any inherent meaning -- to whom? This is also one of the major teachings of Buddhism.

Answer 3

Meaning... we give them, but importance or use... inherent :) And sometimes "meaning" and "importance" coincides, so in that premise, meaning becomes inherent :)

Answer 4

Ask an Islamic militant the value of a TV and then you tell me.