For example: Do your parents matter?
Answer: not intrinsically, no. They’re just a smudge of dust on a vast canvass of geological history in a near infinite (to us anyway) universe, like everyone else that ever was or will be.
Do your parents matter to you?
Hell, ya! Or at least they should since you wouldn’t be here without them (weather they are a negative or positive influence depends on your familial relationship, or lack thereof).

The question is, where/how/why/when/who with is meaning created? And what are it’s limits?

There is a definite benefit to meaning, even generalized meaning like the spirituality you ascribe to. With meaning comes importance, passion, focus, connection. In some sense even though you disagree you obviously hold meaning with your friend (and he with you) to have developed a connection in the first place. But is it an absolute? No. Meaning, like Truth can differ with the perspective. Does Jesus mean anything to Muslims? Is Roman history important to the Chinese?

Is there an overarching Meaning (is there an overarching Truth)? I’m coming down on the side of no. I think they’re both cultural/personal constructs that allow us perceive Pattern in a certain way, which is chaotic construct. I offer the example of fractals, very structured and beautiful within their own bounds, but what happens when fractals intersect fractals to the power of a few quintillion or more? My conception of the universe. A Chaos with Pattern galore, and meaning and Truth within each pattern but still chaos, ultimately sturm and drang signifying nothing.

Does this make life worthless? Not to me. My life is worth something to me. Does life possess inherent worth. Not to me, but then many other lives enrich my own too so those lives may be considered to have meaning to me (my friends, parents, co-workers, etc.) and I cannot by definition eliminate others from their connection to me due to the chaotic nature of the construct we live in (for instance I don’t know when some random stranger might have a profound impact on me – like the butterfly effect) Where does it end though? Are all people on the planet connected? Maybe by 6 degrees of separation but surely ALL of them won’t play a role in my life and thus aren’t “meaningful” to me (though they remain meaningful to themselves and others in their orbit). Is everyone in history meaningful to me? Doubtful that even the big blips, like the Ceasars, Bonapartes and Washingtons have any direct connection but they have shaped the construct, whereas Joe, random 14th century villein from France probably has no real effect on me or you or the construct and thus no meaning. Did his life have meaning to him? I certainly hope so.

So…how does all this relate with Truth, God and ontology? Well, it’s still impossible to get logically further than, “I think, therefore I exist” but lets simply believe that even things that don’t think, like say flowers and sunsets, do exist. Are they connected to me? Only the ones I come in contact with or which have some effect on me (like the flowers that cause my allergies, even if I don’t see them/touch them/smell them). Are they True? Did God make them? Well, we’ve posited their reality but can we posit any other qualities to them? Can we take the concrete and give it transfinite qualities, such as a soul or meaning or purpose? I have to say no. The transfinite stands within the realm of thought alone and thus is really a province of the individual and their relationships to patterns and constructs. Do we automatically create some generalized meaning and ascribe it to things, Probably yes, for all of us, your friend included. Does that mean it’s real? No. But it may retain reality for us (your friend probably thinks some sunsets are beautiful too, despite the fact that beauty itself is simply a construct).

Last but not least is meaning required for consciousness? No, and perhaps this is the most frightening point.

“Life”, the series of accidental coincidences and mishaps that allow us all to live here, is still very precious. We all have many different ways of thinking, many different ways of living. Despite human beings being genetically wired for polygamy, there are couples who choose to stay monogamous-to live with only one another for the rest of their lives- because for them there is NO other. It has nothing to do with religious influence or social stigma or genetics. People are genetically wired to do nothing but breed, but there are plenty of people that don’t want to be bothered with sex or see things that fulfill them infinitely more than physical contact ever could. If we were nothing but what our genes wanted us to be, we wouldn’t have any free will or variety. We’d all be mindless puppets.

This isn’t at all scientific, but there are times when I retreat so far into my mind, I feel like I’m seeing past all the brainwaves and chemicals and into something so beautiful and personal and wonderful that I almost KNOW that I won’t disappear after I die. Maybe the “me” who was created with all of my physical experiences and memories may cease to exist, but the me that allows the physical and chemical and matter me to exist will continue on. Oblivion hardly seems that terrifying when you think of it that way. I don’t know what to call it: a soul a consciousness, or a spark. You can’t create something out of nothing. There’s something that lets this random sequence of coincidences actually create life. Its the secret ingredient science hasn’t cracked yet and that reason being that it might lean more in favor of the metaphysical instead of the physical. Its dismissed as illogical because of it, but for some reason…something inside of me (and its not denial. I KNOW what denial feels like) knows that it exists. Believing in science and nothing but science is a cop-out , just like believing in spirituality and nothing BUT spirituality is a cop-out. The beauty of life is that there’s mystery and imagination involved. Its pretty dumb to believe that one day, science can explain every single thing in existence or that spirituality is all one needs to get through the day. There are inventions from just a few thousand years ago that modern day scientists can’t even crack. I’m supposed to believe that in just a few years you can unlock all the secrets of the universe? :P

…And if they ever do discover everything, I’m just glad it won’t be in my lifetime. Excuse my french, but life would just be fucking BORING if we knew everything. Life is about learning. What’s the point of living if you know everything?