Meaningscape is a relatively new word – for the contours & connections that we sense and use to grasp our reality. It’s a layered ‘sandwich’ of signs & symbols, beacons & benchmarks, ways & waypoints, memories & meanings. [1]

Meaning is relational. Meaning is finding a shared way of reading and navigating the world, including socially & culturally.

There’s the context of the meaning OF life – some type of cosmic connection; but, more importantly, there’s finding meaning IN life – social connection which grounds our well-being.

The craving for connection is the need for meaning.

Connections & conversations [2]

Social connections matter. These connections nurture a sense of meaning. Meaningful bonds. And critical to these connections are conversations. In particular, conversations which involve active attention.

David Robson discusses the art of attention in his article: “The Science of Having a Great Conversation.” He refers to research on how our brains & bodies synchronize in meaningful conversations. Neurological synchronization.

• Wired > “The Science of Having a Great Conversation” by David Robson, author of the 2024 book The Laws of Connection (Jun 9, 2024) – The simplest way of achieving this is to ask more questions, yet surprisingly few people have cultivated this habit effectively.

People who have undertaken heightened self-disclosure begin to show some of the physiological markers of social connection. When we form a shared reality with someone, our brains and bodies begin to synchronize as we both read and respond to the world in the same way. Our hormonal responses to stress become attuned, for example – so that levels of cortisol rise and fall in tandem as we experience the same events.

Synchronization of hearts & heads

So, I’ve found neuroscience, including brain research, to be full of fascinating stories of how our brains sync (or not) in conversations and group settings (like choral singing [3]). Experiences which shape our well-being.

“We know that our brains have evolved to crave connection: When we “click” with someone, our eyes often start to dilate in tandem; our pulses match; we feel the same emotions and start to complete each other’s sentences within our heads. This is known as neural entrainment, and it feels wonderful. Sometimes it happens and we have no idea why; we just feel lucky that the conversation went so well. Other times, even when we’re desperate to bond with someone, we fail again and again.” – “Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection” by Charles Duhigg (2024)

I’d like to think that positive, expansive individual conversations might act as leaven in social & political arenas. [4]

This recent Scientific American article caught my attention because it explores the question of quality conversations and agreement. Whether we share the same stories or not, let alone share the same take on those stories.

• Scientific American > “Good Conversations Don’t Require Everybody to Agree, Neuroscience Shows” by Emily Falk, Edited By Daisy Yuhas (9-25-2025) – Brain imaging is illuminating the patterns linked to productive, positive dialogue, and those insights could help people connect with others

In recent years, neuroscientists have identified an important phenomenon: brain synchrony, in which brain activation in two or more people increases and decreases in similar regions at similar times. When people’s brain activity is in sync, it seems to indicate a common interpretation and understanding of what they are experiencing. For example, when one person tells a story, and another understands it in the same way, the listener’s brain aligns with the speaker’s and even begins to anticipate what will come next. On the other hand, when people interpret the same story in markedly different ways, … their brain activity is less synchronized …

All of this work hints that our interactions might be more harmonious if we were more in sync with one another. But evidence from a new technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) hyperscanning, which can track brain activity during real conversations, complicates that idea. … With hyperscanning, we can see how people’s brains respond to one another during real-time conversation. My collaborators and I have been using it to understand the dynamics of good conversations—exchanges where people enjoy themselves, reach consensus on how to solve hard problems or help each other navigate emotional challenges. We’ve discovered that even if one’s goal is to simply enjoy the conversation, sticking to safe topics where everyone is on the same page might not be the best solution. … We found that the conversations participants enjoyed the most were not those where their brain activity stayed perfectly in sync the whole time.

When people came into the conversation looking to compromise, we found, this led to more expansive exploration … On the other hand, the people who came in trying to persuade their partner explored less in their conversations and were ultimately less successful in achieving a shared vision for a path forward.

Notes

[1] Here’s an AI-generated overview of the term “meaningscape.”

[Google] AI Overview

The term meaningscape is a portmanteau combining “meaning” and “-scape,” the suffix used for describing a specific kind of view or scene (e.g., landscape). A meaningscape, therefore, refers to a complex, functional “scene” of signs and meanings that an individual perceives and uses to make sense of their environment.

The word was first used in a 2015 paper on semiotics and soundscape perception by researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark. It has since been adopted by other fields, including cultural studies and urban planning, to describe how individuals or groups derive meaning from their surroundings.

Key characteristics of a meaningscape

Perception-based: The meaningscape is not an objective reality but is instead actively perceived by an individual. It guides their behavior and helps them to find meaning in their daily interactions.

Context-dependent: A meaningscape is informed by an individual’s specific environment and activities. For example, a “soundscape” can be understood as a “meaningscape” because the individual perceives the sounds within a specific context and determines their function and significance.

Cultural and social: A meaningscape is not limited to biological needs but also includes social and cultural factors. For instance, a cultural meaningscape can be shaped by shared values, beliefs, and memories within a community, …

Dynamic and evolving: A meaningscape can change over time. Recent advances in technology, particularly in text analysis of large data sets, are helping researchers better understand how the meaning of a category or concept evolves over time.

[2] Conversations in good faith. Bad faith is not about building bridges.

[3] Making music together is more than merely listening.

• Washington Post > “Why singing is good for your brain, even if you are no Beyoncé” by Richard Sima (June 10, 2025) – Making music syncs (connects) us with other people and feel more a part of something larger.

Making music with others — in a choir, jam session or karaoke bar — supercharges its benefits.

Our behaviors synchronize with the beat and each other. Even something as simple as tapping along to the same beat with another person makes us feel closer to them than if we tap out of beat, research shows.

Music also syncs up our brains, and more so when we make it together than merely listening. Neural activity becomes more similar in the brains of people engaged with the same music, imaging studies have shown.

Singing in groups can decrease cortisol, a stress hormone, and increase the release of oxytocin, a neuropeptide and hormone important for social bonding. The oxytocin release may further amplify the reward system so if “you have a very positive social experience, it may be extra reinforcing,” Bowling [Daniel Bowling, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford School of Medicine] said.

“To stop trying to sound like a singer and just let the story of the song come out,” he [Daniel Levitin, a professor emeritus of neuroscience at McGill University and dean of arts and humanities at Minerva University] said.

• DuHigg also notes neural entrainment between musicians.

Numerous other researchers have also been fascinated by how we form connections. As Sievers began reading science journals, he learned that in 2012, scholars at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany had studied the brains of guitarists playing Scheidler’s Sonata in D Major. When the musicians played their guitars separately, with each person focused on their own musical score, their neural activity looked dissimilar. But when they segued into a duet, the electrical pulses within their craniums began to synchronize. To the researchers, it appeared as if the guitarists’ minds had merged. What’s more, that linkage often flowed through their bodies: They frequently began breathing at similar rates, their eyes dilated in tandem, their hearts began to beat in similar patterns. Frequently even the electrical impulses along their skin would synchronize. Then, when they stopped playing together – as their scores diverged or they veered into solos – the “between-brain synchronization disappeared completely,” the scientists wrote.

Sievers found other studies showing this same phenomenon when people hummed together, or tapped their fingers side by side, or solved cooperative puzzles, or told each other stories [speaker-listener neural coupling (alignment)]. – Duhigg, Charles. Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection (pp. 9-10). Kindle Edition.

[4] Fear and easy clarity are challenges in social & political arenas. These arenas are marked by tribal worldviews carried forward by social & political institutions, which instill beliefs that may NOT have emerged from overarching common knowledge or pragmatic consensus of many individual conversations. So, there’s a distinction between how people think (or are told or swayed that) the world is and what they’d like to see practically.

This article summarizes some research into the conversational styles of hierarchical and shaded world beliefs. And where each worldview draws (or not) red lines or dotted lines. (Like traffic lanes marked with bold solid or dotted lines, sometimes colored.) And the issue of compliance – whether there are exceptions.

• Scientific American > “Many Differences between Liberals and Conservatives May Boil Down to One Belief” by Jer Clifton, edited by Josh Fischman & Daisy Yuhas (June 2023) – Conservatives tend to believe that strict divisions are an inherent part of life. Liberals do not.

But new research … [finds] that the main difference between the left and the right is whether people believe the world is inherently hierarchical. Conservatives, our work shows, tend to believe more strongly than liberals in a hierarchical world, which is essentially the view that the universe is a place where the lines between categories or concepts matter. A clearer understanding of that difference could help society better bridge political divides.

As part of our work, we gathered data from more than 80,000 tweets and 385 influential written works, including the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. From that information and several rounds of statistical analysis using data from more than 2,000 people, we identified 26 primals and found that most beliefs clustered into three categories of assumptions about the world: that it is generally dangerous or safe, dull or enticing, and alive or mechanistic.

In most of our studies, we also asked people to share their political party preference and to rate how liberal or conservative they consider themselves. In an early study focused on well-being, I noticed a surprising relation between people’s beliefs and how they answered these two questions [how liberal or conservative]. Belief that the world was dangerous was not as linked to party or ideology as past research – including some of our own – said it should be.

People who score high in hierarchical world belief see the world as full of differences that matter because they usually reflect something real, inherent and significant. Such individuals often separate things of greater value from things of lesser value. You might imagine that to them the world looks full of big, bold black lines.

Whether you want to empathize with people on the other side, beat them in elections or convince them of a policy’s merits, understanding others’ primals can be useful. Again, primal world beliefs are about the world’s tendencies – but people also expect some exceptions. That nuance creates an opening for productive debate.

Related posts

• The meaning of life in one word? (both the post and my commentary)