Biological meaning and human meaning are closely related, but they are not the same thing.
Biological meaning arises whenever conditions become consequential for the viability and organised persistence of a living system. Water matters to a plant. Nutrients matter to a bacterium. A predator matters to a deer. These forms of significance exist because living systems must continually maintain themselves in changing environments.
Human meaning builds upon these foundations but extends far beyond them. Through language, culture, symbolic thought, memory, imagination, morality, religion, science, and art, humans create forms of significance that cannot be reduced to immediate biological concerns.
The relationship between the two is therefore one of continuity rather than identity.
Human meaning does not appear independently of biology. Every human capacity for thought, communication, creativity, and reflection depends upon living systems capable of cognition and semiosis. In this sense, biological meaning provides the foundation upon which human meaning develops.
At the same time, human meaning cannot be fully explained by biological processes alone. People pursue knowledge, create works of art, defend moral principles, preserve cultural traditions, and devote themselves to causes that may extend beyond their own survival or reproduction. These activities emerge from biological beings, but they introduce new symbolic, social, and reflective dimensions of significance.
APS therefore rejects both extremes.
It rejects the view that human meaning is completely separate from the rest of life.
It also rejects the view that human meaning can be reduced to survival, reproduction, or any other single biological function.
Human meaning is best understood as an emergent elaboration of biological meaning. It grows from the same living foundations that make significance possible throughout the biological world while developing distinctive forms of value, purpose, and understanding that characterize human life.