The title. I never understood that expression… can someone help?
Edit: auto correct on ‘someone’
In: 1694
Not the use you are looking for, but one of the most interesting and useful terms is [meta arguing](https://www.barrywinbolt.com/the-meta-argument/). Its when you are arguing about they way which you and the other side are arguing.
Its that point in an argument, when people stop caring about the topic of the argument. You will start hearing phrases like “I already told you”, “you are too stupid to get it” or “you always do this”. At that point you are arguing to “win an argument” instead of trying to resolve the issue.
You should never take part in meta arguing. Nothing good can come from it. If you dont care about the person, just leave the argument (for example arguing about something on reddit). If its somebody you care about you should deescalate and refocus on the issue.
Meta literally means “above”.
If you have a document on your computer, the metadata is: how big is it? When was it created? When was it modified? What user created it? What user modified it? When was it last accessed? What permissions are assigned to it?
If we are having a discussion and it turns into arguing about fallacies used in the discussion or grammar or anything about the discussion except for the content that we were discussing, that’s a meta discussion.
Etc.
You can think of meta as being ‘X of X’.
Sub in any word you want and you kind of get the picture. ‘Painting of painting’ ‘film of film’
In a conversation or debate, ‘meta’ refers to the category of things like complaining about someone’s attitude, while not addressing the actual content of their arguments.
I have an example that might work in this reference to Meta-gaming.
If you’re playing a board game or card game with a group of friends, you’re aware of the rules and how to play. You’ve played this game many times before, though, so you know somewhere in the deck is a special card that does something you want. You know more possible outcomes of the game because you’re familiar with the game. You also know two of your friends have been flirty with each other and might help each other out, so you adjust your gameplay based on this exterior knowledge outside the game.
Alternatively, say you’re playing a videogame, but you’re also aware of the loot drop percentages and how to boost or manipulate those stats. You’re thinking outside the box in a way that forces an outcome in-game based on your knowledge from outside the game.
Simply, in this context it means ‘beyond’. So someone is being ‘beyond cool’ when they are super, extra, or uber cool.
2.
denoting position behind, after, or beyond.
“metacarpus”
3.
denoting something of a higher or second-order kind.
“metalanguage”
Playing the game is selecting Rock.
Playing the meta is selecting Paper because you know most players choose Rock. Its a strategy completely outside the obvious rules of the game.
When your friends figure out thats what you’re doing and so they play Scissors, that forces a change in the meta so now you play Rock.
My Psychology teacher had a good description of what meta means. Imagine a scenario where you and another person are arguing. For example you argue with your lover or sibling. It’s getting really out of control and you just start yelling slurs instead of real arguments. Now one of you stops and says “look at what we are doing here, this isn’t us”. This person is looking at the situation from a Meta perspective. Like looking at the situation you are currently in from the outside.
At least that’s how I always imagined it
“Meta” comes from the Greek, and can be translated variously as “after” or “beyond”. “Metamorphic” rock, for example, is rock “after” its shape (‘morph’) has changed. “Metaphysics” deals with the world after the physics are dealt with – i.e. the spiritual world. But I suspect you are talking about a newer meaning for the word, where it describes the use of data abstracted from the actual thing.
I worked in telecom for a while, doing traffic engineering. For any digital phone call, there is the ‘data’ – the actual 1’s and 0’s that form the conversation – and the ‘metadata’ – the time and date of the call, the duration, the calling number, the called number, etc. The metadata doesn’t tell you a thing about the call; it could be someone announcing a death in the family, or that you won Powerball. As a traffic engineer, the metadata was all I needed. I didn’t care what people were talking about; I just wanted to make sure there were enough resources for them to talk.
In the book *Spycatcher*, a retired British spy explains how he used metadata to identify the chief Soviet spook, or *rezident*, in London during the 50’s Cold War. At the time, the rezident would rotate on a regular basis, usually after identification as such. So the Soviets would take pains to disguise which of the many Embassy employees was the new spook.
To that end, when the rezident left the Embassy in his chauffered car, four or five other cars would also leave the Embassy at the same time, to confuse the MI5 spies trying to keep tabs on them. But car telephones were very expensive and rare at the time. Only the rezident would make a lot of calls; the decoy cars would not. The Brits realized that if they used radio to find the metadata of the calls, they could – and did – identify the rezident quickly. They didn’t have to understand the contents of a single call.
Similarly, an analysis of the meta-data of someone’s email would quickly reveal who a person’s closest associates are, just by seeing how often they correspond, how quickly they respond, etc., without ever seeing the contents of a single email. So something is ‘meta’ when it tells you something *about* something but doesn’t actually tell you anything about that thing specifically.
Others have given more examples in other replies, so I’ll leave it here.
There are 2 generally used forms:
Self-referential or aware. Bo Burnham is very meta, he’s a social media comedian performer who mocks social media comedians and even his own audience.
The second is “optimal” in reference usually to a field. Video games, card games, etc refer to what is “meta” as what is most commonly used or most optimal in that competition. You might hear “meta builds” for a league of legends character, meaning the optimal items and equipment they buy and in what order to perform best by the top players.
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