MEANING ... Let's take a moment to make sense of meaning (or at least see how other people do.) What kinds of things mean something? Words? We usually think those mean something. Signs? Sure, I'll give you that. Body language? Okay. Buildings? I don't know. Rocks? Again, I don't know about that.
Let's just focus on words, signs & body languages - the ones we're comfortable saying mean something. What do they have in common, as far as their meaning goes? They all have some on-the-surface symbolic feature - something that they are, like a painted sign with a specific pattern, a sequence of letters, an arm with fingers held in a certain way. But we also take them all to stand for something else. Meaning is what makes this possible.
To use the traditional term, we could call all of these signs. Then we'd say that all of these signs stand for something. We'd call this relationship meaning.
In linguistics, semantics hashes out this relationship between words and phrases and their meanings. Some quirks come up when you look at meaning in language. One major one is fuziness. Words don't necessarily have fixed, independent meanings. Think of words like pizza, cheese, sauce, bread. We don't take these to mean the same thing, but they all depend on each other in a way, and each one encompasses a different range of things for different people in different cuisines.
Form and meaning don't match or parallel each other. The relationship between them is mostly arbitrary. There's nothing about the sound or shape of the English word 'cheese' or for that matter the Italian word 'formaggio' that inevitably link them to this meaning.
Meaning changes over time. The Old English word 'sælig' meant 'fortunate', but that word, now pronounced 'silly', means something quite different. If you're interested in meaning and the etymology of words, here's a video with more on meaning change.
Also, context really matters for meaning in language, and ambiguity lingers around many corners. If I tell you, "he turned red", you can imagine a few possibilities. This kind of issue brings the actions surrounding any bit of language to our attention. Linguists have a term for this context that feeds the meaning of any piece of language: pragmatics. That's the fancy term for the context sensitivity of meaning.
Context isn't just important for recognizing the meaning of words. The faces people make, the tone somebody uses, touch or body movement, all communicate something about meaning. Subtler factors even come into play, like how far or close somebody is standing, which in the 1960's one anthtropologist termed proxemics.
Escaping beyond immediate interactions with other humans, we also think that physical signs and symbols have meaning. I already admitted as much about this particular sign earlier. Gathering up all the different meaningful signs and studying how they work is the business of semiotics. Semantics in language, semiotics in signs in general, but enough of this name-dropping.
Meaning matters in logic, too. But here it's not so much about how context and communication impact meaning, but about the role meaning plays in reasoning, arguing and thinking. I can take thoughts like "she likes tofu & he likes ice cream", "she likes ice cream & he likes tofu", "she likes ice cream & he likes ice cream" and reduce them to a common pattern: x & y. That pattern is the logical form we see in all three sentences. Now, the three of them don't mean the same thing - once we assign meanings to that bit of logic, we get three sentences, and we can tell if they're right or not. Of course, we need to define some of the words. Who is he? Who is she? What exactly counts as tofu? How would we know that they like it? Here the focus is on defining words, clarifying meaning and avoiding pitfalls like using vague language to arrive at a false conclusion.
As long as I'm asking questions, here are some more general ones :
- Looking at the images from before, I thought of these ones as meaningful: words, signs, body language. Is that a property they have outside of my head? Is the meaning just inside my head? What's the role of our psychology in determining meaning?
- Similarly, are meanings tied to real things in the world around us? Are they just tied to ideas in our minds?
- Is the meaning part of our thoughts a separate component like logic suggests, somehow different from the structure of our thoughts?
- Do the best dictionaries tell us what words actually mean? Do they merely document how words are being used?
- What about common sense, the feeling of shared meaning across a group of people? Does it have any role in meaning?
- Do meanings exist? Where? What are they made of?
- For things to mean, does meaning itself have to mean? If so, how does it?
From my perspective: meaning is a matter of aboutness. Classic information theory addresses transmission but not decoding. Information as transmission is something physically present, "information" as meaning is something not physically present (it is a form of nothingness) because it has a relational origin.
The origin is cellular, i.e. the "meaning" of interactions between single celled organisms and the outside environment is not physical but "about" natural selection. Natural selection is something that does not physically exist. Organisms' behaviors enact natural selection. They "do" natural selection. In the long view, these processes are projected and transcended from the original aboutness into the recursive self-modeling of human beings.
You ask a large question with many ramifications. A locus classicus or at least a good place to start for some of this is the work of Paul Grice, who discussed some different types and aspects of meaning:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Grice
- https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/philosophy/language-and-thought-introducing-representation/content-section-2.3
- http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy/classes/f09/semprag1/grice57.pdf
From my perspective: meaning is a matter of aboutness. Classic information theory addresses transmission but not decoding. Information as transmission is something physically present, "information" as meaning is something not physically present (it is a form of nothingness) because it has a relational origin.
The origin is cellular, i.e. the "meaning" of interactions between single celled organisms and the outside environment is not physical but "about" natural selection. Natural selection is something that does not physically exist. Organisms' behaviors enact natural selection. They "do" natural selection. In the long view, these processes are projected and transcended from the original aboutness into the recursive self-modeling of human beings.
Meaning/purpose of life = short-term or long-term goal originating from the understanding that I got a unique gift to develop or complete for survival as well as for preparation for afterlife:
Thank you prof. Pfeifer for the links to Grice which are very intersting. However I have some questions. First, is meanng independent of context. We laugh at some omedians jokes because the things they say cannot have the usual meaning in the context implied although if they did it would be amusing. (Body language can be used in this way as well as words.) Second, language is used for communication and it is not clear that meanings exist apart from that use. Indeed it is surely the success of that use that defines the meaning. If that communication between two people fails then we usually try a different sset of words with a similar 'meaning' to express the idea we wish to communicate. The use of 'meaning' in relation to works of art or music is also used in this context of communication.
Purpose can guide life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer a sense of direction, and create meaning. For some people, purpose is connected to vocation—meaningful, satisfying work. For others, their purpose lies in their responsibilities to their family or friends. Others seek meaning through spirituality or religious beliefs. Some people may find their purpose clearly expressed in all these aspects of life.
Purpose will be unique for everyone; what you identify as your path may be different from others. What’s more, your purpose can actually shift and change throughout life in response to the evolving priorities and fluctuations of your own experiences.
Can you explain that your proposed " the Meaning" is related to language or any metaphysical domain?
All ideologies are summarized in relation to the three ideologies
Rationalism
Empiricism
And realism
We can simulate the special ideology with two ideologies of the three above ideologies
This is how I found your question. How our minds come to perfect thinking based on two ideologies.
It takes a few days to answer your question
The question of "Meaning" entails many questions, and cannot be answered
without examining the concept in modern and post-modern philosophy. If we
go back to metaphysics we explore "meaning for Plato and Aristotle, then we
go to the medieval philosophers, and the modern ones beginning with Descartes.
and Kant, then the work of Gadamer, Habermas, and RIcoeur.
This is a brief answer that recognizes the importance of meaning for human
knowledge and understanding, and it maintains that it is an open question that
seeks continued search for meaning and never stop reflecting on our need for
both explanation and understanding of meaning.
I believe that the meaning must be related to sentences, facts, and objects. The first problem is the distinction between background and form.
The second problem is to examine how much there is of subjectivity or objectivity regarding meaning.
And if someone asks: What do you mean by "exactly"? We should say: What do you mean by "exactly"? On the other hand, the concept of ambiguity should be considered, since it directly affects the concept of meaning.
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