What is the
meaning of meaning? ;-)
The meaning of a
word, token or other symbol is, according to semiotic theory, a function
of the originator and of the receiver, mitigated by the nature of the
channel through which the communication is made. So, I may
mean one thing when I say something, and it may be distorted by the noise
of other people chatting in the room, and you may interpret it in a way
which is dependant on what you actually hear, and on your own
personal context. There is room for 'error' to creep into our
communication at each of the levels of the semiotic framework.
But that doesn't
really help, because both you and I have our own personal meaning of the
symbol (word, token etc). And that meaning is made up, in
my opinion, from our previous experiences of things which look (smell,
feel, etc) like the this symbol and the contexts in which we have
encountered them. And whilst we will differentiate between
obviously distinguishable instances (clusters) of the symbols, we then
model the meanings of those clusters by taking the commonalities.
We average out our interpretations of similar symbols relating
to particular contexts. I like to think we mean the meanings
of the symbols we interpret.
But that is to
look at meaning as being the end point of the process. This is
not necessarily the case. As George
Siemens says, learning is an ongoing process.
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Learning
But what is learning? Learning, surely, is the process
of creating meaning from experience. But would it also be fair to
describe meaning as being the ongoing process of creating knowledge from
experience? I think that it probably is, but it is a matter which I
think needs further exploration.
Modelling
The meaning we extract from experience is represented in
models in our minds. We produce models in order to be able to
predict what is going to happen next. This is why the process has
value.
We could just react to stimuli, in an entirely 'behavioural'
way. And we could learn to associate cues from our environment to
allow us to see a particular scenario developing, and so on, building
chains of observations and responses. But this would appear to
require us to maintain a 'state of mind' and can anyway be seen as being
an internal model of the way we interact with our environment.
Benefits
The value point is worth commenting on. If we have
evolved, then the features we have must be worth having in evolutionary
terms. This does not mean, as many argue, that they must give us an
advantage, of course, but merely that they don't put us at enough of a
disadvantage to be selected against. Being able to model what
others are doing is, I would argue, a major advantage in terms of being able
to second guess what they will do next - either when in competition, or
as a collaborator.
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Possible consequences
If meaning is something we are doing while we experience,
and the process of producing knowledge, then it is obviously heavily
affected by the experiences we have already had, which will have been
used to build up the models by which we interpret the world.
We maintain our models by making predictions and comparing
what actually happens to them to refine them and keep them up to
date. And we do this subconsciously (I would argue we do everything
subconsciously, but are aware of some things that we do, and our
conscious mind claims responsibility for some of it.) - whilst we
modify the models, we also use them to interpret the incoming data.
The meaning of the experience is intimately related to our
prior experience. The originator of the symbol can embed it in a
context to try to accurately convey their intended meaning, but at the
point of reception, the meaning of the symbol depends on the total
context, which involves the recipients prior experience as much as any
context delivered along with the symbol.
Meaning as identity
Meaning is also related to identity. Other's views of
us in society, which are based on our roles, in turn being outward
reflections of strands of identity which go up to make our self, define our
meaning within society. The same is true, though for the meaning of
a word or phrase - it depends on the observer, and the context, and
fundamentally defines its roles.
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