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Old page

Possible definition

What do you think about this definition:

Meaning is association between symbol and sense or idea.

Meaning and information

For some reason I did not find this page on my earlier trials. I do not think that meaning and information are synonyms in the way it is put down in the article.

Information and meaning are similar to the extent that both need a recepient to attribute meaning/information to something that such a recepient is looking at for meaning/information.

Whether you find meaning/information in anything studied depends greatly on the structure and content of your own experience/knowledge, the amount of which may not be measured as easily as in a hardware in binary terms.

Man is an animal characterised by his state determined by various needs, one of which is looking for meaning almost everywhere. As a corollary to this condition man assumes that meaning lies behind the surface, and there is a hiden message of Nature out of the range of human perception. Hence the analysis of the world by intrusion and force using a constantly improving precision technology of targeting and shooting on anything with a promise of economic gain.

Now meaning is most frequently attributed to verbal cues that are used to tag experience (mainly pictoral, or multi channeled in nature), words that are thus also devoid of context and details, except for the fragments that are mentally preserved by asociation, hoping that similar experience will be evoked in the listener on hearing such verbal cues and establishing thereby a seeming synchronisation of the focus of minds of the individuals.

Now in explaining the meaning of a word (verbal cues) by collecting them into a list for ease of reference/locating and placing in proximity other words that may be considered a recursion or another form of tagging of the same thing, one tries to reconstruct the original context of that verbal clue, the product of abstraction, and tries to reengineer the lost context that was not possible to share otherwise, but by abstracting (using a language).

Mental processes are pretty fast for us to pin down sequences of operations, but it appears that that you have intent first, preceeding formulasing your thought, then ample time to articulate what you can from your collection of experience tagged with verbal cues. Should you have experience that others do not share, or focus that is wider/narrower than what other people can handle you will have difficulties in communicating your thoughts, one of the most fearful experience of humans as a social being.

thread suspended for the time being Apogr 09:23, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

New introduction

I moved the following text here, for the time being:

Meaning is the core concept of semantics which still owes us a palatable definition of the term. Some recognized linguists tend to conclude that meaning is a relational term, or an (equity) relation expressed in abstract terms. Meaning is then best conceived as a function or equation, the two sides of which are considered to be equal, if not identical for some practical purpose. (This kind of approach is not unique in human practice, think of the example of the definition of fair market value. In my recollections it goes on like this: fair market value is a sum that a willing and serious buyer is ready to pay to a willing seller who is not acting under any constraints or force to sell its ware.) The function metaphor is widely used for the description of the syntax of formal languages. The BNF (Backus-Naur Form) notation and recursion discuss the subject in sufficient details to enable you to see the point. Meaning of verbal expressions, however is subject to chunking, the process of finding the right delimiters in the string of verbal cues. When you do chunking, in fact, you divide the input in two: the left side of the function, and the right side of the function, which rewrites metaphorically as focus and domus, or the symbol that you want the meaning of, and the (immediate) context that you need to consider, but keep separate. This process may also be called as abstraction. In most cases we rely on visual input that is not sequential, a feature we display in thinking and remembering, all taking place in time, therefore has to be rearranged, simplified, condensed or compressed, and linked, i.e. abstracted in short to fit the working of our mind. Thus context is essential for the understanding of meaning, yet there is no plausible theory or classification of context available for the time being. Obviously, context includes the mind of the reader or the listener as well so it is exposed to the interpretation of the interpreter (remember recursion?). There are thousand examples of how chunking and context influence meaning, a very telling word indeed. The meaning of meaning suggests two noteworthy points: a) meaning as exposed in the word, text, etc. spoken, written, etc. and the meaning (see intent) of the communicator, which is hidden, but may be inferred from various contextual clues. In the current Western civilization the issue of meaning is very well consolidated in a commonplace scene of any western where there are two guys facing each other in a challenge. The rules are clear but paradoxical: the one who reaches for his pistol first is a paranoid, because he assumes that the other guy wants to kill him. On the other hand, whoever shoots the other one is a psychopath, by the mere fact of killing another man. Since the two guys stand wide apart, normally it is impossible to make a fair judgment of what is happening and in what sequence. Conclusion? They are both sick and need medical attention. So much about one (pragmatic) aspect of the theme of current research into intentional programming (see. interview with Mr. Charles Simonyi)

My issues with it are as follows:

Much of the information should be incorporated into the section on semantics, which doesn't comprise the entirety of the inquiry on meaning.
Use of the word "guys".
Use of the first person: "In my recollection".
POV: "They are both sick and need mental attention."
The semi-sentence "Conclusion?"
It looks like a giant, run-on paragraph.

Basically, I think it is in need of some copyediting and some serious NPOVing, and then what's left needs to be incorporated into the appropriate sections, as it doesn't serve well as an introduction - it comprises one very questionable approach to meaning, rather than giving an overview to the many approaches. I am also concerned that it may be a copyvio or a paraphrasing of one person's work. -Seth Mahoney 21:41, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Run on #2

Definition – triple aspects

I'm going to throw comments right into the text, so its easier to see what I'm talking about:

Meaning is an attribute of some external stimulus in terms of relevance to a living organism that the later establishes with the help of its mental capacities. (Attempt to define the term at an abstract level.)

This has the same problem (as an intro) that the above had: it attempts to define meaning according to one BUT VERY WIDE particular approach, when there have been and are several.

yes, it gives you a bird's eye view of the subject, since by mentioning living organisms, I have included all the possible participants of the issue of the meaning

But it gives you one particular birds eye view, of many. Are you saying that it isn't possible that non-living things can participate in the creation of meaning? Artificial life, were it to exist, would certainly play as definitive a role as natural life. Is God necessarily a living being? Many think he is not only involved in, but the center of all meaning.

Non-living things, articifial life, etc. (e.g. computers) can also create/generate meaning, but so far I have only noticed that we are confined to an encyclopedia written for humans to read, who, as far as we can tell, can use various tools and devices to extend their senses and range of perception, yet are unable to be at two or more locations at the same time, hence all their experience and they as living organsims are confined to a single point in time and space. (In contrast to say God, who is thought to eb omnipresent, etc. therefore probable not a single person.... if you see what I mean)

It is a meaningful ’’’relation’’’ between the external stimulus and an organism ’’wired” to look for a meaning’’ and equipped with a capacity to make up any fragmented stimulus into a meaningful „message”, or a looming condition to adjust to. (Taking another turn)

The phrase "wired to look for meaning" here presumes:

# The existence of a biological predisposition toward making meaning, which has not been proven true.

# Meaning as a product of living beings, who are meaning-makers, which though I agree, has not been proven true. Platonism would be a philosophical position running counter to that, as would many religious positions.

looking for meaning means orientation. Mention one example where a living thing lacks that capacity

That doesn't really address the issues above. These can be boiled down to the following: it has not been proven that there is a necessary connection between living beings and the creation of meaning. As mentioned above, Platonism is one example of a system wherein meaning is external to life. Further, it is possible that non-living things might create meaning. Further, and this is big, whether or not living things create meaning, there has been no proof that there is any predisposition toward meaning-creation.

Well, just rwead my garbled words and check out...

Meaning is established as a function or equation between two items so related, the two sides of which are considered to be equal, or identical for some practical purpose. For example in giving a name to an object, or translating any passages from one language into another, or finding a reason for an effort, etc. (Getting more specific now)

This seems really similar to Saussure's sign/signifier-signified system or Augustine's symbol/thing approach. Would the two sides of the equation be equal in the case of metaphor?

I do not need to quote big names, but accept any reference as an addition. Symbols and things may be equally be used as metaphors. In fact, all the linguistic symbols are metaphors, by the very anture of the use of symbols. (Rememebr recursion)

You don't need to quote big names, but you do need to provide references. There are all sorts of good reasons for this. I don't need to quote big names here (though I tend to in articles, with good reason). I did, however, think it would be helpful for you. Guess I was wrong.

(Meaning is subject to common agreement, similarly to other definitions, such as that of a fair market value which is a sum that a willing and serious buyer is ready to pay to a willing seller who is not acting under any constraints or force to sell its ware. (or about)

I don't think the example here is necessary - "Meaning is subject to common agreement" would suffice, though I plan to cover that idea when I add the section on philosophical approaches to meaning.

Fine with me.

The above function metaphor is widely used for the description of the syntax of formal languages. The BNF (Backus-Naur Form) notation and recursion discuss the subject in sufficient details to enable you to see the point. Therefore to represent meaning one should indicate the equivalence between the two elements selected.

Generally, the use of the word "you" to refer to the reader is discouraged, if you're proposing this for inclusion in the article. This paragraph also seems pretty jargony.

Thank you, accepted.

On the left side of the expression there may be hundreds of items, mainly related to communication, the meaning of which may be described in more details (specific levels):

Means, modalities, genre and media of communications, including

Words
symbols
gestures
pictures
art objects
other forms of expression
allusions, etc.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here, though this reads like something related to semiotics.

I am trying to point out that the number of possible contexts that govern meaning is huge, just as many as the number of entities that meaning of which is sought.

Oh. That should be covered in the section on Pragmatics and the upcoming section on Semiotics.

I think I'd understand more where you're coming from if you added some references that I could browse, but as phrased this is beginning to read a bit like original research. Even if it is not, it still seems to be a single approach to the concept of meaning, and privileging one concept over others by including it as the introduction would make for a POV article. If you can dig up some references, including some version of this as a section in the article would be appropriate though. -Seth Mahoney 00:37, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Now this is not research at all. Just lateral thinking in action. As a rule I am interested in defining lexicon entry words that extend oevr specialisations, that are used in various disciplines , quite often by the way of analogy, but more importantly with a chance to produce short-cuts to serv cross fertilisation among disciplines.

Right. I guess I should be more clear: Wikipedia has a special definition of "original research". In Wikipedia, "original research" is pretty much a new theory put together by the author. From Wikipedia:No original research: "Individual ideas (eg. stuff made up) and unstable neologisms should either go to 'votes for deletion' [because they 'fail the test of confirmability' (not because they are false)], or be copyedited out." If this is to be kept, you need to pull together some print references.

Some of the examples I have already found and tried to pin point include copying, translating, orderlyness (sorting, ordering) and a few others.

Thank you for the trouble you have taken.

Meaning of verbal expressions

Meaning of verbal expressions is subject to chunking, the process of finding the right delimiters in the string of verbal cues. When you do chunking, in fact, you divide the input in two: the left side of the function, and the right side of the function, which rewrites metaphorically as focus and domus, or the symbol that you want the meaning of, and the (immediate) context that you need to consider, but keep separate.

In contrast to disambiguation (which concerns homonyms only e.g. People Like Maria) Chunking may take larger segments or chunks that should be interpreted as one (e.g. idioms, phrasal verbs, syntagmas, nominal phrases denoting one entity, etc.)

All that is a function of the orientation, size of the immediate memory of the observer and his mental facilities. If you speak two languages, you can read a string (word or longer stretches) once in language A, and another time in language B. This process may also be called as abstraction.

In most cases we rely on visual input that is not sequential, a feature we display in thinking and remembering, all taking place in time, therefore has to be rearranged, simplified, condensed or compressed, and linked, i.e. abstracted in short to fit the working of our mind.

Thus context is essential for the understanding of meaning, yet there is no plausible theory or classification of context available for the time being. Obviously, context includes the mind of the reader or the listener as well so it is exposed to the interpretation of the interpreter (do you remember recursion?)

There are thousand examples of how chunking and context influence meaning, a very telling word indeed. The meaning of meaning suggests two noteworthy points: a) meaning as exposed in the word, text, etc. spoken, written, etc. and the meaning (see intent) of the communicator, which is hidden, but may be inferred from various contextual clues.

In the current Western civilization the issue of meaning is very well consolidated in a commonplace scene of any western where there are two antagonists facing each other in a challenge. The rules are clear but paradoxical: the one who reaches for his pistol first is a paranoid, because he assumes that the other guy wants to kill him.

On the other hand, whoever shoots the other one is a psychopath, by the mere fact of killing another man. Since the two antagonists stand wide apart, normally it is impossible to make a fair judgment of what is happening and in what sequence. What is the conclusion? The conclusion is that meaning is also subject to the urgency of making a decision, the most likely moment when it is the same thing as information. In other situations whether you find meaning/information in anything studied depends greatly on the structure and content of your own experience/knowledge, the amount of which may not be measured as easily as in a hardware in binary terms.

In the above example the two antagonist are tube-sighted, and are not concerned with anything but the movement of their opponent. Information and meaning are similar to the extent that both need a recipient to attribute meaning/information to something that such a recipient is looking at for meaning/information.

Man is an animal characterized by his state determined by various needs, one of which is looking for meaning almost everywhere. As a corollary to this condition man assumes that meaning lies behind the surface, and there is a hidden message of Nature out of the range of human perception. Hence the analysis of the world by intrusion and force using a constantly improving precision technology of targeting and shooting on anything with a promise of economic gain.

Now meaning is most frequently attributed to verbal cues that are used to tag experience (mainly pictorial, or multi channeled in nature), words that are thus also devoid of context and details, except for the fragments that are mentally preserved by association, hoping that similar experience will be evoked in the listener on hearing such verbal cues and establishing thereby a seeming synchronization of the focus of minds of the individuals.

Now in explaining the meaning of a word (verbal cues) by collecting them into a list for ease of reference/locating and placing in proximity other words that may be considered a recursion or another form of tagging of the same thing, one tries to reconstruct the original context of that verbal clue, the product of abstraction, and tries to reengineer the lost context that was not possible to share otherwise, but by abstracting (using a language).

Mental processes are pretty fast for us to pin down sequences of operations, but it appears that that you have intent first, preceding formulating your thought, then ample time to articulate what you can from your collection of experience tagged with verbal cues. Should you have experience that others do not share, or focus that is wider/narrower than what other people can handle you will have difficulties in communicating your thoughts, one of the most fearful experience of humans as a social being.

Note. I am to be blamed for all this garbage is, and I am ready to consider your points and advice.

Apogr 15:35, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Meaning, revisited

My comments:

Meaning is the result of chunking whereby the interpreter of the meaning perceiving a whole set of signals separates a seqence (chunk) that he/she finds meaningful (relavant to his/her existence (awareness of) - and complete (a whole) thus an input to be used for orientation.

This is more-or-less fine. A bit of general cleanup is required, but nothing major, provided you can provide references. This isn't just something I want from you, I'm pushing fairly hard for as many references as possible in all Wikipedia articles.

In finding the meaning of/in verbal input chunking is done to arrive at the shortest/smallest meaningful unit of the string of symbols, which is conventionally called a word or a lexeme or a morpheme, yet it is not.

"of/in", "shortest/smallest", etc. are perhaps not the most appropriate uses of language here. I'd choose one or the other. Also, "yet it is not"? Yet what is not what?

.. to arrive at the shortest meaningful unit (with a singel sense!!) (in terms of time available to chunk the input whether in writing or in audio) ... yet it is not a lexeme or a morpheme, because, they will then need to be disambiguated, which is not just sorting out homonyms, senses from n to z, but realizing and inferring from context that something is assumed to be known and felt redundant to put down, such as ... millions of examples....

The main point is that in chunking one should be able to see simultaneously the whole and the chunk of the whole, just as in slicing bread, where you get a whole slice of bread, a chunk, yet a whole (a slice).

Do you mean "a whole (a loaf)"? Regardless, this is pretty good.

What I mean is that in defining meaning (an attempt to restore a picture, a whole) you work with two focuses and in toggle mode. You have something in focus and you have the context (domus). Or less metaphoric examples: 983745969374 is a number and you will probably not be able to remeber it, becasue you have nowhere t conncet it.

But if yu know that is my phone number, then you feel you got the picture, and may decide to record it , etc. Now

Disambiguation is/should not be done just at word level (homonyms, senses) but longer streches, phrases, clusters until you arrive at an "alphabetic identifier" of some denoted entity.

Again, "is/should not be". In fact, this one is worse, as reads like a contradiction. You may mean "is not/should not be", but that isn't clear from the text. I'd just use "is not done", as an encyclopedia's place isn't to offer advice.

that's poor English: I meant to say "is not done" as you have infered illustrating my point, that one is looking for meaning and restires garbage. You will have known that scrambled (tipos) words are read out "prprly" and mutilated tapings are hear complete, etc..

Consequently, it is erroneous to make a (single) word to be the entry word/item or a unit of treaty of a dictionary and/or a lexicon, which is supposed to be a collection of knowledge associated with not words as lingustic units, but chunks of reality described.

I'd argue for disinclusion of this paragraph, as again, an encyclopedia's place isn't to offer advice or cultural criticism.

This is a note to the editors, who are very much against anything but taxoboxing, despite the fact that the general reader may need a compass on such difficult issues, including thinking, a stub for over two years in wikipedia... you can see now why.

The Hungatrian author Mr. Kiefer on semantics and meaning has plenty of References (from all around the world) in is book, that did not help him by any inch to get closer to a defintiion.

Apogr 05:52, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

All in all, this is much better than before - much more encyclopedic in style, and much more readable, also much more coherent and concise. With references, I'd feel fine with its inclusion in a section in the article, though still not as the introduction. -Seth Mahoney 20:35, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Introduction to meaning: two subjects: recursion and fractals - without them it amy be futile to see the woods behind the trees....

Apogr 06:34, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But it may also be very enlightening to read parsing, the analysis of the syntax of formal language, together with BNF, thyt I could use to illustrate my point, provided taht it were bnot too technical to lay (non computer)people.

Rolling on

This is what you get n the internet for meaning: The encyclopedic bit must look familiar :-)

noun: the idea that is intended (Example: "What is the meaning of this proverb?") noun: the message that is intended or expressed or signified (Example: "What is the meaning of this sentence") See mean

Encyclopedia article

Meaning, studied in philosophy of language and linguistics, as well as being central to the fields of literary theory and critical theory and the philosophical field of epistemology, is a difficult concept to pin down. (continued at Wikipedia)

That does look familiar!

1. I have read a whole book on meanning by the most famous Hungarian linguist on the subject and there is no single definition of meaning at all. At one junction he goes as far as saying that "meaning is a relation". In our univeristies it is taught that meaning is the set of rules of using a symbol.

That's pretty much my issue with having any sort of meaningful introduction to meaning - there is no single definition. In the entire history of Western civilization, we've yet to come up with a single, lasting, useful definition of meaning. Therefore, we should avoid trying to insert one in an article. We should instead give an overview of the various approaches to meaning.

You should appreciate that I am trying to fill up a gap here and I am not likely to come up with references, partly, because I am certain that meaning is a function of recursion, a claim that may cost "my life", because it is like saying "the king is nude". Also, meaning can be beautifully illustrated by bringing up the subject of fractals, that explains that yu have various distances from the entity you want to define the meaning of, but in between two established scales, your focus is blurred, and you cannot grasp anything verbal, nor pictoral for that mater. Thinking seems to be pictorally driven, and transfer to a verbal plane is a problem of changing bandwidth.

The thing is, if you can't come up with references, this is original research. I don't think you're far from a practical definition of meaning, though many people have come close and found it more elusive than they had expected. Even if you do come up with *the* definition of meaning, though, it is still original research and thus inappropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia unless you manage to get it published in a book somewhere, and even then it can only be documented here as one approach to meaning, among many. : / -Seth Mahoney 07:11, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

New intro #2

Here are my issues with the new new intro, most of which I'd like to see incorporated into the existing intro:

A meaning is, roughly, a kind of abstract object or property carried by any of various linguistic expressions, artifacts, and actions.

The article is about meaning, not a meaning. There's a subtle difference: a meaning prefers a linguistic, semiotic, or psychoanalytic interpretation, where meaning is any of a number of properties a thing may have which reflect its relationship to a human being. The alternate philosophical interpretation presumes that meaning is something that certain things may have, a thing shared, not a set of possible things.

This is only a useful distinction if the classification of articles used here permitted there to be a separate article for the singular noun "meaning". But beginning the article with "A meaning" doesn't imply that it's about 'a meaning'; it implies that the use of the noun supposed by the article is singular; that it is a count-noun. This is only mildly contentious, and the sentence you replaced it with is, by contrast, unimformative, rambling, and merely confusing. I presume, in any case, that you don't object to the article on Sea beginning with "A sea is...", on the grounds that the article is about sea, not a sea. Nonetheless, your point that "meaning" functions both as a count-noun and as a non-count-noun is duly noted. Both should be remarked on in the introduction.

I'm fine with your taking issue with the existing text, but I'd appreciate it if you would copy and paste, pointing out exactly what the issue is as I have done above, rather than simply saying "uninformative, rambling, and merely confusing". What information that isn't there already would you like it to have? That is not, what would you like the sentence to be, but what information would you like it to contain? How could it possibly be more rambling than, say, The most common secondary sense of "meaning" is to say that an object, person, event, etc., is meaningful to someone, i.e. is important to them, usually in an emotionally significant respect.? As far as its being confusing that is purely your POV, but let's hash it out? How does it confuse you?

Meanings are studied primarily in philosophy, logic, and linguistics. Meanings also figure centrally in literary theory, critical theory, and some branches of psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, history, and computer science.

The article is about meaning, not meanings, and there is the same subtle difference here noted above. I also think a section on meaning in computer science may be more appropriate in semantics.

Again with the singular-general point. Alright, but the sentence would be better emended that replaced with the run-on one with multiple nested clauses on the page. Furthermore, this was not a section on meaning in computer science, but a passing remark, in an appropriate place for such a remark, that the concept plays a role there too.

This article primarily discusses the meanings of linguistic expressions: words and sentences, (as well as, indirectly, the meanings of other things usually thought to be analogous to linguistic expressions, such as thoughts).

Announcing beforehand what the article is about is, IMHO, not so good stylistically. The reader came here because he or she wants to know something about meaning - they know what the article is about, and anything they don't know they will learn by reading the article.

It may not be great, but exists on thousands of other pages where words have multiple uses, especially where some uses are and some are not suited to encyclopedia articles. If you think it would be appropriate for this page also to include, say, talk about how friendships and pets are meaningful, then perhaps this should be removed, but if the article isn't going to discuss those, it's a pretty established convention here to redirect people who would otherwise waste their time.

Lots of things exist on lots of other pages that absolutely should not be there. That's not a good reason to keep doing it. I do actually think that the page should include information on how, say, friendships and pets are meaningful. As far as redirecting people who would waste their time, a quick scan of the table of contents will inform people that, currently, there is little coverage of many areas of meaning. The sentence just isn't necessary and isn't good stylistically. Like I said earlier, I'd like to end up with an article that includes much of what you've written, but I don't want to end up with an article that is just poor stylistically (lots of parenthesis, etc.s, i.e.s, and sentences like this). There's no reason to argue here for every sentence, and my goal here isn't to insult you or your writing style.

The most common secondary sense of "meaning" is to say that an object, person, event, etc., is meaningful to someone, i.e. is important to them, usually in an emotionally significant respect.

This is a statistical claim. Do we have statistics to back it up? No? Then it doesn't belong in an article. I would like to see something, maybe in a section on psychology or possibly semiotics, about this way of meaning, though. For the record, Wikipedia's style convention is to surround the word in two single quotes (which renders it in italics) when the sentence is talking about the word as a word, not double quotes.

-Seth Mahoney 02:06, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

In fact it need not be read as a statistical claim at all; but even if it were, it's hardly the sort of statistical claim that needs backing up. It's not making a point about statistics of usage; it's a supplement to the preceding sentence, indicating the foremost among the senses of the word not being treated here. As such it needs no more support than the background knowledge of an informed speaker of English.

No, it is, like all other claims, statistical or otherwise, one that needs to be backed up. I absolutely disagree with it, in fact. I would say that the primary meaning of meaning is that "X is meaningful [emotionally or psychologically] to someone" and that linguistic or other discussions of meaning are secondary. Further, again, there's no reason to argue for the sentence as is - we could just as easily replace it with a sentence that discusses this other use of meaning without making the claim that it is the second most common or most common use of the word, and this would give the reader just as much information about meaning - how and how often it is used is in the end unimportant to the article. -Seth Mahoney 16:58, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)