Models of Meaning 4

Meaning arises when one needs to mend a connection between a symbol and a referee. The referee is something that makes up a mental condition, a state, consisting of person's perceptions. This condition is not transferable as is, we cannot know other people's mental state, and we cannot know if they have any. However, when we assume that the experience they have is similar to ours, starting from the experience we have, and moving towards the experience they might have, we generate a set of possible experiences -- blends of ours to understand the other party. This blend of experiences provide an intention space, a set of experiences where the other party might have...

However these are limited, you say, there is a cost of building.

There are certain experiences that cannot be generated. For example, we can't perceive infrared light. If there is an alien that comes down to earth tomorrow and tells us the experience he sees, that there is a very distinct color spectrum than we can interpret, it means we cannot directly comprehend the experience they have.

We also see colors, though, We can understand what a color means.

Yes, this is my point. We blend our experience in a way to reproduce their experience with the experiences we have. -- If you know a certain dessert made with cheese, then if another variety with another type of cheese comes along, you can guess the flavor.

However, you say, there is a limit to these interpretations and blending.

Blending, as we all know requires a certain type of mental capability. Animals probably don't have this and ours is limited too. We value creativity because of this, that is making up certain experiences that these correspond to realistic experiences -- that it could be real but not. This kind of creativity is not found everywhere, this is the reason human creativity is still a different talent than making permutations with various elements.

You say, this blending operation requires certain kind of energy and it puts a limit to your possible interpretations of a symbol.

When we try to interpret, yes, we need to blend the experience of the author, writer, utterer with our experiences. Interpretation requires energy and energy is limited.