Ξ |
unfolding expression |
context
Expression and meaning-making are fundamental to perception and experience. However, perception informs expression and meaning is derived from experience. These then are four elements in a recursive system.
The four accounts of them here too define one another. The first concerns words and meaning and frames the other three; the second concerns meaning and life. The third and fourth outline how experience and perception evolves to form societies, languages and individuals.
content
λ literalism
worshiping words
The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing; yet our belief in the meaning of words fiercely prejudices our understanding of what's being said —there may be an epidemic in our minds and one too in our souls but even if so these are not the same. When different frames of meaning are mixed, our ideas become muddled and our choices mistaken.
moreΨ on being heard
gathering conversations
Life perceives patterns of signs —the environment gave birth on being heard. In the beginning was the word —just not a word that we recognize. Life and meaning are coextensive; through the signs that it makes each being is perceived by others in its environment. As a consequence, language emerges and develops.
moreΔ making sense
fluency and health
From the beginning, the survival of beings has been determined by their interaction with environments that are social as well as material. To benefit from the empowerment and protection that social integration brings, their communicative competence is fundamental and their mental well-being is coextensive with their fluency.
moreθ imprinting
adapting cultures
As a society develops and grows, its individuals become more dependent upon it and their roles increasingly specialize. Cohesion is achieved by means of a shared cultural narrative. To survive this must compete with others in the thoughts and behaviours of individuals. On being believed, its information replicates and its society grows.
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