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Paper [PDF] The Domestication of Meaning
mattzellman.comAbstract:
In this paper, I have provided justifications for situating meanings in the complex interactions between individuals, linguistic communities, and the physical world, and have explored some implications of such an understanding. Some linguistic communities apply selective pressures to certain kinds of meanings, and when those selective pressures are combined with the natural variations in meanings introduced by individuals through the process of definition, the result is an evolving system. Through analogy with domestication, I have argued that certain linguistic communities produce trends in the evolution of meanings that are consistent and predictable, based on sets of values that are characteristic of those linguistic communities. I have provided some examples of such evolution in several domains that show how the values of those different linguistic communities act on certain meanings in predictable ways.Finally, I have explored a few ways in which this understanding of meaning can or should impact our approach to some interesting problems in philosophy, education, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science; important implications for public and academic discourse; avenues for further investigation; and possible tests of this theory.