Meaning: The Driver at L6

Function & Name

Meaning is the THEE-name for: «a sense of something embedded within a message». This sense is what is important about any communication i.e. it carries value-PH6).

The sender expresses or provides Meaning-L6, and the recipient grasps or comprehends Meaning-L6. 

At L6, Meaning is the form and to mean is the process—both refer to «making sense». The «sense» that is «made» is often:

• an intention or purpose
• a value, reference or significance
• an observation, understanding, explanation.

Providing sense in psychological and social matters often flows from conjuring up a physical act (e.g. warming, wounding) to describe a non-physical thing.

Meaning is the 6th Level element in the Primary Hierarchy of Communication, above all 5 actual elements.

ClosedChoice of Formal Name

Properties

Meaning something implies:

to communicate
or
to desire to communicate
or
to be perceived as actually communicating.

The recipient must attribute, read or see Meaning-L6 in the bald message (i.e. its Terms-L5, Symbols-L4, Signs-L3, Signals-L2 &/or Stimuli-L1), so as to determine the «sense» that the sender is presumed to be communicating.

Both parties always attribute meaning-L6 unconsciously, as well as consciously and deliberately. Meanings-L6 within one's own group usually seem natural and easy to understand; while meanings-L6 and their expression within other groups often seem odd or even alien. 

Meaning-L6 within any communicative event carries intentions that are not always fully appreciated by either party, and may even be vigorously denied.

In articulating lower Levels I have repeatedly made reference to meaning. It is impossible not to, because meaning lies at the heart of what makes something a communicative event. It is why communication is so important to us.

It is important we do not get confused. So here are some distinctions:

  • As part of THEE, a Term-L5 like «Meaning» is being used to correspond with a taxonomic index (i.e. PH5-L6) so as to render it understandable. Of course, «meaning» can be treated as just another word with a variety of uses.
  • «Meaning» is used elsewhere in THEE to refer to a type of Quest or Life-Motivation as in «man's search for meaning», with a formula: RH'-L2.
  • Linguistically, «meaning » is used simply to refer to the varieties of references that any particular word may make (i.e. «the meanings in the dictionary»).
  • Academics and others who work with ideas and concepts, may use «meaning » as synonymous with definition e.g. the «meaning of hysteresis» = the «definition of hysteresis».
  • Philosophers have almost certainly developed a range of additional arcane uses and distinctions.

Errors & Failure

The frequency of error, i.e. failed communication, is phenomenal, hence Wiio's law: «communication usually fails, except by accident». All lower Level errors can be made plus the unique mistake at L6 of thinking that others are near-identical to oneself—in ways of thinking, in past experiences, in attributions, in values and so on.

Without a great deal of familiarity with the other person or group, we always have difficulty appreciating the perspective placed on our message and the medium used. We certainly never know the idiosyncratic associations that get attributed or activated by verbal terms and non-verbal stimuli.

Lack of a «shared language» always poses severe problems. But even within a language, meaning-L6 can be affected by styles of expression which are indirect; by dialects; or by idiosyncratic, discipline-based or obsolete language.

In «making sense», we see the deep nature of meaning-L6:

  • "making" implies human creativity

& 

  • "sense" relates to sensing and sensation based on stimuli-L1.

So: Meaning-L6 is not just out there somehow or somewhere—it is actively created by us. Meaning-L6 can in turn, through being shared, create a fragment of psychosocial reality. That will have to be explored in more details in frameworks deeper within communication-RH5/PH5.

In all THEE Primary Hierarchies: At L6, the form taken by the entity shows as a capacity for rational-logical governance of the hierarchy as a whole. L6 is a potential and rationale that can only be realized by using L1-L5 entities.

Meaning-L6 drives the whole Communicationhierarchy and provides it with whatever sense there is or can be in human social interactions.

Other elements in our psychosocial world affect our meanings-L6, including precisely what, how, why, when, where, and to whom we wish to communicate. But that takes us outside the sphere of communication itself.

Do we need a further higher Level? Can meaning-L6 be encompassed and included within something that is definitely intrinsic to communication, but yet more complex, more experiential or more sophisticated?

Originally posted: 6-May-2011; Last updated 25-Sep-2011.