The Word "Meaning"

• Meanings of "meaning"

  • Purpose, significance, end, causal connection between facets of reality we call events.

  • Intention of an agent.

  • Information ordering, relationship between pieces of information, relationship between events and information.

• Meaning is a human word and a human concept. Other life forms may have a different concept of meaning or may not have it at all.

• Quotes about meanings of "meaning" from Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi):

  • "Its first usage points towards the end, purpose, significance of something, as in: What is the meaning of life? This sense of the word reflects the assumption that events are linked to each other in terms of an ultimate goal; that there is a temporal order, a causal connection between them. It assumes that phenomena are not random, but fall into recognizable patterns directed by a final purpose."

  • "The second usage of the word refers to a person's intentions: She usually means well. What this sense of meaning implies is that people reveal their purposes in action; that their goals are expressed in predictable, consistent, and orderly ways."

  • "Finally, the third sense in which the word is used refers to ordering information, as when one says: Otorhinolaryngology means the study of ear, nose, and throat, or: Red sky in the evening means good weather in the morning. This sense of meaning points to the identity of different words, the relationship between events, and thus it helps to clarify, to establish order among unrelated or conflicting information."