MEANING

Meaning is the result of millions of reflexive responses which result in unconscious assessments of what experiences are useful to us, or not. We create meaning by referring to different types and meaningless bits of information that get compared and connected to make sense of the relationships, in ways that are acceptable to well-established preferences and perceptions. This means that what makes sense to us is the result of structural connections that move our thinking either towards or away from a particular assessment.  In the Cognitive Sciences, these preferences are “embedded” in the ecology of the nervous system and referred to as being “structurally determined” (nature).  But the internal structure is also shaped by sensory data that influences interactions with our environment, referred to as “structural coupling” (nurture).  The brain does not create its reality by simply describing what is sensed or seen, but from assumptions determined by the way the world is interpreted, which will be different for every person.  Reality will always be perception and the meaning generated from those perceptions will be built on useful assumptions.