We know little about consciousness as such, but its capacity to intend seems to be fundamental. Human cognition therefore cannot assume that in the evolution of our species meaning and intention arose from the observation of causation in nature and that they were then imported by analogy into culture where they became obscure, abstract, and metaphysical. Intention and causation are instead originally interwoven in any embodied experience. Here emotional participation iconizes the indexically present denied intention of the other, so this is symbolization proper. Symbolization is our strongest, or perhaps our only, way to signify the reality of things.
Cognition has to be semiotic from the start.