Talk:The Meaning of Meaning

message: This is my first new article edit, though far from complete so far. But I hope the opening quotes alone would be worthy of note and use. Have an insanely good time. --KYPark 18:04, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  First article 

message: : Two experts, to explicate Meaning, 
: Wrote a book called The Meaning of Meaning. 
: But the world was perplexed! 
: So three experts wrote next 
: The Meaning of Meaning of Meaning. 
: - Douglas Hofstadter 
Quoted from Talk:The meaning of meaning  --KYPark 7 July 2005 14:43 (UTC)
Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language  reviewed by Tal Cohen. --KYPark 7 July 2005 15:18 (UTC)
====More Creit should go to Hofstadter====
I think that Douglas Hofstadter has a little more coming to him on this subject.  Years ago I attended a talk by Hofstadter at Xerox PARC in which he talked about the "Meaning of Meaning".  I can still remember what he meant, but his exact words have long since escaped me, so forgive me if I get this wrong. But I remember him saying something like "the meaning of meaning is the one-to-one correspondence between two independent systems".
I've remembered that all these years, but over time I slowly realized how profound a thought this was.  Its significance is that can connect the philosophic realm of consideration to objective existential entities, thus giving rise to extremely useful connections between concepts which are human and range to what are objective mechanical constructs of our intents and purposes.
To understand this, understand that one can construct meaning about any relationship between any two existential concepts or constructions in a meaningful way by incrementally developing correspondences between the two.  That alone is enough to build up a lot of useful meaning!
It is a universal tool, and can help us sort out otherwise obscure relationships.  For example, here are some random relationships that can be approached in this way:
* Marketing<>Implementation
* design<>quality
* integrity<>politics
* problem solving<>beauty
* robotics<>equity
* corporations<>understanding of individuals
* pharmacies<>the human condition
* profits<>human value
* democrats<>republicans
* manipulation<>object reality
It is a tool that can be used to help us sort out ANY system that has more than one part in a methodical step by step way to a clear solution by developing a meaning between parts.
For example the Subprime mortgage crisis ended up in over 4 million mortgage foreclosures and the perpetrators were the ones who got bailed out. 
If we had just examined the relationships for meaning, we would have discovered the only necessary relationships necessary for a good solution were monthly payments, compound interest, and equity (e.g. fairness to all).  You don't have to know anything else in order to figure out a solution that would have been fair and equitable.  Everything else was fluff and not necessary for the solving of the crisis. 
We would have quickly found what it meant to actually solve the problem.  The solution could have come from the simple relationship that if the lender receives his interest, then the outcome for EVERYONE would be equitable.  Nothing else is necessary to a real solution... not foreclosures, not unbundling fancy instruments, not bailing out large companies, not prepayment penalties, not huge balloon payments or anything else.  It would not have been unfair to undo contracts as long as everyone received what was right and just in an equitable manner just by the lights of fair interest for money loaned.
Some important meaningful relationships would be 
* lender interest<>equity
* minimum necessary interest bailout<>equity
* government interest bailout + buyer greatest feasible contribution over time<>lender interest income + buyer equity growth.
So in most cases we could have bailed out interest of the manipulated buyers, giving as much time needed to recover, or develop the means to afford the mortgage.
John K Sellers (talk) 06:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Douglas Hofstadter

message: I think that Douglas Hofstadter has a little more coming to him on this subject.  Years ago I attended a talk by Hofstadter at Xerox PARC in which he talked about the "Meaning of Meaning".  I can still remember what he meant, but his exact words have long since escaped me, so forgive me if I get this wrong. But I remember him saying something like "the meaning of meaning is the one-to-one correspondence between two independent systems".
I've remembered that all these years, but over time I slowly realized how profound a thought this was.  Its significance is that can connect the philosophic realm of consideration to objective existential entities, thus giving rise to extremely useful connections between concepts which are human and range to what are objective mechanical constructs of our intents and purposes.
To understand this, understand that one can construct meaning about any relationship between any two existential concepts or constructions in a meaningful way by incrementally developing correspondences between the two.  That alone is enough to build up a lot of useful meaning!
It is a universal tool, and can help us sort out otherwise obscure relationships.  For example, here are some random relationships that can be approached in this way:
* Marketing<>Implementation
* design<>quality
* integrity<>politics
* problem solving<>beauty
* robotics<>equity
* corporations<>understanding of individuals
* pharmacies<>the human condition
* profits<>human value
* democrats<>republicans
* manipulation<>object reality
It is a tool that can be used to help us sort out ANY system that has more than one part in a methodical step by step way to a clear solution by developing a meaning between parts.
For example the Subprime mortgage crisis ended up in over 4 million mortgage foreclosures and the perpetrators were the ones who got bailed out. 
If we had just examined the relationships for meaning, we would have discovered the only necessary relationships necessary for a good solution were monthly payments, compound interest, and equity (e.g. fairness to all).  You don't have to know anything else in order to figure out a solution that would have been fair and equitable.  Everything else was fluff and not necessary for the solving of the crisis. 
We would have quickly found what it meant to actually solve the problem.  The solution could have come from the simple relationship that if the lender receives his interest, then the outcome for EVERYONE would be equitable.  Nothing else is necessary to a real solution... not foreclosures, not unbundling fancy instruments, not bailing out large companies, not prepayment penalties, not huge balloon payments or anything else.  It would not have been unfair to undo contracts as long as everyone received what was right and just in an equitable manner just by the lights of fair interest for money loaned.
Some important meaningful relationships would be 
* lender interest<>equity
* minimum necessary interest bailout<>equity
* government interest bailout + buyer greatest feasible contribution over time<>lender interest income + buyer equity growth.
So in most cases we could have bailed out interest of the manipulated buyers, giving as much time needed to recover, or develop the means to afford the mortgage.
John K Sellers (talk) 06:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: More Creit should go to Hofstadter

message: The meaning of meaning actually depends on the meaning of meaning! Kind of circular, like the Ouroboros...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.98.202.34 (talk) 09:28, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circularity