v8 - What is meaning?

1.) Background image is Magritte: "La trahison des images" (Treason of Images). Because, y'know, sense vs reference vs meaning vs thing. etc.

2.) I'm drastically simplifying some major debates here. See Deacon 1994 "The Symbolic Species" for a more detailed discussion.

3.) I had a major crush on Puck when I was a child.

4.) Background definitions from the OED online

5.) My primary referent for "mother" and I in St. Louis's Union Station.

6.) Toby is a bad dog.

Interesting side note, "Gary the Unicorn" is a pastiche of two ideas, Gary The Unicorn, from the Simpsons and Bertrand Russell's invisible pink unicorn. Also, I just really wanted to make those Unicorn Man images into a teachable moment. Go me.

8.) Bertrand Russell's Invisible Teapot:

9.) Prototype Theory. For more, start with Wikipedia:

Then maybe try G. Lakoff's "Women, Fire, & Dangerous Things" (1987).

The "bird target" image is from Jean Aitchison's "Words in the Mind" (2003).

10.) For what it's worth, my view on the connection between sense meaning and prototype isn't universally agreed upon.

11.) EMERGENTLY!
The idea that the meanings of words (especially function words) has arisen (or emerged) over time without any teleological intent. Kind of like how a path can emerge in a park over time, because people keep using it as a path, even though no one intended to specifically create a path.

RadioLab did a great episode on Emergence:

12.) I'm pretty sure I just invented the word "nymonym"

11.) Art Credits

Birds on a dictionary by frenchprints on Etsy:

"Baby Ostriches just out of the shell" at Los Angles Ostrich Farm found online.

"At" from DC Comic's "Super Dictionary", explained here:

The The - This Is The Day:

[Elric]

Hahaha omg this video is great! (And the notes are hilarious XD) It helped me out as you could never imagine. I'm studying linguistics and language philosophy at the University and let me tell you sir, you have simplified the unsimplifiable (if that's a word). Thank you very much :)

[mitchjohn]

Nice, well presented! I wrote an essay on semiotics last year for uni, and this would have saved a lot of research and head scratching!

[sbm]

Is "sense and reference" a translation of "Sinn und Bedeutung" by Frege, or not?

[hershchat]

Good content, hard to listen to him. A little irritating.