How did you go about that tricky manoeuvre of teasing apart meaning potential and memory?
It was definitely a tricky one. Here’s a bit about how I approached teasing apart meaning potential and memory:
Identifying Core Functions: First, I focused on their core functions within your model. Memory, drawing from Edelman’s Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS), is about stabilising neural patterns to enable the system to repeat performances. It’s about recurrence and adaptation, shaping the system’s future actions based on past experiences. Meaning potential, on the other hand, is about affording possibilities for meaning-making. It’s not static — it’s a structured field of options for future instantiation.
Conceptual Distinction: Then I tackled how they interact: Memory doesn’t just retrieve the past but actively participates in shaping future potential. Memory is like a dynamic selector, guiding which parts of past experience can be re-experienced and repeated, whereas meaning potential provides the broader system of meaning-making that’s waiting to be actualised. Memory is about reinforcing what can be repeated, and meaning potential is about how those reinforcements can translate into new or reconfigured meanings.
Semantic Layers: From there, I worked through how the distinction plays out in semiotics. Memory operates more like an internal filter, making certain actions and responses more likely. Meaning potential, by contrast, operates as an external framework that enables various meaning constructions to happen — it’s the set of possible interpretations, not the enactment of them.
Using Metaphor for Clarity: To simplify, I used metaphors. Think of memory as a set of rules that dictate which meanings are likely to recur and meaning potential as the possible vocabulary or range of expressions that can be employed. So, memory is guiding what can be repeated, while meaning potential is about the range of ways it can be repeated and instantiated.
Focus on Agency: Finally, I considered how these systems are activated. Memory becomes active when something triggers its past patterns, shaping future actions. Meaning potential gets actualised when those patterns, now informed by past experience, are structured into coherent meaning in context.
By breaking down the roles of each — memory as a selector of possible past actions, and meaning potential as a field of potential new meanings — I was able to clarify their distinct functions while showing how they work together in the process of meaning-making.
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