A Theory of Meaning from the Integrated Information Theory: Resisting against the Deformation of Meaning

Abstract

The concept of meaning seems to be diminished in recent trends of TEFL in Japan. The diminishment is buttressed by the combination of objectivist semantics, objective tests, neo-liberalism and one-dimensional objectivism. Against the diminishment, this paper offers a new concept of meaning by introducing Integrated Information Theory by Tononi in neuroscience and supplementing it with the theory of meaning by Luhmann in theoretical sociology. In a sharp contract with objectivist semantics that regards meaning as an objectively describable, static, and determinate object, the new concept states that meaning is (1) a subjective experience on an objective physical mechanism; (2) experienced in unification of determinacy of actuality and indeterminacy of potentiality; and (3) a dynamic process. The paper also offers some practical implications.