04 October 2021

signals have meanings but stimuli need not


from
A PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION
OF THE CONTENT OF MUSIC
Roger J. Watt and Roisin L. Ash
4th European Conference on Philosophy and Psychology, 1996


Meaning

The meaning of a signal

is

the intended and agreed mental action
of that signal.




Meaning
is bound up with
communication



, so that

signals have meanings

, but

stimuli need not

.


The meaning of a signal is
not just the action of that signal
:


meaning is reserved

for cases where

the action is intended

.



It would not make

much sense to allow

the sender

to

claim some meaning

to a signal



when



no recipient would be

aware

of that meaning





, and so

meaning is restricted

to cases where



the recipient

and

the sender




have


agreed


what the intended action should be
.





None of the actions of music
considered above,
per se,
would indicate that music has meaning
:

music does not mean tapping feet just because it has that action
;

music does not mean a cup of coffee
in Lochinver because that is what it is
associated with for some listeners
;

music does not mean the sea because that is what it is taken to express by
some listeners
or what it was intended to express by
the composer
.


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