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
.