Arguments concerning semantics and meaning are important for any theory of consciousness (and thinking) that takes as its canonical reference our own phenomenal experience as humans and our ability to report that experience by language. … Human experience is not based on so simple an abstraction as a Turing machine; to get our "meanings" we have to grow and communicate in a society.
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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the reason that 'semantics and meaning' are important for any theory of human 'consciousness (and thinking)' is that the content of language, meaning and wording, is the content of consciousness.
That is, the phenomena that are sensed through mental processes of perception, emotion, desideration and cognition are construals of experience as meaning; the thoughts that are projected through cognitive processes and the wishes that are projected through desiderative processes are construals of experience as meaning. By the same token, 'our ability to report that experience by language' is the ability to project the wording that realises the meaning construed of experience.
The "getting of meanings", the development of the system in the individual, its ontogenesis, occurs through logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in text.
From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the reason that 'semantics and meaning' are important for any theory of human 'consciousness (and thinking)' is that the content of language, meaning and wording, is the content of consciousness.
That is, the phenomena that are sensed through mental processes of perception, emotion, desideration and cognition are construals of experience as meaning; the thoughts that are projected through cognitive processes and the wishes that are projected through desiderative processes are construals of experience as meaning. By the same token, 'our ability to report that experience by language' is the ability to project the wording that realises the meaning construed of experience.
The "getting of meanings", the development of the system in the individual, its ontogenesis, occurs through logogenesis, the instantiation of the system in text.
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