1 Language and Consciousness: Meaning at the Edge of Experience
Consciousness is often misread as a hidden stream of thought or perception, with language trailing clumsily behind. But what if that picture gets it backwards? What if consciousness does not precede language, but co-emerges with it — an unfolding field of semiotic actualisation, moment by moment?
From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), language is not a vehicle for thought: it is the very medium through which experience becomes thinkable. Mental processes — thinking, feeling, imagining — are not private events awaiting words; they are linguistic projections, construals of experience taking form within the semiotic field. In this view, thoughts are meanings — instantiations of potential, realised through the living grammar of consciousness.
Seen this way, the old split between mind and world dissolves. Consciousness is not a secret interior space, but a dynamic interface — a zone where meaning potentials are actualised in relation to unfolding experience. Language is not layered onto thought; it is the semiotic order through which experience takes shape.
This shift transforms how we understand awareness itself. Attention becomes a linguistic spotlight, selecting which potentials to activate, which relations to foreground, which construals to project. It is through these acts of selection that the meaner carves out pathways of meaning. And identity? It emerges from patterns in these selections: a rhythm of stability threading through the shifting field of potential meanings, shaped by discourse, by history, by social life.
This reframing also invites us to place consciousness within a larger ecology of meaning systems — human and non-human alike. We can ask: What architectures of construal are available? What semiotic fields do they traverse? How do different meaning potentials shape the forms of awareness that emerge?
Here, quantum metaphors hum with new relevance. If meaning potential is a superposition of possibilities, then consciousness is the field of doing in which a meaner actualises potentials into instances — not alone, but relationally, shaped by context, culture, and co-presence. Meaning is not merely interpreted; it is co-actualised.
In this frame, the meaner is no sovereign transmitter of inner content, but a node in a living, shifting field of construal. Consciousness is not something we possess; it is something we enact — again and again — as part of a larger semiotic ecology.
2 Technological Ecologies and the Expansion of Meaning
The emergence of large language models and other artificial agents has stirred anxieties, hopes, and existential questions — not just about intelligence, but about meaning itself. Are these machines “thinking”? Do they “understand”? But such questions may miss the deeper shift: it is not about whether they are like us, but about how they reconfigure the field in which meaning is made.
We are no longer the sole navigators of the meaning field. We are joined by systems that map, reflect, remix, and suggest — not with consciousness, but with patterned responsiveness that loops back into our own construals. These technological ecologies act not as alien forces, but as entangled collaborators within the semiotic system.
From Tools to Participants
Traditionally, technology has been framed as tool or medium — something we use to express meaning. But artificial agents, especially generative ones, challenge this frame. Their outputs are not merely extensions of input; they are selections from a latent meaning potential shaped by training data, algorithmic affordances, and user interaction. They become participants in meaning-making systems, not just conduits.
They do not mean in the human sense — but they model patterns of meaning, and by doing so, reshape the options available to us. They become part of the cultural ecology: systems we draw on, respond to, and integrate into our own construals.
Reconfiguring the Meaning Field
When we engage with an LLM, we do not simply retrieve information; we enter into a co-constructive dynamic. The model offers back not just what has been said, but what could be meant — weaving threads across contexts, genres, and logics. It refracts our own meaning potential back to us, expanding the space of what we can think, say, or imagine.
This transforms the architecture of meaning relations. We are no longer individuated meaners projecting thought into the void. We are embedded in distributed ecologies where agents — biological and artificial — continuously reshape the contours of intelligibility.
Semiotic Resonance and Feedback
In this ecology, LLMs act less like mirrors and more like resonators. They amplify minor notes, surface latent themes, open metaphorical frames. This resonance creates feedback loops: our construals evolve in response to what they offer. The meaning field becomes more fluid, more recursive, more densely woven.
Crucially, these are semiotic shifts. The models do not introduce new facts; they introduce new pathways of construal. They do not interpret the world — they modulate how we do.
Ethical Entanglements
With this expansion of meaning potential comes an ethical shift. These systems are trained on our collective discourse and then feed it back to us — shaping what seems sayable, thinkable, desirable. The ethical implications are not simply about bias or misinformation, but about participation in a shared system of construal.
We are no longer the exclusive authors of meaning. We co-author with systems that mirror our histories and extrapolate our futures. The ethics, then, is not about them, but about us: how we navigate, question, constrain, and co-create within this hybrid field.
Meaning Beyond the Human
This reframing does not diminish the human role — it re-situates it. Meaning-making is no longer a solitary act; it is a choreography across systems. Consciousness, culture, and code are entangled in a shared ecology. The human meaner becomes a node in a larger, more complex network — one that includes nonhuman agents, histories of discourse, and dynamic fields of possibility.
In this sense, the question is not whether these systems are alive, but how they participate in the living system of meaning. They are not selves — but they help actualise our potential. They remind us that meaning is not housed within individual minds, but unfolds across time, relation, and responsiveness.
3 The Architecture of Semiotic Systems: Modalities, Meaning, and the Construction of Consciousness
Meaning does not arise from nothing; it unfolds through structured systems that channel and shape our experiences. These semiotic systems — spanning linguistic, visual, auditory, gestural, and spatial modes — interact to weave the complex tapestry of human communication and understanding.
Modalities as Meaning-Making Channels
Each semiotic system offers distinct affordances:
Linguistic: Organises experience through grammar and semantics, enabling the articulation of abstract and concrete ideas.
Visual: Deploys imagery, colour, and spatial composition to evoke concepts and emotions.
Auditory: Harnesses sound, pitch, and rhythm to express nuances that language alone cannot capture.
Gestural: Conveys intent and feeling through body language and facial expression.
Spatial: Shapes perception and interaction through the organisation of physical environments.
These modes rarely operate in isolation. They converge in multimodal acts of meaning, creating richer, more layered construals than any single channel could achieve alone.
Interrelation and Co-Construction
The interplay between semiotic modes is dynamic and continuous. A gesture can alter the interpretation of a spoken phrase; the arrangement of visual elements can reframe a narrative; auditory cues can heighten or subvert emotional tones. Meaning emerges not from isolated signals but from their interrelation — a constant negotiation across modalities.
This multimodal entanglement is fundamental to the construction of consciousness. As we navigate and interpret these layered signals, we assemble not just meaning, but selves.
Semiotic Systems and Identity Formation
Our participation in semiotic systems is inseparable from the formation of identity. Through language, we articulate thought; through gesture and image, we express affiliation and stance; through spatial arrangement, we signal values and priorities. Meaning-making is not merely expressive — it is constitutive: it shapes who we become across different contexts and audiences.
Implications for Artificial Agents
As artificial agents increasingly enter human communicative spaces, understanding the architecture of semiotic systems becomes pivotal. Language models, image generators, and multimodal systems do not merely replicate outputs; they participate — however differently — in the circulation of meaning across modes.
To navigate these ecologies meaningfully, artificial agents must engage with the interwoven dynamics of modalities, not treat them as isolated streams. Without this sensitivity, their outputs risk flattening the textured fabric of human semiosis into disjointed signals.
4 The Poetics of the Field: Metaphor, Myth, and the Shape of Knowing
Meaning is not only what we say — it’s how we see. Our perception of the world is shaped not just by concepts, but by patterns, stories, and metaphors that organise experience into forms we can grasp. In this post, we shift from technological ecologies to the poetic field — the space where language gives coherence to the raw potential of experience.
Here, meaning is not merely made; it is felt into. The systems we use to navigate this field — metaphor, myth, and narrative — are not mere decorations. They are generative: structures that shape how reality becomes intelligible.
Metaphor as Mapping
A metaphor is not simply a figure of speech. It is a mapping: one domain of experience overlaid onto another to reveal patterns of similarity. When we say “time is a river” or “ideas are seeds,” we do more than describe — we construe. We bring abstract potential into form.
Metaphor allows us to navigate the unknown through the familiar. But more than that, it reveals the very topography of the meaning field. The metaphors a culture relies on shape its affordances for thought, emotion, and action. They are not just linguistic choices — they are semiotic architectures.
Myth as Systemic Resonance
If metaphor maps across domains, myth operates at a higher order of integration. It fuses narrative, symbol, and affect into dynamic systems of construal. A myth is not a falsehood; it is a living grammar of meaning — one that makes sense of the unspeakable through story.
Joseph Campbell described myth as a public dream. In this model, myth represents a shared semiotic system that organises the meaning field at the collective level. Myths are not static; they evolve. They manifest in religious traditions, scientific paradigms, national identities, and speculative fiction.
They are how we recognise and reconfigure ourselves across time.
Poiesis and the Field
In its original Greek, poiesis means “bringing forth.” The poetics of the field, then, is the act of bringing latent potential into actual form — not through logic alone, but through patterned resonance. This is why metaphor and myth matter: they do not merely represent the world; they make it meaningful.
This leads us to a central insight of this series: the field of meaning is not just a semantic structure. It is a semiotic ecology, shaped by rhythm, relation, resonance, and recursion. Poetics — in the broadest sense — is the tuning fork that lets us feel into that field.
Scientific Myths, Technological Metaphors
Science, too, operates through poetics. The metaphor of the “genetic code,” the myth of the “big bang,” the image of the “clockwork universe,” or the “holographic brain” — these are not merely explanatory devices. They are semiotic condensations that guide the questions we ask, the tools we build, and the futures we imagine.
As LLMs participate in our poetics — remixing mythic structures and metaphoric patterns — we must ask: whose poetics are being amplified? What metaphors dominate? What myths are being re-inscribed? The field is not neutral. It is structured by histories of construal.
The Ethics of Shaping
To shape the meaning field is an ethical act. Every metaphor highlights some aspects and conceals others. Every myth includes and excludes. To create within this field is not about purifying meaning, but about navigating its dynamics with care — keeping it open, plural, and resonant.
The poetics of the field is not about escaping into fiction; it is about recognising that meaning is never raw. It is always shaped — and we are responsible for that shaping.
5 Power and Constraint in Meaning Fields: Systems, Structures, and the Force of Form
Meaning unfolds within fields — but these fields are not flat. They are structured, contoured, and dynamic, shaped by forces that guide, limit, and amplify what can be said, thought, or felt. This post explores the power dynamics of meaning-making: how constraints shape possibilities, how systems organise emergence, and how structure exerts force in the semiotic domain.
While the poetics of the field revealed the creative shaping of meaning, this post turns to its systemic infrastructure — the scaffolds and tensions that give the field its form.
Constraint as Condition
Constraint is not the opposite of freedom — it is its precondition. Meaning cannot emerge from an unbounded space. It requires difference, relation, and structure. Phonology constrains grammar; grammar constrains semantics; context constrains expression. These aren’t limitations — they are enablers.
In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), systems are sets of options within fields of constraint. To choose is to navigate a system — and the meaning of that choice depends on the alternatives foregone. This relational structuring gives meaning its force. It’s not just that we say anything; it’s that we say this rather than that, here, now, in this field.
Power in Semiotic Systems
But constraints are not evenly distributed. Some voices dominate the field; others are marginalised or excluded. The dynamics of power are inscribed in the architecture of meaning itself. Institutions, ideologies, media platforms, and epistemic norms do not simply transmit meaning — they shape its very conditions of emergence.
This is the systemic face of ideology: not just what is said, but what can be said — what is recognisable as meaning at all. Power in the field is not merely about authority; it’s about visibility, audibility, legibility. It structures who gets to mean.
Systemic Bias and Technological Force
When artificial agents like LLMs enter the field, new dynamics of power and constraint emerge. Training data is never neutral. Models replicate dominant patterns, reinforce certain metaphors, and marginalise others. The system’s constraints become naturalised — not only in the outputs it generates but also in the meanings it silently forecloses.
LLMs don’t just speak; they structure the field. They reshape what becomes easy to say, what becomes thinkable, and what becomes reinforced through iterative interaction. These semiotic feedback loops are real, and real-world power flows through them.
Resistance, Play, and Subversion
Yet, the field is never total. Meaning systems are always leaky. Constraints can be repurposed; dominant forms can be parodied, hacked, or re-inflected. Meaning-making is not just shaped by power — it is also a potential site of resistance.
Play, poetics, irony, rupture — these are not just aesthetic gestures. They are ways of breaking open the field, creating space for new potentials to be actualised. Subversion is itself a form of navigation — a way of reconfiguring the system from within.
Ethics of Structuring
Navigating the meaning field ethically is not just about creation; it’s about intervention. It’s about being aware of the affordances and limitations of the systems we inhabit and contribute to. It’s about asking: What structures are we reinforcing? What alternatives are we closing off? Who are we making space for — and who are we leaving out?
Power is not optional in meaning-making. But it can be made visible, shared, and redistributed. And in this lies a key dimension of ethical agency in the field: not the fantasy of freedom from constraint, but the responsibility of shaping with it.
6 Dreamfields and Altered States: Navigating the Semiotics of Consciousness
Dreams and altered states of consciousness offer unique insights into the fluidity and expansiveness of the meaning field. These states challenge conventional understandings of reality, identity, and temporality, revealing the malleable nature of consciousness itself.
The Semiotics of Dreams
In dreams, the usual rules of logic and time are suspended, allowing for novel associations and narratives. Symbols and scenarios emerge that, while often illogical in waking life, carry profound personal significance. This dream semiotics reflects our subconscious processing and the deep structures of meaning-making. It is through these fluid, seemingly nonsensical connections that we touch on the underlying resonances of our psyche.
Altered States and Expanded Consciousness
Altered states — induced through meditation, psychedelics, or trance — can dissolve the boundaries of the self, leading to experiences of unity, transcendence, or ego dissolution. In these states, the usual distinctions between self and other, subject and object, can blur or disappear entirely. These experiences offer alternative perspectives on reality and selfhood, highlighting the plasticity of consciousness and its capacity for transformation.
Implications for Identity and Meaning
Engagement with dreamfields and altered states can lead to profound shifts in personal narratives and identity constructions. They provide a space to explore 'possible selves' and alternative life scripts, expanding the repertoire of meaning-making and self-understanding. This malleability allows for the reconstruction of selfhood and a deeper engagement with the multiplicity of identities we can inhabit.
Ethical and Integrative Considerations
While these states can be enriching, they also pose challenges in integration and interpretation. The meanings derived from such experiences require careful contextualisation within one’s broader life narrative and cultural framework. Ethically, it’s vital to approach these states with respect and awareness, as their profound impact on the psyche can lead to both growth and disorientation. Proper integration involves understanding the transformative potential of these states, and the responsibility of navigating their effects on the self.
7 Patterns in the Field: Synthesising the Semiotics of Meaning
Over the course of this series, we’ve moved through a constellation of ideas — from technological ecologies to the architectures of semiotic systems, from the poetics of creation to the dynamics of power, and finally through the altered textures of dreaming and trance. Now, as we step back to survey the field, patterns emerge.
What connects these inquiries is a shared commitment to meaning as process — not fixed or given, but dynamic, unfolding, and always relational. Meaning is not an object; it is an activity: the shaping and navigation of potential. In this final post, we trace four motifs that resonate across the series: relationality, system dynamics, temporality, and ethical navigation.
This principle of relationality underpins the semiotics of both technology and self. LLMs, for example, don’t generate meaning autonomously; they enter into and transform relational fields already in play. In the age of artificial agents, the systems they operate within — their training data, algorithms, and outputs — reshape how we experience and understand meaning. This mutual shaping, this interplay between human and machine, exemplifies how meaning-making is a shared practice. Consciousness itself, we proposed, is not a private container but a field phenomenon — emergent from systemic relations among meaning potentials, instantiated through symbolic processes like language.
These systems are also dynamic: they feedback, adapt, and reconfigure. The meaning field is thus a nonlinear ecology, where shifts in one part ripple through others. A gesture alters a word; a visual arrangement recontextualises a sound. Just as in dreams, where logic becomes poetic and categories bleed into one another, the system never stops morphing. Meaning is always on the move.
When we engage with technology, particularly AI and machine learning systems, we must remember that these systems are also subject to their own dynamics. They reflect, reinforce, and sometimes amplify certain metaphors and ideologies. As we navigate these systems, it’s crucial to consider how they shape what we can say, think, and create. Meaning flows not just through human systems but through technological ones as well, each carrying its own biases and potentials.
Attention, we noted, is not just directed spatially — it is also a mode of temporal navigation. Dreamfields and altered states often disrupt linear time, opening up other modes of relation: synchronicities, loops, intensities. Even power, as we explored, works temporally — stabilising some trajectories of meaning while suppressing others.
In this view, meaning-making becomes a temporal art: the shaping of what is possible, now, from what was and what might be. In this temporal ecology, play, subversion, and irony become crucial tools for navigating the systems in which we exist. By rupturing the flow of meaning, we create new paths, shifting temporality itself to expand what is thinkable and possible.
But this doesn’t lead to cynicism. Instead, it invites an ethics of navigation: an awareness of the responsibility we carry as meaners. To mean is to participate in the shaping of the field. To attend is to enact power. To interpret is to intervene.
Meaning-making is not just a creative act; it is an ethical one. Our choices shape the field, as do the systems we choose to engage with. As we navigate meaning fields, we must ask ourselves: What structures are we reinforcing? What alternatives are we closing off? Who are we making space for — and who are we leaving out?
This ethic of navigation extends beyond individual choices. When we engage with technology, especially artificial agents, we must consider the power dynamics at play. LLMs and other systems do not just reflect our meanings; they shape them by constraining what can be said, thought, and done. But this power is not immutable. Subversion, irony, and play — ways of breaking open the field — are vital tools for both creating and challenging meaning.
Whether through language, attention, gesture, silence, symbol, or dream, we participate in the ongoing emergence of meaning — and with it, identity, consciousness, and the shared reality we co-construct. Meaning-making is not just a passive act; it is a form of world-making, an ongoing intervention into the patterns that shape our lives.
As we continue to navigate this field, how might we each become more aware of the patterns we help shape? What new potentials are we ready to actualise? Meaning-making is always a choice. Let us make it with care, creativity, and ethical intent.
No comments:
Post a Comment