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frequency of inhibitory neurons may have the essential function of streamlining
thought. That may indeed be the case. Given the complexity of the neural processes
involved we are somehow agnostic on that line of thought. As a theoretical
alternative, we suggest the process of understanding (section 2.1.2.1).
The theory developed so far is only a small part of the TonE proposed. As we
proceed with the latter’s development, aspects of the theory of thinking outlined in
this section will be modified. Nevertheless, even this far the challenges are immense
and so may be the rewards. The next section focuses on some of these ramifications
and challenges.
2.1.1.2 Ramifications and challenges
The proposed biological theory of meaning extends the sense of meaning to
include the fundamental class of meaningful neural formations. This has far reaching
consequences as it is applicable to all A species according to the SEC constraint.
Some of the ramifications follow.
First, the theory satisfies all of the key points made by the earlier theories of
meaning as codified in Table 1 albeit on the naturalistic basis of Nm. On this basis it
redefines the traditional senses of meaning and meaning-related notions (definitions
5-11, relation (2)) in terms of empirically verifiable conditions. It also provides
grounding to all four bands of the time scale of human action that Newell (1990)
identified through the processes of communication and understanding (see section
2.1.2 and in particular subsection 2.1.2.2 on primitives). Being part and parcel of
TonE, the theory plays an ineliminable role in addressing also Loar’s (1999, p. 546)
requirement: “A fundamental element of a theory of meaning is where it locates the
basis of meaning, in thought, in individual speech, or in social practices.” In the
precise senses given in sections 2.1.1.1, and 2.1.2, the proposed TonE explains why
meaning is “located” in all three: thought (i.e., M & T), individual speech and social
practices. It follows that since human meanings are constitutively determined by both
a human and her or his environment (physical as well as social and cultural), pure
internalism and externalism are bankrupt in either their semantic or epistemological
variety. This may be glimpsed by the sort of sophisticatedly gerrymandering
arguments developed in the recent literature (e.g., Goldberg 2007; Williamson 2006).
Similarly, the coupling between H and her environment (postulated by the
dynamicists) can be precisely identified by the links specified in 2.1.1.1.
Second, in contrast to Putnam’s (1988) argument against the view that
‘meanings’ (or ‘contents’) can be seen as ‘theoretical entities’, our theory has
identified the class of meaningful neural formations as the class of “‘psychologically
real’ entities which have enough of the properties we pre-analytically assign to
‘meanings’ to warrant an identification.” (ibid, p. 4).
Third, definitions 5 & 6 explain word meaning as an inseparable feedback loop
combination of contextual learning (of situation, events, and objects) and cellular
(primarily neural) mechanisms. Furthermore, the postulated mechanisms get
empirical support from Markson and Bloom’s (1997) evidence that the system
underlying word learning is not specific to language. These two points reinforce each
other and taken together weigh considerably against the possibility of word learning
being an FLN (faculty of language in the narrow sense) mechanism (Fitch et al.
2005).