What we perceive is meaning construed of experience of the meaningless. Interpreting Edelman's extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection from the perspective of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, this involves an identifying relation between the meanings of somatic perceptual semiotic systems and the social semiotic system of language.
On this model, the identity encodes the meanings of language by reference to perceptual systems:
| the meanings of somatic semiotic perceptual systems | realise | the meanings of social semiotic linguistic systems |
Identifier Token
|
Process
|
Identified Value
|
and decodes the meanings of perceptual systems by reference to the meanings of language:
| the meanings of somatic semiotic perceptual systems | realise | the meanings of social semiotic linguistic systems |
Identified Token
|
Process
|
Identifier Value
|
That is, what we perceive are perceptual meanings, construed of the meaningless domain, interpreted in terms of the meanings of language. On this model, members of other species do not perceive what humans perceive, since their perceptual meanings are not interpreted in terms of the meanings of language.