Zonked! Somebody’s tired.

What do I want to eat tonight?

Allergies hit me hard, but I’m fine.

All the kids think I’m so cool.

Run DMC on Reading Rainbow (good quality) YouTube video by Televandalist

Run DMC on Reading Rainbow youtu.be/407lzLPm3QY?...

Instructionally, the balance is a matter of asking rather than telling. Not “this is what you mean,” but “is this what you mean?” This, combined with selecting and evaluating definitions from multiple sources, and learning to construct and use meaning in context.

In Piagetian terms, this reflects the social dominance of assimilation over accommodation; such an asymmetry is neither necessary nor beneficial for language learning and use, which require the capacity to revise and adapt.

We overcome the naive realist’s belief that meaning is in the world and the radical constructivist’s view that it is freely invented.

Putting it all together is the challenge; it’s a lot of multidisciplinary work.

It actualizes in use within a form of life, not in the manipulation of symbols alone.

Meaning is selected, not encoded. Its representation is context-sensitive, shaped by structural limits within an embodied environment. Interpretation is history-dependent, guided by memory and goals. Thus, semantics is not fixed but dynamical, emerging and shifting over time.

Example. When learning the word “dog” from a young age, meaning seems to reside in the word because our thinking is formed by discourses that render meanings immediate, natural, and unquestionable. Yet this is the result of behavioral conditioning, not something inherent in the word itself.

Foucault takes an interesting perspective on this, basically agreeing with the endpoint. However, he argues that people are so thoroughly conditioned that meaning appears to be in the word itself. I say simply to include a counterargument.

Structure limits what meanings can be derived, stabilized, and selected; but it is not where meaning lives.

Endpoint. Meaning is not in the signal, and it is not in the syntax/ structure.

Thinking about sketching it out.

Input comes in → spreads across the brain → gets pulled together → one interpretation wins → it becomes usable → you act on it

Signal → thalamocortical relay → modality specific cortical activation → distributed cortical reactivation → parietal temporal prefrontal convergence → recurrent stabilization in domain systems → basal ganglia mediated selection → frontoparietal global availability → motor planning

Gage, N. M., & Baars, B. J. (2019). Fundamentals of cognitive neuroscience: A beginner’s guide (2nd ed.). Academic Press www.sciencedirect.com/book/monogra...

Nervous System YouTube video by Amoeba Sisters

Nervous system youtu.be/RNLceVI8jcc?...

Blue Sky being weird.

I should know this stuff better than I do.

Basal ganglia - Wikipedia

Basal ganglia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_g...

Bug facts with Sound of the Forest! YouTube video by Jordon Brown

Bug facts with Sound of the Forest! youtu.be/pyrwH961K94

Domain-specific interests 😊

Meet Nicole Parish canvasrebel.com/meet-nicole-...

Crespi, B. (2021). Pattern unifies autism. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 621659 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Signal → modality-specific sensory input → distributed patterns → [convergence → domain-specific stabilization] → ???

Distributed features → FFA → (something happens) → “this is a face”

Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J., & Chun, M. M. (1997). The fusiform face area: A module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 17(11), 4302–4311 www.jneurosci.org/content/17/1...