I think we’re operating, as moderns, with a variety of extremely confusing assumptions about meaning and statements. Some of these can be deadly, either directly… when we respond as if this were so and catastrophe ensues… or indirectly… as when we presume the meaning of a statement or series of them ‘as if it were implicit in the content itself’.

All kinds of problems emerge from this remedial mistake, and it’s a mistake that our common communications contexts not only continuously re-instance, they seem to demand, declare, reward and punish the results of what might otherwise be relatively coherent communication behavior.

It is formally impossible for statements to be agentive, that is: to declare meanings to minds. This is a peculiar category error that arises in our badly damaged relationships with and expectations surrounding representations and, especially language. One of its origins may have been The Bible, which some people »declare to be both the word of God (i.e. the ultimate, unquestionable authority) and “Not subject to personal interpretation.” — a quality that is impossible for language of any form to evince.

Consider the following statement:

This statement is meaningless.

Does the statement decide whether or not it is meaningful? Is the meaning implicit in the statement?

Only minds can determine whether or not and in what ways a statement (or series of them) may or may not be meaningful, yet we are inclined to act as if (and pretend) that something else is true. Beyond relatively narrow contexts, the truth or falsity of a situation is ambiguous. But in »language, it is »more ambiguous, not less — because language, even declarative language, must be interpreted prior to acquiring the »possibility of meaning.

There are forms of relatively »more agentive language (mathematics, computer code, and so on), but even these depend upon interpreters (which is part of why mathematics cannot be placed on an entirely firm logical foundation).

Obviously, I am using language in an agentive way here (as a mind, encoding propositions and perspectives in language), but I am not operating under the assumption that the meaning is in the language, rather, I am doing something profound: I am imagining the minds of other possible readers as I compose, and attempting to »incline them towards specific interpretations I seek to »evoke with language.

The agency in representations belongs to interpreters (minds), not representations.