# The biology of meaning **URL:** \ **Category:** The Learning Zone\ **Created:** [November 5, 2026, 7:58pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909 "2026-11-05T19:58:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 7:58pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/1 "2026-11-05T19:58:20Z")
I’ve been reading articles about what actually happens in the brain when a person thinks of a word. Some of this is theoretical, some experimental. So first off, from [here](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/memories-involve-replay-neural-firing-patterns): this amazing picture is a visualization of neurons firing in a sequence about 200 ms before a person calls up a memory. Each bar is a single neuron firing: ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/uploads/thephilosophyforum/original/2X/2/25636ae48920b75101cbaf230bb6d9b222eeaaeb.png) This could any sort of memory. Theoretically (from [here](https://www.buffalo.edu/ubnow/stories/2023/11/castro-conversation-mental-dictionary.html)), the recollection of a word will call up a number of these firings as the brain’s dictionary is consulted. In other words, when you see the word dog, the associations you have with the word will roll off in these firing patterns. Some of it may be sensory, like the smell of a dog on a rainy day. There may be emotional memories related to long lost friends. My plan is to continue rambling about these articles. Feel free to add one and share thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 9:27pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/2 "2026-11-05T21:27:54Z")
Consider Davidson’s question concerning such patterns. Suppose that the pattern above appears a thousand times, and each time the participant was thinking “dog”. The experimenter concludes that this pattern is the physical equivalent of the participant thinking “dog”. On the thousand-and-first test, the pattern appears but the participant claims they were thinking of ice cream. What can we conclude? Is the correlation falsified? Did the participant lie? Were they mistaken, and were they thinking of “dog” but forgot? On the thousand-and-second test, the participant claims to be thinking of “dog” but the pattern does not appear. Again, what do we conclude? ---
**Author:** ![Patterner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/patterner/32/192_2.png) [@Patterner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Patterner)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 9:52pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/3 "2026-11-05T21:52:21Z")
is that what happens? Does a well established pattern suddenly not seem to mean what it always had? And does meaning suddenly come to be associated with a different pattern than it always had been before? ---
**Author:** ![questioner](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/questioner/32/50_2.png) [@questioner](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/questioner)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 10:18pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/4 "2026-11-05T22:18:20Z")
What a great idea for a thread. Thanks for starting it. About recalling words … I’m sure we have all had those instances where we could think of the meaning of a word but could not recall the word itself. Scientists call this a “tip-of-the-tongue” experience. The explanation lies in this - the meaning of a word and its physical sound (pronunciation) are stored in different areas of the brain! So, the meaning comes to you first, but access to the neural link that stores its sound is temporarily disconnected. (I think this increases with age, lol) Also - people who learned a second language before the age of 5 experience less “tip-of-the-tongue” incidents ---
**Author:** ![Wayfarer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/wayfarer/32/123_2.png) [@Wayfarer](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Wayfarer)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 11:10pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/5 "2026-11-05T23:10:00Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > Suppose that the pattern above appears a thousand times, and each time the participant was thinking “dog”. > > The experimenter concludes that this pattern is the physical equivalent of the participant thinking “dog”. Agree! There seems to be a temptation to equate neural activity with signs, or to put it another way, that they ‘signify’. But I say there is a fundamental _reflexivity_ involved in the attempt to explain cognition in physical terms. The neuroscientist’s identification and interpretation of neural processes necessarily employs the very cognitive capacities whose relationship to those processes is being investigated. We cannot _step outside_ cognition to establish, from some independent standpoint, what cognition is. A physical account of the brain may provide an increasingly sophisticated model of neural operations, even including its capacity to model itself. But such a mode is itself an achievement of cognition: its concepts, observations and interpretations are all constituted within the very process it purports to explain. This does not invalidate neuroscience, nor does it establish that neural processes cannot be identical with thoughts. Rather, it calls into question the assumption that an objective description of neural activity, however comprehensive, can by itself account for the intentionality and meaningfulness of thought. The aspiration to explain cognition entirely from the outside seems to overlook the fact that the very distinction between an objective physical process and its meaningful apprehension is one that cognition itself makes. ---
**Author:** ![Johnnywas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/22d042/32.png) [@Johnnywas](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnnywas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 3:45am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/6 "2026-11-06T03:45:14Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > Consider Davidson’s question concerning such patterns. Suppose that the pattern above appears a thousand times, and each time the participant was thinking “dog”. I am a little bit confused. A girl friend has a dog and I may have seen it a thousand times. At no time did it suddenly become an ice cream. Why would neurons be different. I am not not saying that they are stable I dont know. But if there a philosophical reason to suppose that they are not stable it evades me. ---
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 4:06am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/7 "2026-11-06T04:06:36Z")
Correlation is not causation. How can we tell that the neural pattern is remembering “dog”? ---
**Author:** ![Johnnywas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/22d042/32.png) [@Johnnywas](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnnywas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 4:14am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/8 "2026-11-06T04:14:48Z")
Someone once explained to me Hebbean learing. The concept that “neurons that fire together wire together”. So, if you see a dog eating a bone, the synaptic pathways between “dogs” “eating” and “bones” become stronger. You then have the idea of a “bone eating dog” and are less surprised to see dogs eating bones. Imdeed, you are comforted by the sight and the comnections are strenghened. Were you to see a baby gnawing on a bone or a dog eating an ice cream it would create dissonance. Presumably the brain then suppresses the pathways a little. The other interesting observation is that our thinking is hierarchical. Alsations are dogs, dogs are animals. They all have things in common. So when we learn sonething new we test it against all things in the hierarchy. If dogs eat bones. Naybe Alsations eat bones. The idea has been tested empirically by assessing the speed of answers to questions about thinngs closely and more distantly related in the hierarchy. I wonder how deep this goes - with just a minimum of initial concepts can we build a complex inner world based on learnt hierarchies and relationships? Listen to Introduction to Cognitive Science by Thad A. Polk, The Great Courses on Audible. [https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0D6NKPV8N?source\_code=ASSORAP0511160007](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0D6NKPV8N?source_code=ASSORAP0511160007) ---
**Author:** ![Johnnywas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/22d042/32.png) [@Johnnywas](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnnywas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 4:20am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/9 "2026-11-06T04:20:09Z")
> [@Banno](#): > > How can we tell that the neural pattern is remembering “dog”? Indeed, lets call it a working hypothesis ---
**Author:** ![Javi](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/javi/32/1673_2.png) [@Javi](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Javi)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 6:34am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/10 "2026-11-06T06:34:37Z")
A very interesting article, Frank. Thanks for sharing. * * * Reading the article on the website, it says in the picture below: > Our brains may store memories in specific neuronal firing patterns, visualized here, that are replayed fractions of a second before remembering. **Individual neurons are represented by different colors**. Does anyone know why the individual neurons are represented by different colors? It grasped my attention. I wonder if the colours are important or if they are just a representation of what the researchers did. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 2:48pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/11 "2026-11-06T14:48:03Z")
> [@questioner](#): > > About recalling words … I’m sure we have all had those instances where we could think of the meaning of a word but could not recall the word itself. > > Scientists call this a “tip-of-the-tongue” experience. > > The explanation lies in this - the meaning of a word and its physical sound (pronunciation) are stored in different areas of the brain! Thanks for this. This is mentioned in a couple of the articles I’ve read. It’s showing a number of features of memory retrieval and word comprehension that are backed up by brain scans and the creation of a rudimentary [brain dictionary/thesaurus.](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07643-2) Linguistic data is stored in the left hemisphere fronto-temporal complex. Semantic information is coordinated at the ATL (anterior temporal lobe), but the data itself comes from all over the cerebral cortex. For instance, if I think of the meaning of _grasp_, I partly think about a hand that’s closed around something. My motor cortex is actually involved in producing my awareness of the meaning of the word. If I think about a mental image of a hand, my visual cortex contributes. So all sorts of things can be going wrong if I’ve assessed the context I’m responding to, and I know what I want to say, but my brain isn’t receiving the linguistic data. It’s waiting for some cue that’s missing. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 2:54pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/12 "2026-11-06T14:54:21Z")
> [@Johnnywas](#): > > The concept that “neurons that fire together wire together”. > > So, if you see a dog eating a bone, the synaptic pathways between “dogs” “eating” and “bones” become stronger. Right, plus similar words are stored near each other. If I think of _grasp_, the word _grabbed_ is nearby. When I hear the word _dog_, my brain calls up semantic data for underdog, Dawg (slang), dog (an ugly person), etc. It’s looking for the meaning that will fit the context it’s being presented with. And it does this amazingly quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 3:00pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/13 "2026-11-06T15:00:19Z")
> [@Javi](#): > > Does anyone know why the individual neurons are represented by different colors? The colors are just to show that it’s different neurons. Each blue bar is where the blue neuron fired. The neurons fire repeatedly in a pattern right before you have the experience of remembering something. > [@Javi](#): > > It grasped my attention. This is interesting, because we don’t usually say “grasped my attention” in English. We might use _caught_ or _grabbed_. So this is a case where I understood you by retrieving the common meaning of _grasp_ and seeing that it fits the expression. I actually did think of a hand holding something, so my visual and motor cortices were involved. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 3:11pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/14 "2026-11-06T15:11:46Z")
This is an article in [Nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07643-2) that I’m going to go through. It’s looks exciting: _Semantic encoding during language comprehension at single-cell resolution_ They’re looking at the left hemisphere fronto-temporal complex (the linguistic area) and they’re recording neuronal firing as people read text. The result was they can actually predict what a person will comprehend by the utterance of a certain word in context. They can read your mind! ---
**Author:** ![MoK](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/mok/32/578_2.png) [@MoK](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/MoK)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 5:05pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/15 "2026-11-06T17:05:43Z")
Science can only show that there is a **correlation** between neural processes and experience. Scientists then mistakenly assume that **correlation** is **causation**! They don’t notice that there is a huge gap between “there is a correlation between A and B” and “A causes B”. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 5:19pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/16 "2026-11-06T17:19:35Z")
That’s a very important thing to consider. It’s one of the reasons it’s so important to look at sources. I did actually read an article that was written by computer scientists, proposing to explain human language comprehension computationally. 😄 The last article I posted was published in Nature, which is one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. Those scientists demonstrate that they’re up to speed on how experimental results can be read. The proverb about cause and correlation comes out of statistics, about which you have to be knowledgeable in order to do real scientific research. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2026, 6:33pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/17 "2026-11-06T18:33:43Z")
One of the first giant packages to go through is this one: “A long-standing observation[32](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07643-2#ref-CR32 "Landauer, T. K. & Dumais, S. T. A solution to Plato’s problem: the latent semanctic analysis theory of the acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychol. Rev. 104, 211–140 (1997).") that lies at the core of all distributional models of meaning[33](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07643-2#ref-CR33 "Lenci, A. Distributional models of word meaning. Annu. Rev. Linguist. 4, 151–171 (2018).") is that words that share similar meanings tend to occur in similar contexts. Data-driven word embedding approaches that capture these relationships through vectoral representations have been found to estimate word meanings quite well and to accurately capture human behavioural semantic judgements[40](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07643-2#ref-CR40 "Pereira, F., Gershman, S., Ritter, S. & Botvinick, M. A comparative evaluation of off-the-shelf distributed semantic representations for modelling behavioural data. Cogn. Neuropsychol. 33, 175–190 (2016).") and neural responses to meaning through brain-imaging studies.” — from [here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07643-2) What is a distributional model of meaning? “Distributional semantics is a usage-based model of meaning, based on the assumption that the statistical distribution of linguistic items in context plays a key role in characterizing their semantic behavior. Distributional models build semantic representations by extracting co-occurrences from corpora and have become a mainstream research paradigm in computational linguistics. In this review, I present the state of the art in distributional semantics, focusing on its assets and limits as a model of meaning and as a method for semantic analysis.” [here](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320218506_Distributional_Models_of_Word_Meaning) The basic idea is that there’s a shorter distance between _rain and cloud_ than there is between _rain and follow_. So if you hear “rain”, the other words in that particular net will be dredged up with it. The word “cloud” will be ready to fire off. ---
**Author:** ![Hanover](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/hanover/32/38_2.png) [@Hanover](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Hanover)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 12:03am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/18 "2026-11-07T00:03:27Z")
Steve Martin had a comedy routine where he said whenever you’re around a 3 year old, speak wrong. That way, when he goes to his first day at school, he’ll raise his hand and say to the teacher, ‘May I momo dog face in the banana patch?'” If we’d all do that, we’d render AI useless. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/frank/32/216_2.png) [@Frank](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 12:35am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/the-biology-of-meaning/3909/19 "2026-11-07T00:35:07Z")
> [@Hanover](#): > > If we’d all do that, we’d render AI useless. I just asked Claude some questions. I’ll ask him about the momo next time.