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From: richardh@hpopd.HP.COM (Richard Hancock)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Put in some effort (was: emergent properties)
Message-ID: <24980001@hpopd.HP.COM>
Date: 3 Oct 90 16:40:21 GMT
References: <1990Oct1.195848.27252@riacs.edu>
Organization: HP PWD, Pinewood UK.
Lines: 6

You might find semiotics (the theory of signs) interesting - meaning exists
only through "common consent", ie. by the existence of a common signification
function by which signifieds are associated with signifiers.

The seminal work is "General Course in Linguistics" by Ferdinand de Saussure
(an English translation exists).