Abstract

Sometimes (part of) the abstract of an article immediately resonates with you. Many factors enter into generating that feeling. Certain words, maybe an interval of sentences, may "ring true," Or not, so you move on to the next abstract. What are all of these philosophy papers (down through the ages)? Documents are recorded expressions of idio-microlects centered on key ideas represented by key words, which are intricately bonded by core sentences - often the ones that you might highlight for return later. Seeing all of these abstracts is like wandering in the minerals collection at a museum of natural history. They are all so different, yet certain themes recur and maybe reflect one on another. And here and there an item immediately grips you. There are no doubt neural processes required for resonating with an expression. Biological evolution resulted in manifold possibilities for resonance. No two people resonate exactly the same way to the same expression: there is no representation that sets the standard for resonance, any more than the weights in large language models represent words. Bottom line: all we have are resonant expressions. A scientific theory of "the" mind would be expressed, if at all, in an idio-microlect. The "meaning" of an expression is not somehow "there" available for expression. No. The meaning is an abstraction from the expressions which resonate in a community, a resonant-community.