Mathematical Models of Meaning: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Possible World Semiotics

by Paul Kockelman

Overview

A mathematical model of meaning that captures the dynamics and diversity of meaning-oriented agents.

In Mathematical Models of Meaning, Paul Kockelman offers answers to the following kinds of questions: What is meaning? What is the relation between meaning, information, value, and purpose? What ingredients are necessary for a system to exhibit meaning? What behaviors, and capacities for behavior, are particular to meaning-oriented agents? Is there a relatively simple mathematical model that can adequately capture the dynamics—and diversity—of meaning-oriented agents? And finally, how can we best bridge the divide between interpretive paradigms that are qualitative and context rich and formal methods that are quantitative and domain general?

Partially grounded in a pragmatist approach, this book rethinks the semiotic, statistical, and logical currents of Charles Sanders Peirce’s thought in relation to more recent developments in allied traditions. Putting possible worlds, as well as social relations, at the center of significance, it focuses on the emergence of meaningful behavior among relatively distributed agents that choose in real time, learn over developmental time, or evolve over phylogenetic time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262552684
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/19/2025
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Paul Kockelman teaches in the Department of Anthropology at Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Art of Interpretation in the Age of Computation, The Anthropology of Intensity, and Last Words: Large Language Models and the AI Apocalypse.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A work of astonishing scope and implication, Mathematical Models of Meaning bridges qualitative and quantitative methods, linking semiotic phenomena from predator-prey relations and allelic variation to machine learning and meta-semiosis—a brilliant book destined to be read by generations to come.”
—Greg Urban, Arthur Hobson Quinn Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

“Can we imagine a Peirce for the twenty-first century? Paul Kockelman would fit the bill. His brilliant, bristling book expands Peircean semiotics to model any agent acting in its surroundings, encompassing evolution and coevolution, rational choice and culture, learning in organisms and machines, possible world semantics, and more. No one contemplating meaning will be left unchallenged by this book or unmoved by its rigor, insight, and breadth.”
—Gary Tomlinson, author of The Machines of Evolution and the Scope of Meaning