Spheres of Meaning

SPHERES OF MEANING describes the activation of meaning in real-life domains. After introducing the major theoretical tenets and assessment procedures, the book focuses on the role of meaning in various contexts. Chapter 1 describes in detail the main variables of the meaning system in the form of definitions accompanied by examples and the notations assigned to each variable, and Chapter 2 describes the essentials of the methodology employed in this work. The following chapters explore the application of meaning in education, health, society, communication, culture, art, the experiencing of reality, and consciousness. It is hoped that this book will help meaning to emerge from its state of invisibility long enough and impressively enough to evoke the attention of those who do not look that way habitually, and to convince the disbelievers that meaning is alive, active, and very functional. The time seems ripe for learning about the properties of meaning and of embedding it in the regular set of practical tools designed to benefit science. Hopefully newcomers and those who are already familiar with meaning alike will be inspired by the present volume to uncover new possibilities and yet unexplored domains for the advancement of science and the meaningfulness of life.