If you pin down what a thing refers to according to what that thing was optimized to refer to, then don’t you have to look at the structure of the one who did the optimizing in order to work out what a given thing refers to? That is, to work out what the concept “thermodynamics” refers to, it may not be enough to look at the time evolution of the concept “thermodynamics” on its own, I may instead need to know something about the humans who were driving those changes, and the goals held within their minds. But, if this is correct, then doesn’t it raise another kind of homunculus-like regression where we were trying to directly explain semantics, but we ended up needing to inquire into yet another mind, the complete understanding of which would require further unpacking of the frames and concepts held in that mind, and the complete understanding of those frames and concepts requiring even further inquiry into a yet earlier mind that was responsible for doing the optimization of those frames and concepts?
The trick is that for some of the optimisations, a mind is not necessary. There is a sense perhaps in which the whole history of the universe (or life on earth, or evolution, or whatever is appropriate) will become implicated for some questions, though.
If you pin down what a thing refers to according to what that thing was optimized to refer to, then don’t you have to look at the structure of the one who did the optimizing in order to work out what a given thing refers to? That is, to work out what the concept “thermodynamics” refers to, it may not be enough to look at the time evolution of the concept “thermodynamics” on its own, I may instead need to know something about the humans who were driving those changes, and the goals held within their minds. But, if this is correct, then doesn’t it raise another kind of homunculus-like regression where we were trying to directly explain semantics, but we ended up needing to inquire into yet another mind, the complete understanding of which would require further unpacking of the frames and concepts held in that mind, and the complete understanding of those frames and concepts requiring even further inquiry into a yet earlier mind that was responsible for doing the optimization of those frames and concepts?
The trick is that for some of the optimisations, a mind is not necessary. There is a sense perhaps in which the whole history of the universe (or life on earth, or evolution, or whatever is appropriate) will become implicated for some questions, though.