Matter and meaning

A text is meaningful (and thus has meaning) if and only if there is precisely one assignment of its words to meanings such that applying the assignment to the text results in a comprehensible narrative for at least one properly functioning mind. So without minds there is no meaning. Moreover, it follows that a piece of matter has meaning just in case it has a structure to which assignments as aforementioned can be applied and precisely one of them results in a comprehensive narrative for an well-functioning mind. The reference specifically to minds - instead of e.g. to processors of symbols - is essential. For without conscious beings there would surely be patterns, activity and processes, but there would be no comprehension and thus no meaning.

David Chalmers' famous zombie argument

Is it true that consciousness is constituted by (or: supervenes on) matter? No, it is not. In his book The Conscious Mind. In Search of a Fundamental Theory David Chalmers provides an interesting argument against the claim that matter constitutes consciousness. I shall briefly paraphrase his argument. According to Hume's dictum conceivability entails metaphysical possibility. That is to say, if we can conceive of some state of affairs X, then, plausibly, X is metaphysically possible. Now, surely, unconscious zombies that are materially and behaviorally identical to conscious human beings are conceivable. For, to conceive of such zombies we don't need to do anything more than to conceive of some finite collection of externally observable structures, actions and responses. An appeal to internal conscious states is thus not necessary. But then Hume's aforementioned dictum entails that it is metaphysically possible for there to be unconscious zombies that are materially and behaviorally identical to conscious human beings. And from this it follows that consciousness is not constituted by matter. For, if it would, then such zombies would in fact not be metaphysically possible at all. So, indeed, materialism fails.