I'm not entirely following what you mean, but that's OK. My hunch is our differences lie this concept of "taught meaning". I don't think meanings are taught, in

I'm not entirely following what you mean, but that's OK. My hunch is our differences lie this concept of "taught meaning". I don't think meanings are taught, in any traditional sense. I think they are absorbed, acquired, and synthesized by the incredible pattern matching of the brain, operating off of direct, perceptual experience. Of course, these experiences includes things like reflection, reading a textbook, having a conversation, watching a movie, daydreaming etc. When one reads a piece of text, it's being interpreted through the complex mental models of the world and layers of meaning that have been built up in the individual's brain over the years. I realize we our now squarely off on a tangent :)