ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the meaning-constructive process in detail, with special attention to the implications of the notion that meaning is built within the flow of irreversible time. It argues that the temporal aspects of meaning making require a non-Cartesian conception of the nature of meaning. The chapter also explores the important role of a fertile, tangible version of "nothingness" that exists due to the inherently dualistic nature of meaning making. It deals with a consideration of how model of the meaning-making process both enables and mirrors the poetic process. The process of making meaning involves negotiating complex semiotic networks and hierarchies. People make meaning to come to terms with events, manage one's own feelings and actions, participate in the perilous process of communication, and so on. In order to manage this potentially infinite reciprocal process, meanings at higher level of generalization must be brought to bear upon the system.
