ABSTRACT
The world around us is full of meaning. Those are not just sheets of paper over there: they are a draft of my book; that is not just a lump of metal: it is a radiator which is helping to keep me warm in this icy weather; that sound is my wife’s voice: she is telling me a friend is on the phone; those dark clouds mean more snow is on the way; the flat surface outside is a road; the moving shapes are children throwing snowballs. Those things may not mean the same to you as to me; but they will still mean something. In general the things around us are not, for us, just occupants of space and time. They are enmeshed in the needs, interests, plans, hopes, anxieties, desires and memories that help to structure our lives.
