Meaning as Commitment Context

This repository provides a stable mirror of the paper:
Meaning as Commitment Context
by Riaan de Beer (2026).

The canonical, citable version of this work is published on Zenodo and
should be referenced using the DOI above.

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Citation

de Beer, R. (2026).
Meaning as Commitment Context (v1.0).
Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18625612

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About

This work develops a structural account of meaning grounded in irreversible time and commitment formation.

Meaning is neither an intrinsic property of entities nor a projection of subjective valuation. Instead, it is identified with commitment-relative significance: an entity has meaning if and only if it alters continuation conditions under the system’s active commitments.

Commitments are formalized as persistent reductions of admissible futures (F_{t+} \subset F_t) within a partially ordered constraint topology (F, \subseteq). Prior to commitment, total optionality prevails and no entity acquires structural necessity or differential relevance. Commitment induces selective closure, generating asymmetries that render some entities enabling, others obstructive, and others irrelevant. Meaning emerges from this state-space contraction and differential constraint, not from inherent attributes or arbitrary projection.

Meaninglessness corresponds to a commitment vacuum (C_t = \emptyset), a structural condition of absence of active binding rather than a metaphysical or evaluative error.

The account is substrate-neutral and treats significance purely as a consequence of structural relations under irreversible time. It resolves the meaning problem by deriving significance from relations within the induced constraint topology, without reliance on intrinsic properties, subjective projection, or domain-specific assumptions.

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Status

• This repository exists solely to provide redundancy and long-term access.
• The paper is complete and not under active development.
• No revisions or extensions are planned for this version.

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License

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
See the LICENSE file for details.