A theory of meaning

“Meaning” is a key concept for understanding a variety of processes in living systems. However, due to its elusive nature and “subjective” appearance it has been neglected by information science. In this paper, I outline a theory of meaning and try to explain how one can determine the meaning of an indeterminate sign. Meaning-making is considered to be a procedure for extracting the information conveyed by a message, and information is considered to be the values one may assign to an indeterminate signal. In this context, meaning-making is described in terms of a constraint-satisfaction problem that relies heavily on contextual cues and inferences.