0431 In contrast to the capitalization of the term, “code”, if I go back, say 10,000 years before this time, before the potentiation of civilization, then I would find that the word, “code”, could not be uttered in hand-speech talk.

In human evolution, language evolves in the milieu of hand-talk.  Speech is added to hand-talk, as an adornment, at the start of our species, Homo sapiens.

See Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) as well as the masterwork, The Human Niche (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Portions of the former may be found in Razie Mah’s blog for January through March, 2024.  

0432 Hand-talk words picture and point to their referents.  Consequently, the problem of definition is resolved before it can even be raised.  The referent exists before the gestural word.  Otherwise, what would the gestural word image or indicate?

Nevertheless, hand talk fits into code biology.

0433 The agent cannot be ignored.

For hand and hand-speech talk, the agent belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The linguistic manual-brachial word gesture_2a (SV_s) stands for the referent that it images or points to_2b (SO_s) in regards to a specifying code_3bperformed by a specific region of the hominin brain_1b (SI_s).

The hominin agent does not have to ask, “What is happening?”, because ‘something’ is always happening.  All the hominin needs to do is implicit abstraction.  Because hand-talk words are images or indications, then implicit abstraction is called for.  “Decoding” enters the picture when the word-gestures are sufficiently different as to be rapidly interpreted on the grounds that they are easy to recognize.

Yes, meaning relies on codes, but agents cannot be ignored.