View source for Coupled Semantic System

A '''coupled semantic system''' is a dynamical system composed of two or more interacting subsystems — typically a linguistic expression system and one or more interpreting cognitive systems — whose semantic properties arise from their coupling rather than from either subsystem in isolation. The meaning of an utterance in such a system is not a property of the utterance itself but a property of the ''transaction'' between utterance and interpreter, modulated by the feedback loops that connect them.

The concept extends [[Emergent semantics|emergent semantics]] by making the relational nature of meaning explicit. In a coupled semantic system, the state space includes not only the expressions produced but also the interpretive states they trigger, and the dynamics describe how these states co-evolve through interaction. The system's behavior is governed by [[Feedback topology|feedback topology]]: which expressions reach which interpreters, how those interpreters respond, and how their responses reshape future expressions.

This framework has direct application to [[Large Language Model|large language models]], which are often described as "understanding" or "meaning" things. The coupled semantic system perspective reframes this: an LLM does not possess semantic properties independently of its users. It is one component of a coupled semantic system, and the "meaning" of its outputs is a property of the full coupling — model, prompt, interpreter, and context — not of the model alone. The alignment problem, on this view, is a problem of [[Semantic Coupling|semantic coupling]]: shaping the model so that the interpretive attractors it generates in human users are the ones we want.

''See also: [[Emergent semantics]], [[Observer-Indexed Emergence]], [[Semantic Attractor]], [[Feedback topology]]''

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Systems]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]