Meaning Before Language: 2 Constraint Before Code

Why structure precedes encoding

If meaning does not begin with symbols, then it also cannot begin with codes. Yet contemporary thought repeatedly treats meaning as something encoded, transmitted, and decoded — whether in language, information theory, genetics, or cognition. This instalment dismantles that assumption at its root.

Codes presuppose constraints. Structure comes first.

What a code requires

A code is a rule-governed correspondence between distinguishable states. For a code to function at all, several conditions must already be satisfied:

• There must be stable distinctions between states.

• There must be constraints on how those states can combine or transform.

• There must be criteria for correctness and incorrectness.

None of these are supplied by the code itself. They are structural preconditions. A code does not create distinctions; it relies on them. It does not establish constraints; it exploits them.

Treating code as foundational reverses the order of dependence.

Constraint as the condition of intelligibility

Constraint is not limitation in a negative sense. It is what makes differentiation possible. A system without constraint has no internal structure and therefore no intelligible phenomena.

Constraints determine:

• which differences matter,

• which regularities persist,

• which transformations are permissible.

Meaning arises precisely here — in the pattern of constraints that stabilise phenomena within a system. No encoding is required. The phenomenon is already intelligible relative to the constraints that govern it.

Information is not meaning

Information theory formalises patterns of difference. It tells us how signals can be distinguished, compressed, or transmitted. What it does not provide is intelligibility.

A signal becomes meaningful only within a system of constraints that determines what counts as relevant, coherent, or actionable. Information measures difference; meaning depends on structure.

Confusing information with meaning is seductive because both deal in distinctions. But distinction alone is insufficient. Without constraint, difference is noise.

Why biology does not rescue code

Biological metaphors often reintroduce code at a deeper level: genetic information, neural encoding, signalling pathways. But biology does not escape the dependency.

Genetic sequences function only within highly constrained cellular systems. Neural activity becomes intelligible only within constrained networks. In every case, the system’s organisation determines what counts as signal, response, or function.

The code metaphor works because the constraints are already doing the real work.

Constraint without representation

Crucially, constraint does not require representation. A system can stabilise distinctions and regularities without standing for anything else. The phenomenon does not mean something beyond itself; it is meaningful in virtue of its relational position.

This is why meaning can exist without symbols, minds, or codes. Constraint suffices.

Preparing for symbols

If constraint precedes code, then symbolic systems must be understood as secondary structures that formalise and mobilise constraints. Language does not create meaning; it makes certain constraints portable, revisable, and combinable.

That specialisation is powerful — but it is not foundational.

The next instalment will examine language itself as one such specialisation, showing what language uniquely adds without mistaking it for the origin of meaning.