sense-making

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Sense-making is embodied activity through which surroundings become significant relative to a living being's viability. In participatory forms, interaction can generate meanings unavailable to isolated agents; in ethical discussion, everyday interpretation and shared worlds become objects of evaluation. This continuity neither equates biological success with moral goodness nor settles when significance is felt.

Explanation

AB describes sense-making as sorting what helps and harms a life, while refusing to let increased complexity alone answer the question of felt consciousness. Its ethical discussion also asks whether shared sense-making remains open to correction. PB's Tractatus locates significance in what a particular life must do to persist; the appendix's intelligence equation belongs to a separate, conditional AI exchange.

RB2 grounds normativity in viable continuation of activity, not initially in reflective judgment or convention. It distinguishes participatory sense-making, attributed to De Jaegher and Di Paolo, in which interaction opens domains unavailable to solitary individuals. RB3 quotes Weichold and Candiotto on everyday embodied interpretation and distinguishes the broader ethics of sense-making from evaluation of created worlds. Its concern with revisable shared understanding is not merely another example of an organism detecting food or danger.

Scope and attribution

Positive support in AB, PB, RB2 and RB3. RB1's literal search returned no matches; enaction alone does not establish ownership. Significance and feeling remain distinct.

AB — The Actual Book

Sense-making sorts help and harm but does not explain felt consciousness. Shared sense-making is tested for openness to evidence.

Occurrence locators: 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 116, 124, 182, 192; Glossary: 223.

PB — The Possible Book

Significance concerns a life's persistence; mind is more supple sense-making. The AI intelligence equation remains separately voiced and conditional.

Occurrence locators: 36, 97, 152; Reproduced AI exchange: 15, 18; Literary application: 68.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Viability supplies primitive normativity without settling feeling. Participatory interaction generates new domains stabilized by shared histories and linguistic practices.

Occurrence locators: 3, 4, 38, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 108, 111, 112, 129, 130, 133, 134, 136, 143, 168, 169, 172, 173, 178, 199, 291.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

Everyday embodied interpretation falls under sense-making. Its broader ethics includes created worlds; shared meaning is evaluated for revisability and coordinated life.

Occurrence locators: 101, 156, 165, 166, 210, 211, 218, 222, 229, 230, 233, 248, 250, 260, 270, 279, 280, 288, 298, 321; Reproduced AI exchange: 398, 399, 401.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Domain-specific mechanisms and wider analogies remain distinguished. Original definitions retain their scope; local cross-references do not rewrite them. Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.