Semantic capital
Semantic capital, as defined by Floridi (
Semantic Capital: Its Nature, Value, and Curation) is “any content that can enhance someone’s power to give meaning to and make sense of (semanticise) something.”
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
Ideas, insights, discoveries, inventions, traditions, cultures, languages, arts, religions, sciences, narratives, stories, poems, customs and norms, music and songs, games and personal experiences, and advertisements – they all are the wealth we produce, curate, consume, transmit, and inherit as humans, argues Floridi. And this wealth of resources is what helps us give meaning to, and make sense of, our own existence and the world surrounding us, to define who we are, and to develop an individual and social life. [Floridi]
Our identities, lives, experiences, interactions and conceptualisations of the world we inhabit and share would be pointless and empty (i.e. lacking any meaning or sense), if our semantic capital did not fill them with value. Minds cannot bear the meaningless and the senseless, and they fill this vacuum with any semantic capital they may have or create, be it magic stories, mythological Greek gods, pop stars and their songs, the most recent blog we read, our love for someone, or hate for someone else.
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