This feels to me like the distinction between logical syntax and semantics. There are things that have meaning in a purely syntactic sense, like valid formulas in logic. There are also things that have meaning w.r.t. a model. A game world can be a rich domain of discourse to pin semantic meaning on.
Sam Goree@samgoree.bsky.social · 2y agoI've been thinking about how computer programs gain meaning. Like, an algorithm for finding the solution to a system of linear equations is meaningless, but it gains meaning when it's used to determine whether a shot in a video game hit you or not.