Interpretation is the human-made practice of deriving intended or plausible meaning from a text, signal, or artifact that admits more than one reading. Its parameters are: (1) a source that is semantically underdeterminate — language, art, ritual, code — such that a literal reading leaves gaps; (2) a reader equipped with a shared framework (language, convention, domain knowledge) that constrains possible meanings; (3) an output: an explicit rendering of what the source means, in the interpreter's terms. Interpretation persists through teaching, citation, and the cumulative layering of commentaries across generations — each interpretation becomes itself a source for further interpretation. The mechanism of persistence is linguistic tradition: meaning is sustained because communities reproduce and contest readings, not because any single reading is final.
[formal: interpretatio | substrate: mind | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]