Information about meta-level

This article is about the word or prefix Meta. For other uses, see Meta (disambiguation).

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Meta (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with"), is a prefix used in English in order to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter. The Greek meta is equivalent to the Latin post.

In epistemology, the prefix meta- is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced it, when, what format the data are in and so on). Similarly, metamemory in psychology means an individual's knowledge about whether or not they would remember something if they concentrated on recalling it. Furthermore, metaemotion in psychology means an individual's emotion about his/her own basic emotion, or somebody else's basic emotion..

Any subject can be said to have a meta-theory, which is the theoretical consideration of its foundations and methods.

From the Hypercomputing Dictionary: A prefix meaning 'one layer of information removed'. This leads to the interesting extension: If X is some concept then meta-X is "data about or processes operating on X".

This dual directionality, of both being 'background data' or 'processes operating on' can be illustrated when one attempts an 'explanation'. If someone says, "what does that mean?" one can offer them either a definition or an example - either are accepted.

Another, slightly different interpretation of this term is "about" but not "on" (exactly its own category). For example, a grammar is considered as a metalanguage, or a sort of language for describing another language (and not itself). A meta-answer is not a real answer but a reply, such as: "this is not a good question", "I suggest you ask your professor". Here, we have such concepts as meta-reasoning and meta-knowledge.

Etymology

The prefix is derived by back-formation from the Greek preposition and prefix meta- (μετά) which meant either "after", "beside" or "with". Meta- & Meso- are thought to have come into Greek together from a mutual cognate, which would further imply 'meta' to contain or be of the meaning "parallel". ^[1]

Quine and Hofstadter

The OED cites uses of the meta- prefix as "beyond, about" (such as meta-economics and meta-philosophy) going back to 1917. However, these formations are directly parallel to the original "metaphysics" and "metaphysical", that is, as a prefix to general nouns (fields of study) or adjectives. Going by the OED citations, it began to be used with specific nouns in connection with mathematical logic sometime before 1929. (In 1920 David Hilbert proposed a research project in what was called "metamathematics.")

A notable early citation is Quine's 1937 use of the word "metatheorem", where meta- clearly has the modern meaning of "an X about X". (Note that earlier uses of "meta-economics" and even "metaphysics" do not have this doubled conceptual structure, they are about or beyond X but they do not themselves constitute an X). Note also that this modern meaning allows for self-reference, since if something is about the category to which it belongs, it can be about itself; it is therefore no coincidence that we find Quine, a mathemetician interested in self-reference, using it.

An encyclopedia article which discusses an encyclopedia article (itself).

Douglas Hofstadter, in his 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach (and in the sequel, Metamagical Themas), popularized this meaning of the term. This book, which deals extensively with self-reference and touches on Quine and his work, was influential in many computer-related subcultures, and is probably largely responsible for the popularity of the prefix, for its use as a solo term, and for the many recent coinages which use it. Hofstadter uses the meta as a stand-alone word, both as an adjective and as a directional preposition ("going meta", a term he coins for the old rhetorical trick of taking a debate or analysis to another level of abstraction, as in "This debate isn't going anywhere."). This book is also probably responsible for the direct association of "meta" with self-reference, as opposed to just abstraction. The sentence "This sentence contains thirty six letters." along with the sentence it is embedded in are examples of sentences that reference themselves in this way.

Words using the term 'meta' or 'meta-'

Common uses of the English prefix include:

Other uses more closely follow the Greek meaning. For example:

References

1. ^ 'Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English' Eric Partridge ISBN-13: 978-0517414255

Metadata is data about data. An item of metadata may describe an individual datum, or content item, or a collection of data including multiple content items.

Metadata (sometimes written 'meta data') is used to facilitate the understanding, use and management of data.
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Metamemory is a type of metacognition (thought about thought) that focues on one's memory and memory processes. This can include thinking about what type of elaboration might be best to memorize a set of information or an evaluation of whether or not a certain piece of information
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Meta-emotion refers to second-order feelings or emotions about first-order emotions.

Meta-emotions can be short-term or long-term. The latter can be a source of discouragement or even psychological repression, or encouragement of specific emotions, having implications for
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A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory which concerns itself with another theory or theories. As such its generalization may be called a theory of theories. In Encyclopædia Britannica, metatheory is theory the subject matter of which is another theory.
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metalanguage is a language used to make statements about other languages (object languages). Formal syntactic models for the description of grammar, e.g. generative grammar, are a type of metalanguage.
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Reasoning is the mental (cognitive) process of looking for reasons for beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings.^[1] Humans have the ability to engage in reasoning about their own reasoning using introspection.
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Metaknowledge or meta-knowledge is knowledge about knowledge. More precisely speaking, meta-knowledge is systemic problem and domain-independent knowledge which performs or enables operations on another more or less specific domain-dependent knowledge in different
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In etymology, back-formation refers to the process of creating a new lexeme (less precisely, a new "word") by removing actual or supposed affixes. The resulting neologism is called a back-formation.
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In grammar, a preposition is a part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. For example, in the sentence "The cat sleeps on the sofa", the word "on" is a preposition, introducing the prepositional phrase "on the sofa".
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An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a base morpheme such as a root or to a stem, to form a word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed.
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Meso may refer to:

, a prefix meaning middle or intermediate
Meso compound, a stereochemical classification in chemistry
Meso, the currency in the 2d online game MapleStory

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The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is the most comprehensive dictionary of the English language.
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David Hilbert

David Hilbert (1912)
Born January 23 1862
Wehlau (Welawa), Province of Prussia
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In general, metamathematics or meta-mathematics is a scientific reflection and knowledge about mathematics seen as an entity/object in human consciousness and culture. More precisely, metamathematics is mathematics used to study mathematics or philosophy of mathematics.
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Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000), usually cited as W.V. Quine or W.V.O. Quine but known to his friends as Van, was one of the most influential philosophers and logicians of the 20th century.
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Self-reference is a phenomenon in natural or formal languages consisting of a sentence or formula referring to itself directly, through some intermediate sentence or formula, or by means of some encoding.
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Douglas R. Hofstadter

Born: January 15 1945 (age 62)
New York, New York
Occupation: Professor of cognitive science
Nationality: United States
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Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Author Douglas Hofstadter
Country USA
Language English
Subject(s) Consciousness, intelligence
Publisher Basic Books
Publication date 1979
Pages 777 pages
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Metamagical Themas is an eclectic collection of articles written for Scientific American during the early 1980s by Douglas Hofstadter, and published together as a book in 1985 by Basic Books (ISBN 0-465-04566-9).
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In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. The first meta-analysis was performed by Karl Pearson in 1904, in an attempt to overcome the problem of reduced statistical power in studies with small sample
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Meta elements are HTML or XHTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a web page. Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section of an HTML or XHTML document.
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HTML element indicates structure in an HTML document and a way of hierarchically arranging content. More specifically, an HTML element is an SGML element that meets the requirements of one or more of the HTML Document Type Definitions (DTDs).
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