Von Foerster's theorem on connectedness and organization: Semantic applications

A theorem originally proposed as a conjecture by H. von Foerster suggests that the more trivially connected are the elements of a system, the less influence they will have on the system as a whole. Following previous applications of the conjecture in the context of economics, game theory and the theory of automata, applications in the semantic domain are noted. A series of examples in poetic language, visual expression and music presents a variety of cases in which the state of affairs depicted by the conjecture holds. Implications to semantic theory and to the study of metaphor in particular are noted.