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Because this word is part of the endless debate on meaning, (really, WHAT is meaningful), let me offer the following (ignore if you have work to do): 1. Identity is a meaningless concept unless coupled to a choice of means of identification. That is why URI is coupled to URL. It is a system solution and as Shannon and Weaver say, an entity is meaningful insofar as it is correlated according to some system. 2. Authority only means force unless coupled to the concept of legitimacy. Legitimate authority usefully means the right to choose the means to choose (a system). That is why authority resolves to consent of the governed in systems that do not rely exclusively on force (might for right was an evolutionary concept). Authority by choice of means to choose is simply another way to say "density of correlated choice". Nature makes all the interesting choices. Humans choose among abstractions. The three most meaningful phrases in the American system of abstract means to choose choices are : Of The People: the people and not the state are the holders of legitimate authority By The People: the people are the holders of the means to choose the means to choose (representative government) For The People: the interests of the people are the legitimate interests of government. By moving from states rights to the abstraction of the rights of the people, the power of centralized authority is constrained (given some other mechanisms such as separation of powers to limit affective control, schedules for choosing (elections) and so on). That was James Madison's brilliant contribution to the American system. It was greatly feared by many of the American forefathers who believed only in the state, that which they could see or so they thought, and which they controlled. They feared that the undereducated could not choose well and must be governed by those that were well-educated and well-connected. A derivation from Boltzman's entropy formula: no system is fool proof given a sufficiently large number of well-connected fools (density is a real, not abstract, quality). len
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