The Evolution of Knowledge

In terms of evolution, biological evolution, you don't have to explain the meaning because you have the causal physical impingement of the niche on the organism. We're not saying that a gene contains implicit knowledge about its environment; we're saying that that pattern is as it is because of the selective pressures that caused it to evolve. But at the higher levels there are going to be other aspects and attributes of that higher level type knowledge that aren't explained by the fundamental explanation. We need additional explanations to fully account for that level. It's useful to start with a simpler case before seeing if it extends to the higher levels.