A problem arises with abstract representational thought where we imbue more significance to the symbol… the word… than to what that word is a symbol of.

This is the major failing of most established memes throughout recorded history.

This principle can be traced historically to Plato who has infected all thinking since. Christianity picked it up when St Augustine merged Christianity and Platonism. Plato sub-consciously ascribed more significance in the subjective than the objective when he asked “what is chair”.

He answered the question by looking for the ideal chair, not in the physical realm but in the subjective realm. He suggested that all chairs in the physical realm are imperfect variations of the ideal chair that exists in the subjective realm completely.

In short he gave more significance to the linguistic representation than the gradient of objects that fit categorically into the description of chair.