The title. I never understood that expression… can someone help?
Edit: auto correct on ‘someone’
In: 1694
Meta colloquially means self referential. However, I don’t think this an accurate reflection of its meaning though since it could be argued that the term is taken from metaphysics which has to do with the fundamental principles or axioms of things. **’Meta’** means before/after in Greek. **’Physic**’ means nature/natural order.
Metaphysics has to do with defining and understanding essential principles like time, change, separation, etc. These are axioms, important first principles, that effect everything. So these things are pre ‘physic’. So the subject of things beyond the normal scope of regular or natural things is metaphysical.
I think this is how we get the common term meta is used now. We might say that thinking about what exactly what separates the future from the past is metaphysical. Similarly, we also say that discussing something that refers to itself or is about the subject as a whole, like a movie making fun of the movie industry, is meta.
An etymologist would know more but I would argue that this is where the meaning comes from.
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