I’m not a neurologist, but I believe the classical answer is that words point to patterns in clusters of neurons. Everything filed under “apple” slightly rearranges neurons in the “apple” category, including pictures of apples, the taste of an apple, stories about apples, etc. Features which all apples have in common are amplified by the pattern-matching, while dissimilar features cancel each other out. Eventually, we get a mental pattern of the “archetypal” apple, describing the category in general, which can be drawn or described from scratch, without identifiable references to any specific apple. (If you haven’t personally experienced this with apples, try ideas. Relying on one or two authors for your information will cause you to include some of their identifiable little details in your own writings.)
“What does a word point to?”
I’m not a neurologist, but I believe the classical answer is that words point to patterns in clusters of neurons. Everything filed under “apple” slightly rearranges neurons in the “apple” category, including pictures of apples, the taste of an apple, stories about apples, etc. Features which all apples have in common are amplified by the pattern-matching, while dissimilar features cancel each other out. Eventually, we get a mental pattern of the “archetypal” apple, describing the category in general, which can be drawn or described from scratch, without identifiable references to any specific apple. (If you haven’t personally experienced this with apples, try ideas. Relying on one or two authors for your information will cause you to include some of their identifiable little details in your own writings.)