Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 20:46:55 -0500 Subject: MB: Communication From: saks1-AT-juno.com (Samuel J Saks) Edward, you wrote: (1)"Inner communication, the private language of gnosis, is the only TRUE communication, for it all takes place within ... (2) I would qualify your statement, however, by saying that the fact that communication can be misunderstood is the very POSSIBILITY of communication." The above is, I admit, somewhat out of context (and the numbers are mine) but I think by comparing the two remarks you made I can make a point for the validity of imperfect communication. You agree that there is such a thing as TRUE communication (let us for the moment disregard where it takes place) and therefore if TRUE communication is possible I will assume you have some experience with it (in your view it takes place within yourself and since you are obviously very intelligent I don't think this is a wild assumption). So you do have a way to compare perfect communication with imperfect communication, namely (again all according to you) within yourself. Therefore I can say that there is such a thing as imperfect communication that is communication nonetheless. All this is staying within (I think, at least) you own views. Therefore a text might communicate something to you not as perfectly as you can communicate it to yourself but you can judge and understand how close it was to your own personal communication. Now let me step out of your view, or rather let us discuss your views. you say: "I am a solipsist, plain and simple, and I communicate with my illusions. Everything that I receive is appropriated by me -- therefore, everything is WITHIN me ..." It is a well known fact that solipsim is immposible to disprove and I won't (and have no motivation) to try. But allow me some space to think something through (not necessarily only regarding your remark quoted above). Let's see PURE or PERFECT (question: I assume you use these terms as equivalent in our discussion, is this the case??) communication is possible only internally. What is internally? Within oneself. What is oneself? A tough question. Well what can we agree on as "oneself" or at least what is the part(s) of "oneself" we mean here. Well we can't be talking about organs for I don't communicate with my organs. Wait yes I do. Swift electric pulses shoot back and forth from them all the time. But this is not the communication we are talking about here. Okay, so I must not be communicating with my organs. What about my hands and feet? Well they are equivalent to organs are they not? Yes. Therefore we must not be talking about them either here. Okay. So am I communicating with my brain? Well in the sense that a brain is an organ, no. All that's being communicated is short electric signals. Then I must not be talking about any physical matter. Okay. So then what am I communicating with, when there is communication within "oneself." Ahh, perhaps the content of my brain. That is interesting, for in so far as my brain understands all these electric signals then it is in communication with them. What is the content of my brain? Ask your local phenomenologist. Forget him right now. Let us figure it out (at least in part). Well the content of my brain is a mess of memories, thoughts, emotions, sense data. Okay. But what are thoughts if you don't remember them or emotions if you don't feel them? Answer: sense data. Fine. One of the contents of my brain I must deal with is sense data. But just how do I know them without interpreting them? Just what seperates the green leaves of a tree from the black bark, why is it a tree at all? Ahh so I must be interpreting them somehow. But how? With what? Emotions. Well maybe but then these emotions must be also be understood for what seperates hate from love? There must be something I use to seperate these things or at least make sense out of them but just what is it? Ahh, perhaps language. Yes, with language I can call my emotions something, keep track of my thoughts, point to sense data again and again, and I have a device for remembering things for comparison and contrast, synthesis and antithesis. Yes language. But where did I get this from? The serpent's gift. The seduction of Eve. Perhaps it was worth it after all to get booted from Eden for look what we got in return. For what can we do in Eden if we don't know what's going on? Anyway let us get back on track. So we communicate to ourselves with language, or at least language assists us greatly. The question again: Where did language come from? Ourselves? Others? It can't be completely from ourselves for the terms "you" and "he/she" and "it" are essential, or how are we to seperate things, make distinctions. Without others everything is I. It is here that our reach exceeds our grasp and there is no heaven to save us. We see someone else. They approach from the shadows. It is horrible, inside their heads buzz the same signals and yet they are not me nothing like me, in all ways seperate and distinct. It is horrible and scary. This is the origin of language, at least so I tend to think. Do you agree? (or rather just how do you disagree?)
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