Meaning and Communication

-- By GregOrr - 17 Apr 2009

In Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, a group assembled from Austrian society is given the opportunity to choose an idea to spur the world to a better future (or something like 'identify/point to content/value', in the sense of what mountain, probably something like the author's wonder of life, generally/personally/societally/curiously/interestedly/pleasantly/practically/accurately/correctly... ), and they survey/develop though have difficulty reaching consensus among various things and subgroup perceptions and interests. This provides foreground to personal experience/search/development of the title character, Ulrich, who experiences/sees actualities/possibilities and sides of things. Situations have particular/similar/different/combining/contrasting components, and even individual components have parts in this way, “Like watching someone eat silently, without sharing his appetite: You suddenly perceive only swallowing movements, which look in no way enviable.”

He observes, “Meaning lies roughly halfway between reasoning and capriciousness,” with common forms of capriciousness including “how we privilege particular contents/interpretations through cultural or personal preunderstanding” and “how we unquestionably seek the firm and solid in life as urgently as a land animal that has fallen into the water.” Ulrich wonders about semi-certainty, considering internal and external material and phenomena, in curious observation and hope/interest of good stuff/truth. Reasoning is often sufficient as well as sometimes asymptotic and/or confounded, with some level of capriciousness contributing to decisions made (or not made) in finite time. Ulrich has/finds/develops/codifies some at least subjectively positive/interesting material as he goes (subjective to me as a reader as well as the character/author, it is a well-regarded book, at least by some), as do other characters, though the book is not concluded, Musil (do you think a muse pun is intended?) died while still writing it.

I intend to further explain structure underlying these phenomena/ideas and consider implications. I will consider content and reality, understanding and misunderstanding, people's participation in and creative development through openness and reflection in thinking and communication, and issues of range and parsimony.

Intersubjective Reality and the Communication Problem

In a definition of reality, I would include the objective world (I assume this substratum exists, given its apparent substantiality and consistency) and all subjective consciousnesses/souls. Each subjective consciousness/soul exists experientially with perceptual data and substance, additive to and part of the whole. While there is real material, a large common thoroughfare, experience and reality of good and right at least in some cases/senses, conventional wisdom, common sense, ability to understand and operate individually and between people, because each person only has access to and is particular to a subset of the whole (possibly pending the Lama's suggestion to Carl Spackler), one naturally operates with situations, assumptions, interests, understandings, and meanings that differ from others’.

The machinery of the mind complicates the issue, producing internal inconsistencies and delicate expressions. Within the mind, one’s attempts to generalize fail to achieve complete consistency because perceptual data is contrasting and flawed, tools of rationality are bounded, and views are formed in finite time. Imperfect pre-linguistic notions are given form in language with a further loss of fidelity, attributable to the boundedness of language itself and an individual’s incomplete facility with it. Also, when a person says something, there is usually an element of speculative hypothesis in it looking for confirmation or some other means to resolution. In total, a linguistic representation might always be characterized as a metaphor: a signal that provides a reference that points to the underlying mental condition. Layered on top of this are supra-linguistic cues such as context, structure, tone, and irony, which further refine the message to make it a more precise pointer. Non-linguistic statements, such as facial expressions, body language, and visual arts, may be further added or stand on their own as expressions that can be characterized in the same general way.

It is hard to express oneself, and a person’s expression, then, is hard to understand. It conveys something about his subjective world and becomes additional perceptual data for others. The more instinctual and capricious mode of evaluation interprets the metaphor to be as consistent as possible with one’s own pre-existing subjective world. One tends to lock into what is perceived as common between oneself and the communicator and reject, ignore, or not hear the rest. Though it’s usually an unconscious process, logically this may involve imputing to him underlying assumptions and experience similar to one’s own or identifying which communication script one is familiar with that he seems closest to following. Responses then start with this interpretation while adding some related expression of one’s own. What can be funny or tragic is that the first communicator will often interpret the response under the assumption that the other has understood the first expression as intended, and follow-up can be further confused. This is what we call talking past one another, which commonly happens to some extent/degree, even amid substantial and often/generally sufficient common thoroughfare, with varying awareness/certainty/import/effort.

Creative Communication

Nietszche said, "Woe to him who hides wastelands within." Ideally and commonly, as children and adults, with some sense and value of good appropriateness, we would and do trust each other enough to participate expressively, including exposure of lack or misunderstanding as it goes. Heidegger said, “We ourselves are pointers pointing toward what calls to be thought about.” In actuality/experience/pertinence/interest... , we participate in and point to reality and direction.

Openness to changing one's views coupled with active reflection on others' expressions allows access to a greater slice of intersubjective reality, which leads to new and more complete ideas. Moreover, greater empathy to others’ expressions helps one to be a clarifying and productive communication partner.

Reflection on the processes of constructing expressions allows more accurate and productive interpretation. What’s his situation? What are his interests? What’s his intention? What’s the tone? Is he earnest or ironic? What’s there that I haven’t incorporated? What seems to be missing? What do I know that might be relevant? What don’t I know that might be relevant? What kind of mistake might he be making? What if I’m making the mistake and not him? What might a third person have a frustrated urge to tell me about it? What might be the next step?

In this way, interpretations can veer from one thing to another, or from a thing to its opposite. Ideally, open and reflective communication finds its way to increasingly robust understanding.

Range and Parsimony

A reflective orientation increases one’s range in the spectrum of reasoning and capriciousness, and one’s placement on that spectrum becomes an overarching risk/return tradeoff. On the razor's edge of interpretation, we accept some level of capriciousness in order to make choices when faced with practical needs. The mix of rationality and irrationality always manifests two-sidedness in results, however, and we are sometimes shocked by bigger misjudgments.

Thanks for bearing with this essay written/iterated in amateur interest/productivity. I currently prefer/practice one space after periods instead of two, though when I originally wrote this essay apparently I was still practicing two spaces. Either way is acceptable to thoroughfare, I mean c'mon, though there may be some good/right thought/reality/experience about it, flow/space/style and whatnot, still think/perceive about it, sometimes/maybe depends on the case, though there's like the policy generally and cases, consistency, yada yada yada. Some other content/style issue concern edits/development.