Nick -
Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our
thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their actions...
Talk to me a bit about what an intention is to you, what an action is
to you, and how they differ.
A simple but profound (to me) example, I have already given. Lying in
the grass on a lazy summer day "intending" to get up and not being able
to actually "act"on the up-getting until "I" (that ever-present illusion
of unique-selfness) quit "intending" and some other magical mechanism
kicked in and viola! I am UP!
But more to the point of this conversation.
Let's say I "intend" to make an illuminating point in a discussion...
say, this very thread, a few dozen messages ago... and I say "I think
we've just entered a recursion", and one of us (maybe many) (apparently)
misunderstands that point as being "snarky" (I love that term!) and
requests that I return to a more productive form of discourse.
From my point of view, my actions were perfectly aligned with my
intentions... I meant what I said and I said what I meant. But from
the other party's point of view, I meant something entirely different
with what I said. To all (but me), it could be said that "my actions
spoke", and everybody clearly understood my intentions (through my
actions) to be disruptive. But I knew better. I "know" because the
"entity that my third-person observation point that is invariant under
my intentional actions intended it that way". (yes, I am still trying
on the concept that "me" is an observer of "me" which/whom only differs
from others by POV).
It is the question of mis-hearing vs mis-speaking and some nebulous
middle ground. The speaker and the listener do not just have a
responsibility to eachother to speak well/listen well, but there emerges
(in some sense of the term, perhaps not the one usually used here) a
life of the conversation of it's own, an ecosystem if you can stand the
extravagant metaphor. This entire thread (and some of it's
side-ravellings) is something of a good example for me... there are many
threads of conversation, all superficially or tangentially relating to
eachother, weaving in and out, but not necessarily tying neatly into a
single "explanation" or "understanding" of a single or simple topic.
This leads me 'round to James suggestion that we might not be defining
our terms carefully enough. I admit to having indulged in bits of
playfulness here, over and over. I believe that we are "brainstorming"
as much as we are "nailing things down" in this discussion, and believe
that such deserves a bit more "play".
But I also believe that the metaphor of "nailing things down" really
misses some important points and by introducing a mixed metaphor, I hope
to expand the conversation (I know, many here would prefer to narrow it,
but presumably those are not even reading this). I feel that most of
what goes on here on this list is that folks bring out nicely prepared
foods for the rest of us to taste.
We prepare something anywhere from a gourmet meal (long, well considered
treatise) to a tasty but hastily prepared snack (a link to an
article). Then we take turns tasting it and commenting on it, ranging
from helpful suggestions ("this is great, but a little more nutmeg would
make it perfect") to veiled criticism ("I've never had potato latkes
made from turnips... perhaps they are called potato latkes for a good
reason?") to serious advice... ("Thanks for this offering, but I have a
*much* better recipe, here... try this) to plain bluntness unto rudeness
("what kinda garbage are you trying to pass off on us?").
Now to mix the metaphor. I believe meaning is somewhere between a
dustmote and thin jello. The only way I've ever been able to catch a
dustmote flying in the air is to wait for it to enter good light, study
it (and the air currents moving it) carefully, gently move my hand to a
position many inches below it, carefully track it in it's (new) motions
and with enough care and intuition my hand will be under the mote as it
settles. Anything else and I'll be lucky to see it again (or
distinguish it from it's many cohorts). To nail down jello... that is
the trick. We here often bring out our favorite gelatin desserts and
proceed to take turns trying to nail them to the table. Those who use
tack hammers and fine brads and nails very carefully sometimes have a
chance of getting the desserts to be a little more stable but many of us
give over to the urge to use a 10 penny nail and a 5 pound sledge, or
better yet a pneumatic nail-gun. I believe that the meaning in a page
of writing is truly all between the lines and in a sentence between the
words. It is the context (who is saying it where/when and to whom,
after having said many other things) and the negative space (what is not
said, what is implied but not spoken to, etc.).
I think that Russ was righteously trying to get Nick to "nail down" a
couple of words or concepts which Nick (also righteously) avoided as to
do so would very likely disturb the real point he was trying to make.
Carry On!
- Steve
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