Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 09-09-15 10:36 AM: > glen e. p. ropella wrote: >> 2) reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some >> fractioned >> piece of it, > > If the parts of the message are wrong or unclear, then doubt should be > cast upon the gestalt as well.
True. "And yet doubt is a good servant but a bad master; a perfect mistress, but a nagging wife." -- Aleister Crowley, "The Book of Lies" >> and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_ >> of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication, >> are difficult and expensive for online comm. > > The writer is at fault, and it may well be with malicious intent, if in > general she expects readers to form a coherent model of her. It is > necessary for a reader to form a model of what is written and its > relevant context. (If the text is an autobiography, then she can expect > the reader to model the writer.) I have to disagree with the false dichotomy between writer and reader and the subsequent assignation of blame to either one or the other. All these symbols we push and pull are grounded, albeit loosely. And you're right to suggest the imperative is to limit the model to some practical extent. If you only extend your model to what is written and its (subjectively defined) _relevant_ context, you are basically decapitating the context and considering only the body. And that's fine if it's adequate for your current use. But there are uses where the head should remain attached and be part of the model. And there are other uses where, not only should you make the mind of the writer part of the model, but you should also include the social extent of the writer. There are many texts you simply can't understand without some historical understanding of the society in which the writer lived. E.g. British Emergence. If little Joey, the 13-year-old, video-game-addicted, ritalin-chomping, child fails to understand Shakespeare, is it Shakespeare's fault? Similarly, is it Joey's fault if he can't understand the significance of physical features (like gapped teeth or carbuncles) on a character in Chaucer? p.s. I use Shakespeare and Chaucer because I believe they had malicious intent behind much of their writing.... the malice wasn't directed at those who understood them, though. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
