Glen -
I think it's more a feature of the openness of thought (and, for the
realists among us, the openness of the universe). People tend to run
with their own thoughts, regardless of whether the foundations of those
thoughts couple nicely with reality. That sort of behavior is necessary
for skills from good chess playing to sculpture, much less invention.
And it also results in phenomena like groups of (usually men) who merely
wait for others to quit talking so they can begin talking about
something totally unrelated.
To me, this ability to run forward with a set of assumptions is critical
to exploring what can be said (and done). The only thing that irritates
me is our self-centeredness, our facility with running forward with our
own thoughts and our disability with respect to playing out _others'_
thoughts. Communities where you see lots of extended, playful, futile
bitching and/or philosophy are refreshing because it indicates, to me,
that the participants are willing and perhaps good at running others'
thoughts/assumptions forward and seeing how it turns out.
It's much more interesting than the communities where every stray
thought is shut down and ridiculed the instant it shows up.
I agree, and this is the kind of meta-discussion (observation) I am
seeking. I think it is a testimony to the safety and comfort the
regular posters here feel to DO that freewheeling. Even though a few of
us may pick at some of the others, it is mostly (if not all) in good
humor I think. It may not be obvious but I'm interested in seeing the
active participation in this list grow. We seem to be something like
10-20 voices with 300-500 (Owen or Stephen probably have the current
subscribership numbers) listeners (lurkers?).
Stephen Guerin said roughly what you said over beers recently and it
really struck home. Paraphrasing:
"We all just sit and nod politely to each other waiting for the
other to finish so we can talk about what we really wanted to talk
about!"
It was an honest statement about the people we usually sit and talk with
and of course, to a lesser acknowledged extent, ourselves (he and I).
You note that this is "mostly men" and in fact, that does seem to be a
correlate with what has been pop-diagnosed as Ausperger-Autism spectrum
in many situations. Perhaps something about the sterility (ASCII-only)
and psuedonymical (most folks here use their common names but that
doesn't mean we have ever or will ever meet) and asynchronicity of this
medium that supports manly-Auspergers vs something else?
We have order 5 semi-active women on the list, all (as I know them) to
be quite able to hold their own in "a man's world" but probably not as
prone to this Ausperger's style as the rest of us. Thank you Pamela,
Tory, Didi, Peggy, Morgan, Merle, ??? (I know I'm missing at least a
few names here)!
I myself indulge in the latter (asynch comm) a great deal. In person, I
am usually pretty quiet in groups larger than 2 and even then generally
spend as much time listening as talking. On this list, I can be very
vocal (frequent and voluminous) because I trust that most of you will
simply ignore me if you find what I'm saying boorish, poorly articulated
or irrelevant. In person, there simply isn't that much real-estate for
very many people to say very much without dominating the conversation.
I might very well fit the image you and Stephen caste of simply waiting
for the other person to quit speaking so I can say what I want to... but
in the asynchronous world, I don't have to wait... and I don't have to
interrupt... and I can't easily be interrupted. I don't have to ignore
what others have said in order to hold the floor, I can acknowledge it,
confront it, riff on it, and still talk about whatever I whimsically
want to talk about. It is a blessing and probably a curse. In person,
if I were to make some of the comments I do here and was met with as
little response, I would probably take it as being completely ignored
and quit talking. Fortunately here I have enough out-of-band
communication with others to know that they are silently reading what I
write, appreciating some of it, but declining to stir the pot
themselves. It is not unlike a knowing glance or nod in an in-person
group conversation.
I read fast, write fast, and can context shift fairly easily, so being
active on a list such as this one is not as onerous as it might seem.
Also, if I need to chew something over for an hour or a day before
responding, I have that freedom to. In person, there is usually a
fairly small window where one can respond to another's statement or
question before the opportunity is lost. I have friends who I enjoy the
company of greatly because of this same cadence. We see each other
every few days or perhaps weeks, and can both pick up a conversation
where it was left days or weeks before... or even longer.
I hold myself to reading *most* of the traffic on this list to obtain
and maintain a fuller context. I'm sure I miss or forget things others
have said and restate what has already been stated (usually when I do
it, it is consciously, weaving a point already made into a larger
context, or so I hope) or misunderstand someone because I didn't read
the whole thread.
I do seek more "playing out of other's ideas here"... which is one of
the reasons I appreciate what Doug refers fondly to as Nick's "Big Bold
Naivete". There is something about the way Nick (sometimes) asks what
seem like naive questions that yields a fascinating conversation, if
even only in the privacy of my own head. Last time-change (Autumn) or
close to Solstice, I cannot remember, he brought up the Analemma and the
asymmetry of sidereal time advance between morning and evening which led
me to the the topic of Apsides and Solstices... etc. etc. etc. I think
I spoke (out loud) to it then but nobody else took any of it up (out
loud) but I'm guessing more than a few of our hundreds of readers here
*did* probably take a deeper interest in some of that.
Even though i might have appeared to be trying to "bust" Rich on his
posting style recently, I was really trying to draw him out to a point
where we could more easily appreciate what he was trying to tell us, not
to shut him up. We have since taken the conversation offline and it
seems to be mutually productive or at least entertaining. I am still
interested in a larger engagement in the topics he is more comfortable
with than others here seem to be. I was hoping, for example, that the
likes of Russell Standish and his work on Complexity and Emergence and
the "Theory of Nothing" would be cross referenced with Rich's somewhat
more mystical but *I* believe relevant maunderings.
I am glad that you *also* appreciate the list's freewheeling style and
seek more engagement in a broader sense (if I read you correctly).
Maybe this discussion will help encourage a broadening in the
participation...
- Steve
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