Date:         Mon, 24 Nov 1997 11:58:33 EST
From: "dancing on the point..." <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      FILLER: Re: on art, for woofie

On Mon, 24 Nov 1997 07:23:14 -0500, Bill Lantry <wlantry@EROLS.COM> writes:
:) As for your meaning, I will reiterate: communication is impossible.
:) Especially if we define communication in the terms most people assume
:) when they use the word.

May I ask for a bit of explication?

Communication?  You mean the notion that we take an idea out of our
brains and somehow insert it into the flow, so that the folks at the
other end can extract it and have it bubble up in their brains?

(that one, of course, runs into the problem that there just isn't room
in those little noises or scribbles for an idea to be hidden...)

Or does this usage refer to the somewhat different notion that the
originator has itches in their brain.  They create a set of symbols
(words, noises, whatever--at least a symbolic arrangement of stuff
"out there" somewhere).  The audience, on encountering those symbols
(or the symbolic arrangement of stuff out there, in the world),
re-creates (invents anew, to be exact, with echoes and repercussions
and all from the past) something(s) inside themselves.  While we may
never be sure that they are recreating the same thing(s) we had, in
some cases we know that they respond in expected/desired ways, so
perhaps the communication did approximately what was desired, even if
it didn't do it exactly the way we imagined.

(this requires a lot of imagination about what is happening on each
end--and in between, too--of the noises, moans, and scribbling, and
there is an amazing amount of trust involved in thinking that the
itches in the originator's brainpan are more than accidentally related
to the scritches in the receiver's braincells, but...if you can accept
the inexactness and possibilities of errors and noise, it does seem
somewhat descriptive of something that might be happening?)

It seems to me as if communication occurs rather more frequently than
the simpler impossibilities (e.g. cows flying?).  In fact, to tell
each other that communication is impossible seems a bit absurdly
circular--exactly how did they share this notion?

so what communication is it that we are discussing?

and what flavor of impossibility?  logical?  or simply observational?

confused...is this message incommunicative or merely a
billiard ball changing into a pocketwatch?

odds are
tink