Speech is the result of some earlier developments. It is always after the fact.
There is some raw input, the stimulus which wakes up the mind into a particular direction (subject, realm of experiencing, sensory activation).
This input is then processed internally and activates faculties of reaction: thoughts (insights, understanding, explanation), feelings (which are thoughts which have not become conscious understanding, or conscious thoughts) or actions (physical reactions of the body).
When these reactions are internalized (experienced) in full, that’s the end of the story. Like: you are watching a sunrise, and the total impression is so overwhelming that you become immersed in it. When you are fulfilled, you simply walk away. But your friend, who is standing next to you, says, “How beautiful!” Now you know that your friend is not here, does not see the sunrise, and cannot appreciate it as it is. His mind has taken over the whole experience - and destroyed it. The same happens with people in love. Their love ends when the words “I love you” are spoken out. The mind has hijacked the experience, the love is gone.
Words are crippled substitutes of the experience. We sometimes try to use words as directions, indications to the experience - this is where synonyms and metaphors come into existence. We are unable to convey the message (because it always is without words), so we build prostheses. None of them will function properly, because none is the direct equivalent of that which is without words.
Here is where people miss the point. They meet to talk and usually their intention is to convince the other, to persuade them into believing the version of “truth” which they relate. Families know this perfectly well. There is no way for two persons to have one view on anything. We try to reconcile this with “compromises” - the participants agree to give up some of their perceptions (aka truths) and accept (temporarily) the agreed definition or concept. It will never work, and misunderstandings will follow, and people gradually become alienated from each other. 20 years down the line, boom, divorce. No way, how could it happen?
Lawyers know this process first hand. This is why all contracts have “Definitions” as Section 1. Definitions are capitalized, to signal to the participants that their meanings are different from any other context and apply only to this particular contract. Simple, effective, useful, functional. And immortal. These definitions will be the same after 20 years, the meanings, the contribution of the parties, their responsibilities and profits, everything will be the same. Stability.
The question is why we do not do this in our daily life, in interactions with other people. We “fall in love” and we forget to sit down for the most important two hours in our life. It’s time to make definitions, capitalize them, and then build the contract based on mutual consent. So simple.
We do it, anyway - but in secrecy, where the other is not allowed. We define everything for ourselves, an we do not share these definitions (except in psychotherapy, when it’s already too late) - just in case, to make them a handy tool for future interventions.
Obviously, the agreed definitions and the whole thing should be written down, dated and signed. We do it with apartment rentals, car purchases, employment, sending kids to schools, allowing a physician to interfere with our body, “approving” a person to act on our behalf (aka voting), but we neglect to do this with the most important part of life: relationships.
This is why speech acts are possible and abound with possibilities other than mutual consent and happiness.
Not a comment, clearly. Rather, a different view of where speech can lead us if we are not aware of these processes. I guess.
I like how you express that a perception activates: "thoughts (insights, understanding, explanation), and (feelings, which are thoughts which have not become conscious understanding, or conscious thoughts), and actions."
Then you say "end of story", which is correct. But even the friend who verbalized the sunset, may have stayed with it for various minutes before translating it into words. The loving couple may have gazed at each other in fullness, without words external, or even internal words, but then in 10 or 15 minutes one says "should I make tea"? It is not a staring contest. Sooner or later you come back to verbalizations. If you are aware of what happened , you can return there at will.
I feel that I understand what you are saying. But that is not exactly what I am saying in this essay. I am saying however, that humans do have an urge to explain verbally. I call it a built in "safety mechanism". How to confront the unknown? Pretend like you already know it.
You mention people's intention in talking is to convince someone. I do write about speech acts like assertion and deflecting. Then you say compromises are only skin deep and they fester until the explosion. Could be. (However, I don't think definitions are all that perfect either. Take international peace treaties that get warped over the years to meet new expectations.)
____________
I didn't exactly cover non-verbal perception in the article. I agree that it exists in these certain examples. You say "the stimulus wakes up the mind into a particular direction". Is that the unmodified (un-interpreted) experience then? I am not talking about that. I am talking about human life in the urbanized environment. (There are sunsets there also.)
But what is taking place in society is unintelligible without a vocabulary to describe it. What is happening is just not noticed, the stimulus does not wake up anything when there is no verbal context. Take the example of your "pure experiential person", he watched the Trump / Biden spectacle. What does he garner from that perception? Maybe it is beautiful like a sunset? If he has any judgement whatsoever, that is a thought based comparison from his past.
He sees two men talking. He doesn't see 1,000 things going on behind this frontal view. He doesn't see that this whole thing is a fake. Biden spoke just like he did yesterday, and last week and last month. Back then he was the best man to be president. Now in one night the whole of the main stream media lined up; now Biden is a failure and must step down. (Not to say the debates weren't moved forward 100 days, when they usually take place in October. For what purpose? There is a huge shared vocabulary that you need, in order to even SEE these "debates". Let's move to another set of examples.
You often talk of science, (as I get it), saying that once you have a PhD, you can say all sorts of rubbish, which you get paid handsomely for. It is true that in science it is difficult to go against a long-standing consensus. But actually, so much of science is an exacting occupation beyond belief, where you must have a rich contextual vocabulary (words and their meanings, encyclopedias full), even to see what is going on.
I just read ORIGIN, a fascinating new book by Jennifer Raff. She is examining archaeology and genetics to trace the human migrations over 22,000 years on the American continents. (Yes the "Indians" were 1,000's of tribes, and have been around a very long time.) This book will teach what science is all about. I am not asking you to read it. But it is completely fascinating.
I see it as a trained reaction. Oriental cultures do not have this. Just the opposite - your whole mental life is happening inside, and you only verbally express the absolute minimum necessary, almost always without explanations. Explanations are not necessary there, you are expected (by and in the social interactions) to understand what is happening and to act accordingly.
The Euro-American culture is over-obsessed with words. “Ulysses”, “Odyssey” and the long novel tradition pretty much give it away. Compared it with haiku, and you will know what I mean. You will know - I don’t need to explain it.
> people's intention in talking is to convince someone
Or, more precisely, to manipulate others and situations. Meaning control and the desire to manage the course of events as if one is the ruler of fate. Gossiping and advertising are the peak performance in this respect.
> international peace treaties that get warped over the years to meet new expectations
Not yours, and not mine. These are the most advanced tools to manipulate reality against you and me. Right along inflations, stock exchange and currency rates.
> …“the stimulus wakes up the mind into a particular direction". Is that the unmodified (un-interpreted) experience then…
The direction is the dominant internalized rule of life which the given person lives by. The essence of the life of a soldier is to fight. With practice and experience, the soldier will fight everything and everywhere, including their household and family. Whatever you say or show to them will be interpreted (mostly subconsciously) in terms of “should I attack now or wait for better intel?”
A child pushed around by parents who repeatedly say that he/she is good for nothing and doesn’t want to understand or help will grow into such a person. He/she has a lot of experience as a useless obstacle, and will become even more proficient in it in the course of his/her life. Whatever gift or best intention you offer to them, they will interpret it as “why? I am not enough, anyway”. And they will voluntarily undermine, sabotage, damage and destroy the best opportunities that come into their lives.
What you are referring in the part about science language is a different form. We have language of communication (interactions, of living beings) and language of functions (of inanimate objects). The former we use to make contact, the latter serves as a tool of adjusting / changing / modifying the inanimate world. Both need precision and definitions. The problem is that we are excellent at defining in functional language (see https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=types+of+screws&iax=images&ia=images), and we are absolutely useless in understanding, naming, and conveying human experience.
Strangely enough, psychologists know this secret. Do you have any inner conflicts and unresolved situations? Make an effort and name it precisely and accurately, and the problem disappears. It’s a magic process, and it takes 10 minutes. They won’t show it to you, because they need to charge you for 3 years of therapy…
A great article with great insights. Thank you. So rich in items to read, re-read, analyze and reconsider again. I love it. Will need more time to sink into it.
From the other post. I like talking with you and I don't care if someone else is following us. (And they can do it). Since we are not direct messaging, I need to answer your reply somewhere. Substack comments get hard to "thread" because they get too narrow, so you have to start on top again. Better to move to the next post (not this one).
Hi Dan, I see that you are having some lively interchanges on previous posts. If you get time to look at this one again, I would appreciate your insight and feedback.
Speech is the result of some earlier developments. It is always after the fact.
There is some raw input, the stimulus which wakes up the mind into a particular direction (subject, realm of experiencing, sensory activation).
This input is then processed internally and activates faculties of reaction: thoughts (insights, understanding, explanation), feelings (which are thoughts which have not become conscious understanding, or conscious thoughts) or actions (physical reactions of the body).
When these reactions are internalized (experienced) in full, that’s the end of the story. Like: you are watching a sunrise, and the total impression is so overwhelming that you become immersed in it. When you are fulfilled, you simply walk away. But your friend, who is standing next to you, says, “How beautiful!” Now you know that your friend is not here, does not see the sunrise, and cannot appreciate it as it is. His mind has taken over the whole experience - and destroyed it. The same happens with people in love. Their love ends when the words “I love you” are spoken out. The mind has hijacked the experience, the love is gone.
Words are crippled substitutes of the experience. We sometimes try to use words as directions, indications to the experience - this is where synonyms and metaphors come into existence. We are unable to convey the message (because it always is without words), so we build prostheses. None of them will function properly, because none is the direct equivalent of that which is without words.
Here is where people miss the point. They meet to talk and usually their intention is to convince the other, to persuade them into believing the version of “truth” which they relate. Families know this perfectly well. There is no way for two persons to have one view on anything. We try to reconcile this with “compromises” - the participants agree to give up some of their perceptions (aka truths) and accept (temporarily) the agreed definition or concept. It will never work, and misunderstandings will follow, and people gradually become alienated from each other. 20 years down the line, boom, divorce. No way, how could it happen?
Lawyers know this process first hand. This is why all contracts have “Definitions” as Section 1. Definitions are capitalized, to signal to the participants that their meanings are different from any other context and apply only to this particular contract. Simple, effective, useful, functional. And immortal. These definitions will be the same after 20 years, the meanings, the contribution of the parties, their responsibilities and profits, everything will be the same. Stability.
The question is why we do not do this in our daily life, in interactions with other people. We “fall in love” and we forget to sit down for the most important two hours in our life. It’s time to make definitions, capitalize them, and then build the contract based on mutual consent. So simple.
We do it, anyway - but in secrecy, where the other is not allowed. We define everything for ourselves, an we do not share these definitions (except in psychotherapy, when it’s already too late) - just in case, to make them a handy tool for future interventions.
Obviously, the agreed definitions and the whole thing should be written down, dated and signed. We do it with apartment rentals, car purchases, employment, sending kids to schools, allowing a physician to interfere with our body, “approving” a person to act on our behalf (aka voting), but we neglect to do this with the most important part of life: relationships.
This is why speech acts are possible and abound with possibilities other than mutual consent and happiness.
Not a comment, clearly. Rather, a different view of where speech can lead us if we are not aware of these processes. I guess.
I like how you express that a perception activates: "thoughts (insights, understanding, explanation), and (feelings, which are thoughts which have not become conscious understanding, or conscious thoughts), and actions."
Then you say "end of story", which is correct. But even the friend who verbalized the sunset, may have stayed with it for various minutes before translating it into words. The loving couple may have gazed at each other in fullness, without words external, or even internal words, but then in 10 or 15 minutes one says "should I make tea"? It is not a staring contest. Sooner or later you come back to verbalizations. If you are aware of what happened , you can return there at will.
I feel that I understand what you are saying. But that is not exactly what I am saying in this essay. I am saying however, that humans do have an urge to explain verbally. I call it a built in "safety mechanism". How to confront the unknown? Pretend like you already know it.
You mention people's intention in talking is to convince someone. I do write about speech acts like assertion and deflecting. Then you say compromises are only skin deep and they fester until the explosion. Could be. (However, I don't think definitions are all that perfect either. Take international peace treaties that get warped over the years to meet new expectations.)
____________
I didn't exactly cover non-verbal perception in the article. I agree that it exists in these certain examples. You say "the stimulus wakes up the mind into a particular direction". Is that the unmodified (un-interpreted) experience then? I am not talking about that. I am talking about human life in the urbanized environment. (There are sunsets there also.)
But what is taking place in society is unintelligible without a vocabulary to describe it. What is happening is just not noticed, the stimulus does not wake up anything when there is no verbal context. Take the example of your "pure experiential person", he watched the Trump / Biden spectacle. What does he garner from that perception? Maybe it is beautiful like a sunset? If he has any judgement whatsoever, that is a thought based comparison from his past.
He sees two men talking. He doesn't see 1,000 things going on behind this frontal view. He doesn't see that this whole thing is a fake. Biden spoke just like he did yesterday, and last week and last month. Back then he was the best man to be president. Now in one night the whole of the main stream media lined up; now Biden is a failure and must step down. (Not to say the debates weren't moved forward 100 days, when they usually take place in October. For what purpose? There is a huge shared vocabulary that you need, in order to even SEE these "debates". Let's move to another set of examples.
You often talk of science, (as I get it), saying that once you have a PhD, you can say all sorts of rubbish, which you get paid handsomely for. It is true that in science it is difficult to go against a long-standing consensus. But actually, so much of science is an exacting occupation beyond belief, where you must have a rich contextual vocabulary (words and their meanings, encyclopedias full), even to see what is going on.
I just read ORIGIN, a fascinating new book by Jennifer Raff. She is examining archaeology and genetics to trace the human migrations over 22,000 years on the American continents. (Yes the "Indians" were 1,000's of tribes, and have been around a very long time.) This book will teach what science is all about. I am not asking you to read it. But it is completely fascinating.
NOTHING IS VISIBLE WITHOUT THESE WORDS.
Here, take my copy: https://brax.me/f/Origin%20--%20raff%20jennifer%20--%202022%20--%20Twelve.pdf/T4AZ66825354b52d64.08373272
You'll see what I mean if you give it a try.
.
> humans do have an urge to explain verbally
I see it as a trained reaction. Oriental cultures do not have this. Just the opposite - your whole mental life is happening inside, and you only verbally express the absolute minimum necessary, almost always without explanations. Explanations are not necessary there, you are expected (by and in the social interactions) to understand what is happening and to act accordingly.
The Euro-American culture is over-obsessed with words. “Ulysses”, “Odyssey” and the long novel tradition pretty much give it away. Compared it with haiku, and you will know what I mean. You will know - I don’t need to explain it.
> people's intention in talking is to convince someone
Or, more precisely, to manipulate others and situations. Meaning control and the desire to manage the course of events as if one is the ruler of fate. Gossiping and advertising are the peak performance in this respect.
> international peace treaties that get warped over the years to meet new expectations
Not yours, and not mine. These are the most advanced tools to manipulate reality against you and me. Right along inflations, stock exchange and currency rates.
> …“the stimulus wakes up the mind into a particular direction". Is that the unmodified (un-interpreted) experience then…
The direction is the dominant internalized rule of life which the given person lives by. The essence of the life of a soldier is to fight. With practice and experience, the soldier will fight everything and everywhere, including their household and family. Whatever you say or show to them will be interpreted (mostly subconsciously) in terms of “should I attack now or wait for better intel?”
A child pushed around by parents who repeatedly say that he/she is good for nothing and doesn’t want to understand or help will grow into such a person. He/she has a lot of experience as a useless obstacle, and will become even more proficient in it in the course of his/her life. Whatever gift or best intention you offer to them, they will interpret it as “why? I am not enough, anyway”. And they will voluntarily undermine, sabotage, damage and destroy the best opportunities that come into their lives.
What you are referring in the part about science language is a different form. We have language of communication (interactions, of living beings) and language of functions (of inanimate objects). The former we use to make contact, the latter serves as a tool of adjusting / changing / modifying the inanimate world. Both need precision and definitions. The problem is that we are excellent at defining in functional language (see https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=types+of+screws&iax=images&ia=images), and we are absolutely useless in understanding, naming, and conveying human experience.
Strangely enough, psychologists know this secret. Do you have any inner conflicts and unresolved situations? Make an effort and name it precisely and accurately, and the problem disappears. It’s a magic process, and it takes 10 minutes. They won’t show it to you, because they need to charge you for 3 years of therapy…
A great article with great insights. Thank you. So rich in items to read, re-read, analyze and reconsider again. I love it. Will need more time to sink into it.
From the other post. I like talking with you and I don't care if someone else is following us. (And they can do it). Since we are not direct messaging, I need to answer your reply somewhere. Substack comments get hard to "thread" because they get too narrow, so you have to start on top again. Better to move to the next post (not this one).
I have been trying to ask you for your feedback on this: https://whynotthink.substack.com/p/5-p-lets-diverge-from-our-usual-into
Let's move our conversations over there.
Hi Dan, I see that you are having some lively interchanges on previous posts. If you get time to look at this one again, I would appreciate your insight and feedback.
Thanks