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Ref Andrius and "meaning ultimately depends on the context" June 9, 2011

Hi Andrius

I don't pretend to read all the group posts that land in my inbox - but I do try to dip in to yours now and again to sample your thoughts and activities. (This means I may miss ones from you intended for me - please skype me if that happens)

I'm glad I saw you email copied below because of this area of your thinking:
 

What the example shows is that meaning ultimately depends on the context
which we interpret. Any explanations that we write may also be
misinterpreted. Thus there is no way to explicitly assure that somebody
means what we mean. However, the context may indeed coincide in all that
is relevant to us, either explicitly or implicitly.

I think this is so important in our post-web world. Obviously it has always been important, but its importance is magnified now. So many of us are connecting at a distance with people whose cultures are dramatically different from our own. We try to communicate about ideas, roles, structures, feelings - all kinds of complicated things - and it is temping to believe we all have a shared understanding. Perhaps that never really happens. Perhaps all we ever really do in dig deeper into our own understanding, and develop that, in response to someone else sharing their own explorations of understanding. 

Even the simplest of words may conjour up completely different images to different people - or even to ourselves as we picture ourselves in different place. I think of being with my friends in Nigeria or back home in the UK and of some words that would conjour up very different pictures in the two situations - school, kitchen, breakfast, family, water, wedding, party, market, taxi, greetings, condolences, morning, evening, rain, sun ... the list could go on.

Maybe that is why we need story telling (and pattern languages) in our post-web world - so that communication is tied firmly into context through anecdotes. Maybe generalisations only work effectively when people are living in the same cultural groups or working in the same silos.

Pamela

On 9 June 2011 21:35, <ms@ms.lt> wrote:
 

Michael, Thank you for your great letters!

Bob, I look forward to meeting with you. It was very productive for me! I
also invite others who want help on questions they are investigating.

Bob, I invite us to meet at the Reading Amoeba evening which David Stein
leads at 7:00 pm, Sunday at the St.Francis Catholic Worker House in
Uptown, 4652 N.Kenmore Ave, just East of the Wilson red line stop, where
we met last time. We could meet before the evening. Then at the evening
we're all invited to read aloud from books we've been reading, but in our
case, we could instead read aloud from what we've written ourselves, such
as your Seekers dialogue.
http://stfrancisworker.weebly.com/contact-information.html

Michael, what's a question that you don't know the answer to, but wish to
answer? That will help me respond productively to your letters.

An example that I find helpful is the following. I ask my students, What
is 10+4? and they answer 14, and then I say, No, it is 2! Do you know why?
Because I'm thinking about a clock. 10 o'clock plus 4 o'clock is 2 o'clock
on a clock.

What the example shows is that meaning ultimately depends on the context
which we interpret. Any explanations that we write may also be
misinterpreted. Thus there is no way to explicitly assure that somebody
means what we mean. However, the context may indeed coincide in all that
is relevant to us, either explicitly or implicitly. That's why
existentialism is important, because it's important for us that our words
and concepts be grounded in the questions relevant to our existence.
Michael, if I know what you're investigating, then I have a chance to find
agreement with you. Overall, "certainty" is a helpful topic. I'm
interested to relate spirit and structure, just as God and everything are
related as concepts.

Michael, Perry Recker very much liked your letters!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
ms@ms.lt
(773) 306-3807
http://www.selflearners.net

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