Victoria Hughes wrote at 03/26/2013 12:02 PM: > I'm curious- how do you talk to your friends? Or your children, if > you have any? Or those you want to teach you something?
Great question! I'm often frustrated by my conversations with my friends. I usually feel like I'm offering alternative explanations for various things. They almost universally end up believing I'm "contrarian" or "argumentative". It's unclear to me why they tolerate me. It usually goes something like this: Them: X happened. So to compensate, I will do Y. Me: But perhaps Z really happened and you only thought it was X. And if that's the case, then perhaps P is a better course of action. Them: No, there's no way that Z happened. It was definitely X. Me: There's a person/book/article/theory/... that Z can be mistaken for X or that X is a side effect of Z. Them: No way. I know the truth. I have access to reality. Me: OK. Then after I get home (it's usually a dinner party or somesuch), I find the person/book/article/... and e-mail it to them. In response I get nothing... not even the sound of crickets. 8^) That's how I usually talk to people, friends or not. I have no children, thank Cthulu. And I wish people would do the same with me. I.e. provide alternatives to whatever gravity well I'm stuck in. > From my perspective, anything that is actually asking a question, > and actually listening and considering the answer, and inquiring > into it for new information, and then integrating new information > to continue the dialogue, is not intellectual posturing. In any other conversation, I'd agree. But in this conversation, I'll propose the following. Competent posturing requires just as much asking, listening, consideration, and integration as does non-posturing. I say this from the perspective of fighting. A good fighter knows that the feint is a legitimate fighting move. Yes, you may have to unpack it's _role_ in the fight. But it's just as much a part of fighting as a straightforward attack or defense. The same could be said of, say, my cat's fur fluffing up and it turning sideways when a dog appears. Yes, it's posturing. But it's just as much a part of the interaction as the lightning fast pop to the snout. And remember, I offer this in the spirit of alternatives. I legitimately believe I'm offering you an alternative, albeit one you already know but may not have (yet) invoked in this conversation. > Communication exists for many purposes. I believe that > communication, of which sharing ideas and information is one > category, is not a hierarchical system but a needs-based system. So > by that definition, dialogue is always expressing something about the > speaker, and her/his intentions towards the listener. And (in most > cases other than for a didactic purpose) the purpose is the back and > forth of the dialogue. Then what that reciprocity brings to the > participants. Heh, now you're just pushing my buttons! I don't believe communication (as normally conceived) exists at all. The ideas in your head are forever and completely alien to my head. You may have a mechanism for faithfully translating your ideas into your action or inferring ideas from your perceptions. And I may have similarly faithful translators. But the similarity between your ideas and mine is zero, even if/when the similarity in our behaviors is quite high. But, that doesn't change your conclusion, which I agree with. Reciprocity is critical to the interaction. The difference is only that I believe in sharing actions. The ideas are not shared and largely useless. > If there is no particular forward motion brought about by the > dialogue - in the direction of the purpose for which the dialogue > was established - than that is posturing. I'll offer another alternative. There is no "forward". There is only movement, change. While we may share a behavior space, we probably don't share a vector, a line of progression, in that space. Hence, what you may see as posturing (or aimless wandering), I may legitimately feel to be progress ... even if it's postmodern gobbledygook. > But there are a myriad of options for philosophical dialogue that do > have functional growth / expansion / increased knowledge. I agree, except there is no such thing as knowledge in the idealistic, intellectual sense. There is only _competence_, the ability to perform, to achieve. And that includes the modification of what we _say_ and how we say it by saying things together. -- =><= glen e. p. ropella The ocean parts and the meteors come down ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
