The Worthiness of Discussing Esteemed Human Qualites
This group's discussion does, or at least has, substantially
focussed on esteemed and laudible human qualities -- though that term,
that symbol has not been used to to describe these attributes of
fuller human potential. And such discussion often gets bogged down as
individuals try to clearly communicate what they think or seemed to
have experienced, using imprecise and often differently understood
words -- which are only symbols -- not the thing in itself. We have
not achieved clear communal intersubjective communication, and a
language (in the broadest sense -- whereby art, music, cuisine and
massage are all forms of language) to enable this worthy
communication.
Limits and Constraints
The flaws of mapping words, representative symbols, to phenomenon
and subjective experience are well known, but often ignored. There are
multiple levels of such incongruence:
i)between what is experienced or seen and what is understood or
apprehended (cognitive errors),
ii) between what is apprehended and how one is able to, to more or
greater degrees, imperfectly articulated it, and
iii) imperfect communication to others of what is apprehended due
to differences in in the imperfect interpersonal meanings of the
symbols (words) used to communicate.
A theme that has interested me for some years, is the habit or perhaps
it is an inclination to lump laudable human qualities in to a common
bag, and imperfectly attach a symbol to it, a symbol that often has
quite different meanings among different speakers and and various
listeners.
For example, "he was a great man", "he lived a good life". What is of
interest to me are the component attributes that are under that one
umbrella "greatness" across diverse sets of listeners and
communicators. People may debate if Lincoln was a great man or not a
great man, each referencing a quite different set of qualities that,
for them, comprise greatness.
The Role and Traps of MetaSymbols
Perhaps, all parties have "compassion" as a common quality
attached to and within that nebulous bag symbolized by the word
"great". Discussing whether or to what degree Lincoln was
compassionate, is a more effective pathway of communication, with a
higher signal to noise ratio than a discusseion about "greatness" --
if that symbol is left undefined. And even then, greatness is not a
symbol that can be pinned on any one thing. It is a meta-symbol, a bag
so to speak, filled with qualities that, can be pinned with a specific
symbol, at least with a greater degree of correspondnece than
meta-symbols.
Meta -symbols are wonderful, as can be heirarchies of them. It
promotes efficient communication WHEN all the components are well
understood and have a common shared meaning. The "Theory of General
Relativity" is a meta symbol, which, for a discrete set of
well-studied individuals has a very precise means for a clearly
defined set of component ideas, experimens, calculations and
equations. In conversation between two such individuals, it is far
more efficient to say "General Theory of Relativity" than to repeat
the whole theory, experiments, calculations and equations every time
that it is referenced.
Such communication efficiency is captured in the well-known prison
joke numbering system joke. "41" -- everyone laughs because they all
now what the symbol 41 represents. Perhaps a meta symbol of all the
jokes, for example, "108", might keep them rolling on the floor for days.
Yet for those outside these groups, (physicists or prisoners) the
communally well understood terms are not well understood, may be
baffling, often has quite different connotations among various
speakers and listeners.
Discreet human qualities, lower on the food chain of meta symbols
like "great", still can suffer from high incongruence on all three
levels, a low signal to noise ratio (S/N), even within groups with
common vocabularies and experiences -- such as this group.
Intersubjectivity of Personal Subjective Experience
Subjective experiences (SE) and qualities often comprise a
majority of qualities in meta-symbols such as "greatness" when
discussing or pondering laudable and esteemed human qualities.
(Laudable and esteemed also being subject to a low S/N, -- but with
collegiate whiteboardsmanship, I will, for the moment, assume that away.)
Many such singular symbols corresponding to SEs still are only rough
approximations, have a fuzzy correspondence, to the SEs in and of them
selves. The three intersubjective incongruences (SI3) raise their
heads high in this realm. Conversing about singular SE and qualities
(SEQ), such as compassion is difficult within this jungle ruled by the
three incongruities.
Far more challenging are discussions about meta symbols such as
enlightenment becomes quite humerous at times, watching people with
quite different definitions, sets of component attributes (a misnomer,
(but again I claim "whiteboardsmanship!") (WBM), and experiences, and
ego ferocities, talk past each other, like two ships NOT passing in
the night.
A question arises: are there laudible human qualities, that can be
articulated in signular symbolic form, not is nebulous meta-symbols,
that have a higher level of intersubjective congruence?
I suggest yes. More later.
