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What are the limitations of conversation?

:- Doug.

How is best to think about conversation?

:- Doug.

What is the problem of conversation?

:- Doug.

Here are some things that seem to invite some parallels or contrasts between mind and conversation:

# Mind is interacting parts. Conversation is interacting parts.

# The interacting is triggered by difference. In both cases. But in conversation, it might be triggered by a desire to show similarity, attraction, affinity.

# Mental process requires energy from a collateral source. Conversation gathers energy from the “others” in the conversation.

# Mental process requires circular or more complex chains of causation. Seems clear conversation does too.

# In mental process, the effects of difference are treated as transforms of the preceding events. Conversation sometimes restates, sometimes transforms, sometimes contradicts. The liveliness of conversation comes just here.

# In mental process there is a hierarchy of logical types immanent in the phenomena. I suspect there is a hierarchy of logical types in conversation, e.g. chit-chat to deeper to meta-conversation, to meta-meta-conversation.

# Mental process is always a sequence of interacting parts. Conversation by definition is too.

# Difference is in the nature of relationship and therefore is not in time or space. The same can be said of the liveliness of conversation, but conversation is aided by closeness in space and possibly time.

# Slight difference is difficult for mind to perceive; slight difference in conversation might similarly be boring.

# In biologic systems, the end of the sequence (round?) sets up future repetition. Seems true of conversation.

# In biologic systems, two sets of energy are at play: that which opens the spigot, and that which flows through the system. Starting words, and the flow that happens.

# Runaway is possible in human systems, and it takes little energy by one to destroy others or the integration of a society. This bears study and consideration in conversation, since it is most certainly observed, and study of it might yield some valuable insights for improving conversation: what might be the self-corrective links?

# Time added to the relationships gives rise to emergent properties—all carry out something no one of them brought in—and this is a clue to the self-corrective we seek.

# This self-corrective may be in the nature of a new logical type.

# The switch does not exist, except in the moment of being thrown. This is a relatively less visible different logical type.

# The effect is not the cause.

# There is no simple relationship between the magnitude of the trigger and the resulting response. This could be valuable, if it could be tracked and forecast, but it seems random and thus dangerous.

# We probably can only guess at wholes. This is a starting point to study and might lead to more learning, which may be the same as more guesses.

:- Doug.

In conversation, having available to us another’s point of view, varying from ours, gives us a way to understand. But there is more there, since the other might actually bring in new pieces of information; or together our relating these things might create a new idea: take us to a different logical dimension. So the added person, and especially the overlaps and triggers, adds or takes information to a power.

:- Doug.

In conversation, something akin to binocular vision adds depth, and variety, and possibility. Multiple people, that is multiple sensors, give us at least confirmation of what we think we are experiencing. This may be a function that our world is not single, but is in fact made in our heads or minds, and we can never be sure exactly what we see or smell.

:- Doug.

We can never know when the conversation is full, or rather optimum, for another of Gregory Bateson’s basic premises is that for organic things, there is nothing for which more is always good; rather there is an optimal quantity past which the next increment is toxic. If this applies to conversation, then there is a place in conversation when it is “over:” more would take away. So it would seem a rule of thumb (a bad thing in itself but also) might be to stop before you feel full. Like eating. It is worth trying, attending.

:- Doug.

The larger, the conversation
I cannot control
Instead, perhaps, be of service

:- Doug.

What is it that makes for life in conversation? This is perhaps my study. The hubris to avoid is to think I have at any time found the bounds, the way, or even the key. Finding that means I have not found truth, but only my own tail.

:- Doug.

It is surprising we have almost no knowledge of the system of conversation which must surely exist to lead to growth and differentiation in conversation itself. Study here. But beware of hubris.

:- Doug.

I could work on eliminating Daylight Savings Time and would actually be working on human attitudes—toward being more human. In working on conversation I am also working on the deeper—the attitudes and humanity.

:- Doug.

The grandchildren have a dream but not the knowledge of how it fits the world. Elders have both and need the grandchildren’s energy and years. Join.

:- Doug.

If mathematics is a reflection of how humans organize their thoughts, then so too is how we organize our thoughts around nature and humans as a part of or apart from nature and how we treat other animals. We make the world. To be our world.

:- Doug.

Conversation might become a reflection of large parts and many parts of the world outside the speaker and hearer.

:- Doug.

When you are selling your religion to others you are acting to increase your group, therefore to reduce the outsiders, killing them with the kindness of bringing them inside, but killing all the same. You are cutting your group and yourself off from new life, as if the world were only Yes and No without shades of purple and yellow and green and aromas you cannot name.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2107

How do we choose to shape and color our world? We all shape the world, some by lying on it, plumping the pillow, some by dancing, some by shoveling.

Please pass it on.

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It comes as it goes.

:- Doug.

Are there only two sides of a coin, ever?

:- Doug.

How will we assess our lives in covid times? And how access them?

:- Doug.

I too am perhaps an applied scientist before the science is ripe to be applied.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a difference that makes a difference. How is that? What is really going on? Why does it matter?

:- Doug.

Gregory Bateson is making a point in my current reading that ideas are really differences; so is communication; so is learning; so is change. Therefore, so is conversation: I extend the logic. Everything we are doing in conversation, whether to show how we are of the same tribe or to convey an idea, is to change the other’s concept of us, or of something else in the world of things or ideas. So is conversation change, difference? I like to think in terms of difference rather than change. Conversation is ideally mutual change, and eating together of words and ideas and imbibing one another.

:- Doug.

It is my energy and I want your energy to run along with mine in its same direction toward the same end. That’s why I converse. The difference that makes a difference is in the coin of energy released.

:- Doug