Archiv der Kategorie: Meaning design

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There is no meaning per se

Meaning is always arising through the conscious processing of words that someone disseminates. The scope used to be limited to people in the immediate vicinity. As a result, content was always surrounded by comprehensible cultural, linguistic and social context that made understanding easier. For centuries, the mass media have provided words from expert publicist to an ever-growing audience – via press, radio and TV. This led to a unified language and a press code that is committed to truth, reliability, and human dignity. At the same time, the art of interpreting content in a twisted way evolved, in order to manipulate the audience’s formation of opinion.
Through the Internet it is now again possible to exchange thoughts directly from one to the other without expert brokers – however, limited to the words used, which are internalized without additional context information as well as without hints on purposeful influence. As recipients of vast amounts of news, we assume that these messages mean exactly what we understand.

It is based on the fallacy of thinking that sentences and words mean something unambiguous. Perhaps we should be aware of the features of statements. This article deals only with written and spoken language – not pictorial representations. For the sake of simplicity, we speak of speakers and listeners, which also include writers and readers.

  • A collection of words
    Language delivers a series of words, which, more or less, follow grammatical rules. The speaker chooses the expressions from its vocabulary, with a little luck oriented towards its target group – the appropriate national language and an appropriate jargon. The audience receives the words and understands the meaning through their own language skills. The general assumption is that this leads to a far-reaching overlapping of meanings, which is very unlikely.
  • A variety of intentions
    Each statement always contains several intentions: 1) Say what is; 2) Urge to (or not to) do something; 3) Disclose, to (or not to) do something; 4) Share, how you are feeling; 5) Announce, what applies. All this is in one sentence and is noticed according to the interest of the listeners. The following statement is drawn arbitrarily from the stream of news: A denies that B has two things: Experience and charisma. What does this include: 1) B lacks experience and charisma. 2) B is not acceptable. 3) A does not accept B. 4) A does not feel well with B. 5) B will not get it. Scan any sentence for the included messages.
  • Infelicity of the expression
    A statement can be made with different words. And sometimes you get carried away with an awkward wording. Example is the statement “Reconcile the social with the national”. Despite the changed word order you become aware of the double sense. With the amount of other words one could have used, the question arises, to what extent this happened intentionally or unintentionally.
  • Who knows, what it actually meant
    The message behind the words is not always clear, even with a conscious word choice. A statement can be meant as it is said. However, something can also be expressed without meaning it. Quickly, something is expressed that is meant differently. It is particularly frustrating, when you say something and nobody understands what was in your mind. For these reasons, an open, reciprocal discourse, with questions and answers, is always preferable to a one-sided proclamation.

Bottom line: There is reason to fear that there is no longer a common basis for expressing universally accepted facts. The real meaning lies in the eye of the beholder and its own opportunistic interpretation. Although the speaker thinks that it can control this, it is the listener, who processes the content and intention of an utterance. Today, all those, who have access to the Internet, can easily publish. This exacerbates the situation that opinions come into the world that deserves to be called alternative facts. The background is unknown and the contents are adopted uncritically. The fact checkers don’t help here. Direct exchange on the Internet is a new form of conversation, in which opinions are exchanged. In the interest of the freedom of expression, this must be allowed, even if the content is available worldwide without delay and reaches directly immediately vast numbers of people. We must learn to distinguish between personal statements and expert publications, as in everyday street conversations – even, if the differences are difficult to perceive. It is worth taking a look at the imprint of the publicists. There, a part of the context becomes visible or obscured and one recognizes who you are dealing with or not. If the imprint, the names of the authors, the address and the telephone number are missing, or if the contact address is a Freemail, or if the responsibilities are located abroad, the contents are questionable. In any case, there is simply no meaning per se.

The natural limits

How unimaginable seems to be a city that is gigantic and divided into a lower and an upper town. The border separates the two like the Berlin Wall the East- from the West-part of the city. There is no exchange of any kind. Since centuries the Upper dwellers and the Lower dwellers have forgotten the existence of each other. Above the sun never sets – below it never rises. As a result, people have adapted to their environment and speak in the meantime their own language, which sounds the same but transports different meaning. One day an explosion ruptures a huge crater, which connects the city from above with the one below. Both of them shut the crater off and recognize that they have direct neighbors, who even seem to speak their language. The boundary evaporates.

The first meetings are pleasant, since the languages are very similar and use even the same words. But then it becomes apparent that the two areas have developed in very different directions. The following examples show the differences.

  • Visual perception
    The city above has equipped over the centuries all areas that are not approached by sunlight with artificial light around the clock. That way they eventually forgot the darkness. It is similar to the city below. Over time the light has disappeared from the under town. After all, they forgot the light.
    At the crater the Upper and the Lower dwellers get together. And they both say, “I can’t see.” An astonishing consensus, since both come from completely different surroundings. It takes a while for somebody to understand that they both mean something different. The Upper dwellers can’t see because they do not penetrate the darkness. And the Lower dwellers see nothing because they are blinded by the light.
  • Auditory perception
    The hearing habits have also developed differently in the two neighborhoods. The dark corridors of the city below swallow up any sound waves after only a few yards. As a result, the hearing of the Lower dwellers has been readjusted to the low frequencies, whose long waves can still be heard far away. On the surface, the Upper dwellers enjoy the timbres created by the high frequencies.
    After the crater formation, they meet in the crater and don’t believe what they hear. And they both say, “I hear something unusual.” The low tones irritate the Upper dwellers and the high sounds feel strange to the Lower dwellers.
  • Kinesthetic perception
    Above and below ground, heat receptors have adapted to the respective habitats. The permanent sunshine and the artificial light tan the Upper dwellers and provide an even climate. In contrast, the Lower dwellers are quite pale and used to the wet freshness of the underground.
    However, in the crater they are exposed to a new environment to which their thermal sensation reacts strongly and both say “I feel uncomfortable”. The unfamiliar coolness causes stress to the Upper dwellers and the unfamiliar heat to the Lower dwellers.
  • Olfactory perception
    Both districts have got used to their atmosphere over a long period of time. In the city above there is always a high level of humidity, which transports smelling particularly well. In the absence of light, they have become accustomed to following their nose, which is able to distinguish their environment and recognize the fellow human beings by their scent. In the upper town the air is dry and transports few smells. Since they can rely on their eyes, they don’t pay much attention to scents.
    In the crater, the two atmospheres meet and Upper and Lower dwellers say “It smells strange.”
  • Gustatory perception
    Both districts have adapted their food to their environment. The Upper dwellers love spicy food that is eaten raw. The Lower dwellers prefer boiled food, which less irritates the taste buds, but bland with a moist, wide vapidness.
    During the meetings in the crater, the delicacies of the kitchens are exchanged. And both say, “That’s inedible.”

Long story short. Radical constructivism postulates that there is no objective reality, but that everyone constructs his or her own personal image of the reality from his or her sensory stimuli and experiences. In the example above, we have performed a simple mental game that shows how our environment determines our way of expressing ourselves. Obviously, the Upper and Lower dwellers have lived far apart. They adapted ideally to their respective environment. Interestingly, however, their language has remained unchanged over the centuries. They may have forgotten some words that do not fit into their reality, but central utterances have survived. But they always mean something completely different. Our senses provide visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory stimuli, which we mix with our experiences to eventually express ourselves – in our example with the same words for different meanings.

Bottom line: Since Descartes, we have been trying to explore the world objectively. Today, we know that our perception is not in a position to provide a joined reality. Science has long recognized this. However, we are still trying to objectify everything. The above example is intended to show in the simplest possible way, how different the world can be perceived, depending on one’s own view and experience. We can use these insights in our daily communication by being aware of the following.

First: It is the listener, not the speaker, who supplies meaning to an utterance. (Heinz von Foerster).

Second: You cannot not communicate (Paul Watzlawick).

In everyday life this means that one should again and again be aware of the natural limits and to make an effort to understand the counterpart.