Bridge to nowhere

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion
that it has taken place.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

 

A word is a representation. Our language has syntax and grammar, and a lexicon of defined words which are themselves ordered arrangements of representative letters; this is a very flexible representative construct, but we can more generally identify a class of entities which exist not only as things-in-themselves but also as representations of other things. These symbols may exist subjectively or objectively, but they are translatable from the subjective to the objective realms and back again. They therefore have the capacity to transcend subjectivity, to communicate the subjective world of one mind-artist to that of another mind-observer. They are intersubjective.

What I am writing here, with these words, is an expression of my subjective world. Every word I use has an objective existence as pixels on a screen, and you can observe them with your eye; but every word you read and understand generates within your Cartesian theater some subjective entity, and the arrangement of all of the words allows you the freedom to arrange your own subjective version of the world I'm expressing. Your world may not be the same as mine - indeed, I'm about to argue below that it cannot be, and we'll later develop that argument into a powerful teleological principle that I call parasimplicity - but it exists for you the way mine exists for me, and the words we're sharing now are the bridge between those worlds. Intersubjectivity expresses the connection between two subjective realms, and makes explicit the relation between Artist and Observer alluded to before. In this formulation, communication is literally an Art.

The expression that "communication is an art," in ordinary parlance, connotes a certain degree of skill incumbent upon us when we intend to share some aspect of our subjective reality with some other objective being. It draws our attention to the real risk that what we convey when we produce some intersubjective expression is not, after all, what we intended to convey. The old parlor game "Chinese Whispers" demonstrates how this risk arises at both ends of the communicating 'bridge' - indeed, the more people there are intersubjectively sharing an idea, the greater this cumulative risk becomes.

We can posit a maximum number of observers who can effectively share an idea without corrupting it for at least one of the group, but for right now let's leave that to one side - another unconsidered trifle, so to speak. Let's instead consider what is going on when we establish the intersubjective connection: when, for example, you read something I have written.