Life: Blink and you will miss it!

Communication and Speech

This is an interesting one for me.  Lets look at communication.  The only objective reason of communication is a survival tool.  It is the only possible reason it evolved. Even if we appeared in the biblical sense without actually evolving, why communicate? 

I think most if not all living things do it.  Birds ‘sing’, whales ‘sing’, dogs bark, humans talk.  And that is just one layer. Peel that layer and there is body language.  Dogs have it for sure (the look I used to get from my dog when I kicked her off the couch or out my bed says it all!).  Humans have it.  Monkeys have it (Ever seen a film of a monkey jumping up and down to get something?).  And body language is so powerful I will have to dedicate a whole section to it!

Then with humans there is another level.  The ability to scratch/create/scribble marks of a certain colour and texture on a medium of a different colour and texture to symbolize something.  Like what you are reading right now.  Its actually just dark lines on a white background yet your brain is translating that to a meaning. Look closer.  Much closer… in fact if you look so close to see each line as totally separate you see it as a line, with no meaning, but as you start to make the line smaller it becomes a letter, which has meaning, and then a few or words.  But even sentences sometimes have much deeper meaning then what the words symbolize.  

‘Meta-meaning’ is when communication is passed between sources, yet the communication on one level says one thing and on another might have a different meaning.  E.g. If I say I hate all blacks, most people would assume I am racist and referring to humans of a darker skin colour.  Yet I said: I (me, the subject, in big letter or capital to denote the start of the sentence, or in this case to denote something important – me!) hate (what it is I do or feel), all (describing what is coming next) blacks (with the B in capitals to make a point.).  Most people would assume I am referring to Black people.  I could be referring to anything of black colour, and anyone who heard me say that might not ask me to clarify.  If they did I might say: I hate all black cars. The difference is in one sentence black is assumed to be the ‘noun’ or object I am talking about, which is then assumed to be a ‘race’ of people. And the other sentence black describes the object I am talking about. 

Speech has huge Meta-meaning which we humans use to great effect.  Ever said this to someone you are close to: (*with a sigh :D) “I wish I had someone to tickle my back?? Fully meaning that you want that someone to tickle your back, but asking them in an indirect way.  Why is this done? What possible purpose does it saying one thing yet mean something else have?

 

And there is other communication.  When a mother knows something is wrong with a child continents away.  When twins who were separated at birth follow very similar lines and more… this is another separate topic of discussion

 

On Listening and hearing:

 

I think that people who hear what is being said, not just what is spoken, are people who listen to themselves first and foremost because how can you hear someone if you keep interrupting them with your emotions, you have to be quiet and in order to do that you have to have heard yourself