What is communication?
(Vilém Flusser, Kommunikologie. Frankfurt / Main 2003, third edition, 9-15.)
Human communication is an artificial process. Rests on artifice, on inventions, instruments, ie on symbols that have been sorted into codes. Men do not understand each other in a "natural." Speaking tones do not go "natural" as in bird song, and writing is also not a gesture "natural" as the dance of bees. Hence the theory of communication is not any natural science, but belongs to those disciplines that deal with the unnatural aspects of man, and who were once called "human sciences." The U.S. designation of "humanities" gives the essence of these disciplines more accurately.
Only in this sense it can be called a social animal, a zoon politikon. Is said to be an idiot (originally, a "private person") when he has not learned to use communication tools (eg., A language). Idiocy, imperfect human being is a lack of art. Of course there are also relationships between men who are "natural" (such as that between mother and infant, or sex) and it could be said of them that are forms of communication more fundamental. But they are more characteristic of human communication and are otherwise contaminated by artificial concepts ("influenced by culture.")
The artificial nature of human communication that he understands with the other men through artifice, is not always conscious man. After learning a code tend to forget its artificiality. Once we have learned the code of gesture, is not thought again that the only nod means "yes" for those who use such a code. The codes (and symbols of those facts) become a sort second nature, and the codified world where we live, the world of significant events such as head movement, traffic signs and furniture, make us forget the world of "first nature" (the world significant) . Ultimately, this is the objective of the codified world around us: let us forget that he is an artificial tissue that fills with meaning to the insignificant nature in and of themselves meaningless, and that suits our requirements. The purpose of human communication is to make us forget the context devoid of meaning in which we are completely alone and cut off, ie that world in which we find individual sentenced to prison and die: the world of "nature."
Obviously, a well know, about the loneliness and meaninglessness, can not live. Human communication weaves a veil of coded world, a veil of art and science, philosophy and religion around us and increasingly dense weave, so that we forget our own loneliness and our death, and also the death of those they want. In short, man communicates with others, is a "political animal", not because he is a social animal, but because he is a solitary animal, which is unable to live alone. The
theory of communication deals with the artificial tissue that makes us forget the loneliness and is, therefore, a Humanity. Certainly this is not the place to clarify the difference between "nature", on the one hand, and "art" (or "culture" or "spirit"), on the other. But the methodological consequence of finding that the communication theory is not a natural science, must be put into words. Around late 19 th century had become accepted in general terms, that the natural sciences explain the phenomena, while the "human sciences" are interpreted. (For example, it explains a cloud if it refers their causes, and read a book, if pointed to its meaning) Accordingly, the theory of communication would be an interpretive disciplines: she would have to do with the meanings.
Unfortunately we have forgotten what it is naive to believe that the phenomena themselves claim or an explanation or interpretation. Clouds can be interpreted (the seers and psychologists do this) books can be explained (historical materialists and some other psychologists do this.) It seems that a case becomes "nature", when it is explained and becomes "spirit" when we decide to interpret it. According to this, in general, for a Christian everything would be "art" (that is, a divine work) and for an enlightened philosopher of the 18th century, in general, everything would be "nature" (ie, in principle, explicable). The difference between natural science and "science of the spirit" should not refer the dispute, therefore, the matter, but the position of investigator.
Only this does not reflect the actual state of things. It is true that everything can be "humanized" (ie., Read the clouds) and everything can be "naturalized" (eg., Discover the cause of books). But with this, we must be aware that the phenomenon investigated in either of two modes of action, showing different aspects and, therefore, it makes little sense to speak of "the same phenomenon." A tag cloud is interpreted by meteorologists and a book explained has nothing to do with literature.
If you use what you just said in the phenomena of human communication, then the problem would recognize that we have been talking. Indeed, attempts to explain human communication (for example, as a continuous development of communication of the mammal, as a result of human anatomy or as a method of transferring information), then you speak a different phenomenon that if he tried to interpret (or show what this means.) This paper proposes to take in the sight of this fact. Consequently, the "theory of communication" should be understood as an interpretative discipline (unlike, for example, of "information theory" or "computing"), and human communication must be seen as a phenomenon significant and interpret.
The unnatural phenomenon, which becomes visible under the interpretative point of view was not yet fully understood with the artificiality of its methods, nor the intentional production of codes. Human communication is not natural, even unnatural, because it attempts to store the information acquired. She is "negative entropy." We can say that the transfer of information gained from generation to generation is an essential aspect of human communication and presents a characteristic of man in general. Which is an animal, who invented the trick of being able to accumulate a lot of foreground.
is true that the "nature" there are also such negative entropic processes. As an example, we might consider the development of biology as a tendency to achieve increasingly complex ways, to an accumulation of information -As a process leading to configure structures increasingly unlikely. What we would say that human communication submitted a final interim stage in this development process, at any rate, every time you try to explain the phenomenon of human communication. But then talk of a different phenomenon mentioned here.
Viewed from the standpoint of explaining the natural science, amassing information is a process that is played behind a much larger process, facing the loss of information, to ultimately end in this: an epicycle. Indeed, the oak is more complex than the acorn, but she eventually turns to ash, which is less complex than the acorn. Indeed, the structure of the body of an ant is more complex than the structure of the amoeba, but the land closer to the sun and all the biological epicycle eventually turn into ashes, where the ashes once again becomes less complex than an amoeba. The epicycles of information assurance are indeed unlikely, but statistically possible, and must lead anyway and the same, statistically, by the second law of thermodynamics, as probable.
In a completely different and exactly the reverse, this trend entropic communication negative human appears when it tries to interpret rather than explain. This is when the accumulation of information does not become statistically less probable process, although possible, it is captured as a human endeavor-not, therefore, as a result of chance and necessity, but of freedom. Storage of acquired information is not interpreted as an exceptional case law of thermodynamics (as happens in the computer), but as an unnatural man intent is doomed to die and, indeed, perhaps as follows:
The thesis that human communication is an artifice against loneliness willing to death, and the thesis that it is a process that moves in the opposite direction to the general trend of nature, from the entropy, say both the same thing. The stubborn tendency of the nature of moving towards ever more probable states, to build towards the ashes (to the "heat death"), is only the objective aspect of subjective experience of our solitude and our stupid sentence die. Both from the standpoint of existential-like attempt to overcome death in community with others-as well as from the formal point of view, an attempt to store and produce information-our communication appears as an attempt to deny the nature, and this not only concerns the "nature" out there, but also the "nature" of man.
If we interpreted our commitment to communicating this way, the statistical considerations (and, in principle, quantifying) then would become insignificant. The question of how likely are the stones and bricks together in a city and when is it again to collapse in a heap of rubble, would then be a false question. The city was born by an intention to give a meaning to the meaninglessness of existence thrown death. The question of how many monkeys banging few years have typewriter to type in the "so necessary" Divine Comedy is therefore a meaningless question. Dante's work should not therefore be explained from its causes, but must be interpreted from their intentions. Therefore neither can be measured with the scale that scientists use natural human commitment by the information storage face of death. The carbon test natural timing exemplary in the loss of information of specific radioactive atoms. However, the artificial time of human freedom (the "historical time") can not be measured by reversing the formula used in the test carbon as accumulation of information. The accumulation of information is so far the story, but only, as it were, the dead remains of the driving intention of the story to death, therefore, freedom.
important thing is to retain it, that there is no contradiction between the interpretive approach and the approach outlined in the communication between the communication and information theory. A phenomenon is not a "thing in itself, but one thing that appears within a consideration, and does not make much sense to talk with two types of consideration of the" same thing. " Considered from the point of view of computing, communication is a different phenomenon that occurs in the light of this work. In computer science, communication is a "natural" process and therefore has to be elucidated in an objective manner. Here, communication is seen as an unnatural process and must be interpreted intersubjective. Somewhere will have to intersect the two fields of vision. The common of the two perspectives could be assumed, then from a third perspective. However, this is beyond the scope of this work. His view is a "humanist" because human communication is a phenomenon of freedom.
(translation B. Onetto, Valdivia, agosto_2004)
(Vilém Flusser, Kommunikologie. Frankfurt / Main 2003, third edition, 9-15.)
Human communication is an artificial process. Rests on artifice, on inventions, instruments, ie on symbols that have been sorted into codes. Men do not understand each other in a "natural." Speaking tones do not go "natural" as in bird song, and writing is also not a gesture "natural" as the dance of bees. Hence the theory of communication is not any natural science, but belongs to those disciplines that deal with the unnatural aspects of man, and who were once called "human sciences." The U.S. designation of "humanities" gives the essence of these disciplines more accurately.
Only in this sense it can be called a social animal, a zoon politikon. Is said to be an idiot (originally, a "private person") when he has not learned to use communication tools (eg., A language). Idiocy, imperfect human being is a lack of art. Of course there are also relationships between men who are "natural" (such as that between mother and infant, or sex) and it could be said of them that are forms of communication more fundamental. But they are more characteristic of human communication and are otherwise contaminated by artificial concepts ("influenced by culture.")
The artificial nature of human communication that he understands with the other men through artifice, is not always conscious man. After learning a code tend to forget its artificiality. Once we have learned the code of gesture, is not thought again that the only nod means "yes" for those who use such a code. The codes (and symbols of those facts) become a sort second nature, and the codified world where we live, the world of significant events such as head movement, traffic signs and furniture, make us forget the world of "first nature" (the world significant) . Ultimately, this is the objective of the codified world around us: let us forget that he is an artificial tissue that fills with meaning to the insignificant nature in and of themselves meaningless, and that suits our requirements. The purpose of human communication is to make us forget the context devoid of meaning in which we are completely alone and cut off, ie that world in which we find individual sentenced to prison and die: the world of "nature."
Obviously, a well know, about the loneliness and meaninglessness, can not live. Human communication weaves a veil of coded world, a veil of art and science, philosophy and religion around us and increasingly dense weave, so that we forget our own loneliness and our death, and also the death of those they want. In short, man communicates with others, is a "political animal", not because he is a social animal, but because he is a solitary animal, which is unable to live alone. The
theory of communication deals with the artificial tissue that makes us forget the loneliness and is, therefore, a Humanity. Certainly this is not the place to clarify the difference between "nature", on the one hand, and "art" (or "culture" or "spirit"), on the other. But the methodological consequence of finding that the communication theory is not a natural science, must be put into words. Around late 19 th century had become accepted in general terms, that the natural sciences explain the phenomena, while the "human sciences" are interpreted. (For example, it explains a cloud if it refers their causes, and read a book, if pointed to its meaning) Accordingly, the theory of communication would be an interpretive disciplines: she would have to do with the meanings.
Unfortunately we have forgotten what it is naive to believe that the phenomena themselves claim or an explanation or interpretation. Clouds can be interpreted (the seers and psychologists do this) books can be explained (historical materialists and some other psychologists do this.) It seems that a case becomes "nature", when it is explained and becomes "spirit" when we decide to interpret it. According to this, in general, for a Christian everything would be "art" (that is, a divine work) and for an enlightened philosopher of the 18th century, in general, everything would be "nature" (ie, in principle, explicable). The difference between natural science and "science of the spirit" should not refer the dispute, therefore, the matter, but the position of investigator.
Only this does not reflect the actual state of things. It is true that everything can be "humanized" (ie., Read the clouds) and everything can be "naturalized" (eg., Discover the cause of books). But with this, we must be aware that the phenomenon investigated in either of two modes of action, showing different aspects and, therefore, it makes little sense to speak of "the same phenomenon." A tag cloud is interpreted by meteorologists and a book explained has nothing to do with literature.
If you use what you just said in the phenomena of human communication, then the problem would recognize that we have been talking. Indeed, attempts to explain human communication (for example, as a continuous development of communication of the mammal, as a result of human anatomy or as a method of transferring information), then you speak a different phenomenon that if he tried to interpret (or show what this means.) This paper proposes to take in the sight of this fact. Consequently, the "theory of communication" should be understood as an interpretative discipline (unlike, for example, of "information theory" or "computing"), and human communication must be seen as a phenomenon significant and interpret.
The unnatural phenomenon, which becomes visible under the interpretative point of view was not yet fully understood with the artificiality of its methods, nor the intentional production of codes. Human communication is not natural, even unnatural, because it attempts to store the information acquired. She is "negative entropy." We can say that the transfer of information gained from generation to generation is an essential aspect of human communication and presents a characteristic of man in general. Which is an animal, who invented the trick of being able to accumulate a lot of foreground.
is true that the "nature" there are also such negative entropic processes. As an example, we might consider the development of biology as a tendency to achieve increasingly complex ways, to an accumulation of information -As a process leading to configure structures increasingly unlikely. What we would say that human communication submitted a final interim stage in this development process, at any rate, every time you try to explain the phenomenon of human communication. But then talk of a different phenomenon mentioned here.
Viewed from the standpoint of explaining the natural science, amassing information is a process that is played behind a much larger process, facing the loss of information, to ultimately end in this: an epicycle. Indeed, the oak is more complex than the acorn, but she eventually turns to ash, which is less complex than the acorn. Indeed, the structure of the body of an ant is more complex than the structure of the amoeba, but the land closer to the sun and all the biological epicycle eventually turn into ashes, where the ashes once again becomes less complex than an amoeba. The epicycles of information assurance are indeed unlikely, but statistically possible, and must lead anyway and the same, statistically, by the second law of thermodynamics, as probable.
In a completely different and exactly the reverse, this trend entropic communication negative human appears when it tries to interpret rather than explain. This is when the accumulation of information does not become statistically less probable process, although possible, it is captured as a human endeavor-not, therefore, as a result of chance and necessity, but of freedom. Storage of acquired information is not interpreted as an exceptional case law of thermodynamics (as happens in the computer), but as an unnatural man intent is doomed to die and, indeed, perhaps as follows:
The thesis that human communication is an artifice against loneliness willing to death, and the thesis that it is a process that moves in the opposite direction to the general trend of nature, from the entropy, say both the same thing. The stubborn tendency of the nature of moving towards ever more probable states, to build towards the ashes (to the "heat death"), is only the objective aspect of subjective experience of our solitude and our stupid sentence die. Both from the standpoint of existential-like attempt to overcome death in community with others-as well as from the formal point of view, an attempt to store and produce information-our communication appears as an attempt to deny the nature, and this not only concerns the "nature" out there, but also the "nature" of man.
If we interpreted our commitment to communicating this way, the statistical considerations (and, in principle, quantifying) then would become insignificant. The question of how likely are the stones and bricks together in a city and when is it again to collapse in a heap of rubble, would then be a false question. The city was born by an intention to give a meaning to the meaninglessness of existence thrown death. The question of how many monkeys banging few years have typewriter to type in the "so necessary" Divine Comedy is therefore a meaningless question. Dante's work should not therefore be explained from its causes, but must be interpreted from their intentions. Therefore neither can be measured with the scale that scientists use natural human commitment by the information storage face of death. The carbon test natural timing exemplary in the loss of information of specific radioactive atoms. However, the artificial time of human freedom (the "historical time") can not be measured by reversing the formula used in the test carbon as accumulation of information. The accumulation of information is so far the story, but only, as it were, the dead remains of the driving intention of the story to death, therefore, freedom.
important thing is to retain it, that there is no contradiction between the interpretive approach and the approach outlined in the communication between the communication and information theory. A phenomenon is not a "thing in itself, but one thing that appears within a consideration, and does not make much sense to talk with two types of consideration of the" same thing. " Considered from the point of view of computing, communication is a different phenomenon that occurs in the light of this work. In computer science, communication is a "natural" process and therefore has to be elucidated in an objective manner. Here, communication is seen as an unnatural process and must be interpreted intersubjective. Somewhere will have to intersect the two fields of vision. The common of the two perspectives could be assumed, then from a third perspective. However, this is beyond the scope of this work. His view is a "humanist" because human communication is a phenomenon of freedom.
(translation B. Onetto, Valdivia, agosto_2004)
