Friday, January 9, 2009

This will be a shorter note, because I ain't got my coffee yet. But let me note one thing about our daily conversations: They are not science. A lot of people confront their normal conversation with the conversations they are doing then they are working or do precious stuff. Let me give you one example: In a scientific conversation -- may it be a thesis, or a presentation or even a talk, you have a clear distinctions between the words. Everything is bound to be defined and there shouldn't be any double meaning. This is why we have to write down so many stuff to make things clear, have to build upon a great fundament that is safe. Safe to talk about the things in the right way. But then there is the normal conversation, the real jazz. A meta-language of its like. I don't bother to define everything right. In fact it's just talking. Isn't it sometimes we are thinking about the map of words like, you got me a map. With clear borders and nothing is something like a doubled thing, meaning something else. I think it is all about our more and more complex life leading to expertise in many areas where we are not, well experts. The enlightenment, or the thought of the enlightenment brought us to a thought most liberals and capitalists advocate nowadays: The thought that the individual knows best what's right in exactly this situation. This thought is just plain wrong. It is not. Because there are many situations where you can't be an expert at. So democracy is bound to fail? Well no. Not exactly. I don't think that the double meanings get in our ways all of the times. Actually it's very handy not to define every meaning every time. Most of the time we just get the point. Our intuition leads the way to understand each other. And democracy at its roots, well is something about the individual thought. But all the leafs are just plain syndicated thoughts. We have a discussion and there the definitions come out of the stone carving itself into our mind and we can make an informed decision. So if you are "correcting" your friend about the right meaning, well it is wrong if you are not having a scientific talk or something. In day to day life the source of scientific knowledge things are changing. And if a word changes its meaning, well than you can inform yourself about the difference. Your thought is important, too. But I personally don't use omnibus for the bus. And bus is just plain wrong. We are just exchanging messages in our conversations. There is no rule of the imperative. And then there are syntax and semantics. Everything you do has a syntax. Everything you intended is just semantics. The black jeans, the red dress, there is always an intention, you can just communicate. If you use words in a certain way, you tell me something about yourself. And this is what all this correction is about. You are talking at another level the meta-level to identify yourself as one of the creatures -- the writers of our language. Or if you correct because of the origin you are a preserver. It is all about your role in society and not the imperative of some theory. If at all there is no theory for the jazz, because then it wouldn't be the jazz. O. K., I go and crap my coffee.