perm filename NOTES.T[DOC,TOB]2 blob
sn#087405 filedate 1974-02-12 generic text, type T, neo UTF8
00100 Pragmatics of Human Communication
00200 Paul Watzlawick,Janet Beavin,Don Jackson (MRI)
00300
00400 Cases of fox and rabbit population,
00500 Point is made that individual phenomena often do not make sense
00600 until considered in some wider system (ecology, the family). Psychology
00700 has tended to concentrate on individual in isolation.
00800
00900 Communication
01000 syntactics-coding and devices
01100 semantics-conventions of meaning
01200 pragmatics-behavior
01300 focus on sender-receiver relation mediated by communication.
01400 Wants to avoid reification of concepts such as dependency,etc.
01500
01600 Feedback systems:
01700 negative feedback-stability
01800 positive feedback-change
01900 this language is that of reinforcement. Couples, families, therapy
02000 groups are feedback systems. Example from schizophrenic families
02100 that the patient is essential to stability of family. Such systems
02200 cannot be analyzed by isolating variables.
02300
02400 Redundancy=predictability of language and communication. Awareness
02500 of behavior being out of context. We are in constant communication
02600 but we do not have much ability in communicating about communication,
02700 meta-communication. Observationally find "rules of game".
02800 There is a difficulty that meta-communication must be in the same
02900 language as communication, while meta-mathematics is in natural
03000 language and mathematics in symbolic terms.
03100
03200 We cannot really know the internal structure of others, ie
03300 know intention. Thus we find it useful to adopt a black box approach
03400 and search in the here and now behavior for rules. Why might be
03500 replaced by "what for". In a feedback system, A's behavior affect
03600 B's and B's affect A's behavior. We cannot really talk about one as
03700 the cause and the other as the effect, even though it is the common
03800 way of thinking and perceiving. Normal/abnormal depends on situation;
03900 schizophrenia can be seen as a reasonable reaction to an untenable
04000 communication context.
04100
00100 You hate those times when I read poetry.
00200 To you it means that I am awake to someone else
00300 That I seek life we no longer hope for together
00400 When I am too tired, too ground down to have
00500 the energy,
00600 You hate that, too, but prefer it,
00700 Having become a like thing, mechanised,
00800 a Zen technician.
00900
01000 So much like those you criticize, who make
01100 pale mostly irrelevant little techniques.
01200 You admire only the best among scientists,
01300 if at all, engineers not at all,
01400 most Zen masters immoderately.
01500 You say you value art equally with science
01600 but do you somehow feel
01700 that Picasso is greater than Feynman?
01800 I do and yet I say that I value art
01900 and science equally.