FWD: Texts and Contexts (slightly-ironically P-related)

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

Thema:        Re: Texts and Contexts
Datum:  16.06.01 22:54:13 (MEZ) - Mitteleurop. Sommerzeit
From:   piat at JUNO.COM (James L Piat)
Sender: NETDYNAM at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU (NetDynam / Network Group Dynamics 
Mailing List)
Reply-to:   NETDYNAM at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU (NetDynam / Network Group Dynamics 
Mailing List)
To: NETDYNAM at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU

Dear Jer, Folks-

>
> (((Uh, did I just "show" an answer to my earlier question, "How
> could
> there be something *like* chaos theory?" --Jes joking.)))


Yes, and strangely attractive to me.   I especially enjoyed your
observation about context perhaps being determined by the interpreter of
a text.  Context is, I think, the purpose or ground against which the
meaning of a text is interpreted.  I have a pragmatic view of meaning.
Meaning, for me, does not occur in a vacuum.   To determine the meaning
of some text there must be some goal directed behavior or purpose against
which to measure its practical effects. If there is no goal directed
behavior or purposive context within or against  which to interpret a
text  then, in my view,  there can be no meaningful text.  Even seemingly
context less text requires a tacit context of shared human purpose in
order to be understood.  Or so it seems to me.

So to get back to your point.  I think all that the source can provide is
necessarily text (even when trying to supply context).  All that the
interpreter brings to the text is necessarily dependent upon context.
So, in terms of our Internet communication, perhaps it is not inadequate
context but inadequate communication of text that is the problem that
leads to misinterpretation.  Normally we rely upon physical cues (other
than written) to convey much of the text.

On the other hand, perhaps the problem of "hurt feelings" arises not so
much from misreading another's text as it is of evaluating the text's
meaning against ones own motives.  IOWs the interpreter  first correctly
reads the text  (in terms of it's generally accepted interpretation) but
then his own personal motives lead him to further idiosyncratic
interpretation.  After all, if one could not discern the generally
accepting meaning of a text how could one come up with a "personal"
interpretation of its deeper or covert meaning?  Thus we are forever
telling one another not to take our remarks personally.  (BTW,  perhaps
the ultimate purpose of the universe is survival  --survival itself.  The
puzzle is survival of what? Or maybe, what is survival itself? Being?
Evolution?  Consciousness?  God? Communication?)

So anyway, Jer, if you don't mind a personal question  --Did you say you
taught organizational consulting or something like that?  How did you get
from there to here  --or here to there?  And where do you teach if you
don't mind my asking?

I don't think I would have been very good as an Amway salesman,  but I
think I could have been very good and happy as a gas station attendant
back in the old days when they did the pumping.   I remember being
somewhat intimidated pumping my own gas when everyone switched over but
now I enjoy it and think I am very good at it.   I used to be a
dishwasher for many years and enjoyed that a good deal as well.  Of
course the damn pay is so low. But as soon as my social security checks
start coming I'm outta here cause I can live very cheaply and life is
becoming shorter.   Maybe read The Last Temptation of Christ.  I figure
us Jews and Catholics (me and Jesus) got to stick together as Dave joked
--or something like that.   Think of that  --the Jews and the Catholics,
to choose or not to choose that is the choice.  Seems even God himself
can't  make up his mind about choice.   I'm talking about choosing in
general not really about Judaism and Catholicism per se.

Hey folks I just realized this is way too long.  I can't concentrate for
more than a few seconds myself.  You'll see.  I really do realize this.
Next time  --the post in in the mail.

Cheers,
Jim


Kurt-Werner Pörtner