Categories
history

Culture as Error, History as Misunderstanding

We are so entrained to think in terms of cultural continuity as a measure of successful system self-replication that we might never perceive or understand that the most significant moments in any history are shaped more (or at least as much) by difference and dissonance than by continuity and predictability. These stochastic inflections points of […]

Categories
Philosophy

A Cartography of Language

It is always interesting to see these maps of culture and language or identity, even if they are always and necessarily incomplete. Also and incidentally fascinating to observe that languages drift, undergo metamorphosis and radiating speciation as a function of the implicit and yet eminently generative ambiguities and indeterminacies of verbal and written communication as […]

Categories
technology

Technology: Misunderstanding Each Other

Has anyone (else) noticed that the proliferation of communications technologies has occurred in direct proportion to the level of misunderstanding and confusion in the world? It is not that we do anything new by misinterpreting each other’s intentions – as people have been doing this for as long as there have been people – we […]