“Categories have no place here, but there are many patterns.”
– Mel Baggs, Distance Underthought
In their film, A Communications Primer, the Eames’ say that redundancy is one strategy to reduce miscommunications:
“I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you”
They say:
It is possible to send a signal in advance of the code being known, maybe even by hundreds of years.
They say:
“The ultimate transmission of such a message represents communication of a very complex order.”
Rather than assume that a signal is not communication, assume that you do not know the code.
Assume that its complexity eludes you.
Assume you do not have the right receiver.
Assume that even if you never find the right receiver or live long enough to understand the signal, it is not any less a signal, or any less communication.
Assume that if you don’t Understand, it does not mean there is a problem with the sender.
Assume that maybe, reducing miscommunication isn’t the point at all.
(If I repeat myself, don’t tell me. You’re not who I was speaking to anyway).
In the future, the receivers will confirm the complexity of our signals. This does not mean you and I will Understand one another better, it means that this will not matter because the impossibility of our Understanding will no longer be dangerous, but beautiful.
This post is part of a month long series supported by the Canada Council for the Arts exploring the topic of mis/understanding and translation of neurodivergent knowledge, asking: what embodied neurodivergent knowledge is not (or perhaps should not be) translatable? What kind of relationships might we build if we begin from the assumption that we will not be able to understand one another? What might happen to our patterns of communication, if understanding of the other is not our ultimate goal?
Some of the thinking of this blog series has been translated to the short film, Lost in the Reeds.
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