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Feeling of Disconnection
Dec. 18th, 2019 08:30 amA week or so ago, I had an experience of mental disconnection while driving between Evanston and Elgin. It felt like what I imagine some folks describe as a feeling of one-ness with the universe, except perfectly opposite. I felt disconnected from people, things, society, and any sense of agency in regard to those things.
A couple things came together unexpectedly in my head just before. I was thinking of a silly cartoon on Facebook where two philosophers of language jump in to a scene to argue about how to apply context to an ambiguous statement. (1) I responded to note that I am firmly on the side of Roland Barthes, who argued that, once a text exists, the author's intent is only one of many equally valid understandings of that text.
That reminded me of Derrida's deconstructionist maxim that "there is no outside-text." That is, meaning does not come from some kind of universal framwork within which a text is to be understood; rather the meaning is contained entirely within the text and its subjective context.
And putting those ideas together gave me a sudden feeling of complete futility of communication and understanding. If it is valid (in the logical sense, not in the sense of 'correctness') for a concept to be interpreted in a unique way by any individual exposed to it, and there is no universally understood consistent framework to place that concept within when trying to explain it to someone else, how can communication be possible?
As I thought about this, each of our individual frameworks and understandings seemed suddenly like a giant maze of lines that run over or under or around each other but never touch. I imagined the night sky filled with all these discrete, wandering lines that somehow represented a fundamental failure to communicate and share meaning.
I can't describe that sort of synesthesia-like (2) experience very well. But altogether it was unsettling. It felt like nothing could ever really be a part of anything else. That people would never be able to understand each other or communicate effectively. It's possible that that experience is continuing to contribute to a level of underlying depression and sense of futility that I've felt lately.
Brains are so weird.
1: (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/318…
2: (I say synesthesia-like because I was not actually *seeing* those lines, just imagining them vividly. Nor were they representing any sensory input outside the visual. But I also use the term in a considered way to emphasize the vivid nature of the experience.)
A couple things came together unexpectedly in my head just before. I was thinking of a silly cartoon on Facebook where two philosophers of language jump in to a scene to argue about how to apply context to an ambiguous statement. (1) I responded to note that I am firmly on the side of Roland Barthes, who argued that, once a text exists, the author's intent is only one of many equally valid understandings of that text.
That reminded me of Derrida's deconstructionist maxim that "there is no outside-text." That is, meaning does not come from some kind of universal framwork within which a text is to be understood; rather the meaning is contained entirely within the text and its subjective context.
And putting those ideas together gave me a sudden feeling of complete futility of communication and understanding. If it is valid (in the logical sense, not in the sense of 'correctness') for a concept to be interpreted in a unique way by any individual exposed to it, and there is no universally understood consistent framework to place that concept within when trying to explain it to someone else, how can communication be possible?
As I thought about this, each of our individual frameworks and understandings seemed suddenly like a giant maze of lines that run over or under or around each other but never touch. I imagined the night sky filled with all these discrete, wandering lines that somehow represented a fundamental failure to communicate and share meaning.
I can't describe that sort of synesthesia-like (2) experience very well. But altogether it was unsettling. It felt like nothing could ever really be a part of anything else. That people would never be able to understand each other or communicate effectively. It's possible that that experience is continuing to contribute to a level of underlying depression and sense of futility that I've felt lately.
Brains are so weird.
1: (http://existentialcomics.com/comic/318…
2: (I say synesthesia-like because I was not actually *seeing* those lines, just imagining them vividly. Nor were they representing any sensory input outside the visual. But I also use the term in a considered way to emphasize the vivid nature of the experience.)
