[FRIAM] Dead Stack?

[Steve Smith]

When I first fiddled with distributed computing with early RPC 
technology... synced models with serialization of internal state 
transmitted, recieved and semaphored I came to appreciate obliquely just 
how "fragile" this idealized conception of "communication" was.

That gave me sympathy with *one* conception of why you might say 
"communication doesn't exist" but continuing the spirit of paradox and 
oxymoron, here I am trying to "communicate" such to you and the rest of 
the group.

Can you offer a better suite of terminology, a better framing for just 
what the *experience* I impute on group behaviours of impedance-coupled 
"agents", resonating (and dissonating?) amongst ourselves with 
linguistic signifiers (or signs) being the "intermediate vectors"?  
  "coupled phonemics"?

Just what is it we might be doing when we think we are commune(icate)ing?


On 2/4/26 4:00 pm, glen wrote:
> Not that communication is impossible; that it doesn't exist. Granted, 
> I've advocated Lewisian possible worlds. So it's understandable you'd 
> impute {¬X⊢¬◇X}. But I don't think I agree with Lewis. Just 'cause 
> something's possible doesn't mean it obtains, here or elsewhere. And 
> something that's possible *could* exist. (Is that tautological? I 
> don't think so. Usually, when we say "It's possible", we're implicitly 
> asserting that it *isn't* but could have been. Monkeys may fly out my 
> butt, as the kids used to say.)
>
> Communication may be possible, for some definition of it. For the 
> definitions I've seen, it doesn't exist.
>
> My best definition of it, that I might buy exists, is post-hoc 
> rationalization of some overly simplified, just-so story about the 
> causes of some present state. You flapped your lips. I gave you a salt 
> shaker. If you think your lip flapping *caused* me to give you the 
> salt shaker, there aren't many ways I could flap my lips to dissuade 
> you of that story.
>
> If that post-hoc rationalization is what we mean by "communication", 
> then yes, it may well exist. Anything's possible.
>
> On 2/4/26 1:07 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> Dogs notwithstanding, if Glen says that communication is impossible, 
>> he's just wrong.  I am sure he is saying SOMETHING TRUE, because Glen 
>> usually does.  I can imagine specifications and qualifications of 
>> that statement that are true.   "Its impossible to communicate with 
>> somebody who isnt listening"  Thats true enough.  Its possible that 
>> we in FRIAM have just run out of reasons to LISTEN.   That may be 
>> what Jon's post and his reference to Ezra Klein was about.  We 
>> definitely have a shortage of listeners in todays marketplace of 
>> ideas.  Funny the market has not responded to that need.  I am now 
>> paying at least one person to read my substack.    Nick
>>
>>
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