Apollo 11, The Sistine Chapel, and un-educated fleas: how communication is both effortlessly simple and ineffably complex (at the same time):

 The fundamental organic process of communication, the instinctive process that forms the basis of the functions of the nervous system, the brain, all understanding, intelligence, and language use, can be most simply described as:

 (Where information is anything that exists or can be imagined, and idea is any information that is connected to, or can be connected to, the first information.)

Thus it is that, as far as the basic process of communication is concerned, it is simple enough for babies, bees, and even un-educated fleas to do it.

The most basic idea we have about anything is emotional or sensational. If the process were only as described above we would only ever be able to react to any information with our instinctive feelings.

However, as any idea is fundamentally information, as soon as this process begins, it is immediately recursive:

Although, in fact, the commencement of the communicative process is akin to a stone being dropped into a pond, with ripples spreading out in all directions:

 
And, each connection can immediately form new connections:

And so on...

...the connections spreading beyond the page, beyond observation, beyond imagination.

Thus it is that communication is both incredibly simple and dazzilingly complex at the same time.

Allowing for the simple machinations of birds, bees, and even uneducated fleas, as well as providing the template for all language, the Sistine Chapel, and a man on the moon.

So what? you might say (and thereby proving the point..), but armed with this map, we can more easily make our way to hitherto unexplored mist- shrouded plateaux, where dwell all kinds of undiscovered ideas, legendary creatures, and concepts not just considered extinct, but firmly believed to have never existed in the first place... 

Fantastic beasts, and where to find them.

Let's take 13 examples:

1. We only understand information by its connected idea(s).
   
   You might think this concept would be uncontroversial. You would be wrong. People are very much bound up with the concept of "meaning", one consequence of which is that you can more easily refuse to explain your own words and ideas for the benefit of others. 
   
   
2. Any meaning is simply an idea that has been agreed upon.
   
   Apart from information, idea is fundamental, not meaning.
   
   
   
3. We communicate with ourselves. Any meaning is agreed with ourselves first.
   
   (Although, it should be noted that all of this happens anyway, whether we are paying attention, or not. And what that means, is that our idea of meaning, unless questioned, is fundamentally emotional.)
   
       MAGA ---------------------------------------> sounds good to me!
   
   
4. Most usual concepts of communication have become established through work done in IT.
   
   Which is to say: machine communication.
   
   Obviously, with machines, concepts such as: transfer of information, sender and receiver, signal and noise, etc, are practical and useful. However, the fundamental process of communication in human beings is organic...
   
   
5. Transfer of information is not necessary for communication to occur.
   
   (Because the basic process is simply Information ----> idea, the information doesn't have to move, it simply has to exist. If there is information, it will connect to an idea.)
   
   
6. All information exists in a matrix of connections with other information/ideas.
   
   
   

What this entails is that the ideas connected to any information will change according to the context of that information:

      My father killed a man, should he go to prison? ---------> Yes!

     My father was a soldier ------------------------------> Oh, then no.

     He killed a man in a bar --------------------------> Oh, then yes.

      The man was a terrorist -------------------------> Oh, then, yes?

     My father is dead ----------------------------------> Oh, erm...

   7.  The fundamental skills of communication and language are: Asking and        checking and Describing and Explaining.

         We are born with these instinctual skills, and share them with the other animals. Can anyone argue that this disappointed fellow is not asking: Where did that go?!!??

  8.  Because, basically, communication is the only thing we ever do,  Asking and        checking and Describing and Explaining are also the fundamental skills of intelligence, and science. 

   

   9. They are also, of course, the fundamental skills of art, storytelling, religion, and war.

  

  10. The success of human beings is due to our ability to communicate.

        Which means that our capacity to Ask and check and describe and explain is superior to our fellow animals. 

   

  11. Communication must be inhibited, to some extent, by any unjust power            system. 

          If you are in North Korea, the government very strictly controls information. If you are in the USA, the government faces barriers to this sort of thing, so you have to develop other techniques...

  12. "The only way we can try to understand anything better is by asking                 and checking."

      Do you remember your asking and checking practice in school? 

      No?

      No-one does.

 

13. Human beings are the only animals that make efforts to inhibit their most natural ability. 

    It is as though lions taught their young to venerate zebra, cheetahs shackled their cubs, and howler monkeys were encouraged to speak in whispers

Because our general culture gives zero formal value to asking and checking (the fundamental skill of understanding things better!) the idea that asking and checking is vital to human success, and that it has been missing from people's general experience of education, is most often met, ironically, with bemusement, fear, and anger. 

         

   

14. You are, of course, welcome to connect all the information here to the idea of: what a load of rubbish.

        But you wouldn't just do that without asking and checking, would you?

   
       

 13. The only way anything has ever improved is by better  communication.

                    We might want to acknowledge that while we still can.

           
               
                12. Don't automatically trust anyone that can't count.