Needing each other

The thoughts, values and judgements we hold as a person are no value in themselves. There really is no golden bullet of logic, objectivity, deduction or trial and error which ensures our own take on an issue is the right one for all times. It all depends and mostly what it depends on are the tacit approvals or acceptances of mostly our pier group but more importantly the social flag bearers. What makes any one particular line of thought right is that it gathers a consensual approval around it. Now there may well be other brighter and sharper thoughts about the same issue but it matters not if the opinion formers do not agree with it. If that outlier idea does not have the strength to win understanding then it is doomed to being an also ran.

Each individuals creates their own very personal mind-map of how things are, how they work and what can be expected as a reaction to it from other persons. If only we soldiered through life with out any need to interact with any soul then that would be perfect. But we do have to interact. At each interaction we have to check, take soundings, that our own take is in line with or at least not too discordant to the mind maps of those we are interacting with. We have to expose our thoughts to the challenge of others, to keep our thinking within the bounds of acceptability of the society with live within, not too out of kelter. It is a two way process of course, as we offer our thoughts so we are evaluating the thoughts of the other. This exchange is at the heart of building trust in our social connections.

If it is simply offering goods for payment, that is a routine task where you can reasonably anticipate the sequences and responses. If you want to make overture of friendliness then that is another ball game, so many variables and subtle clues to be assessed before progressing to more overt gestures and so many possibilities to misjudge if with someone with different cultural expectations. If you want to get into some heavy meat, like offering a view on social morals or conduct, offer an explanation of how a process works or an insight into how the world is made up then there just are no easy short cuts. There are so many parameters that have to be prior checked. We each bring our own set of presumptions, expectations and prejudices. Each relevant one has to be checked against the others to make sure your language and thought flow substantially mirrors that of the other. Else you talk at cross purposes and there is no engagement. It would be as if you were describing lemon and they were interpreting it and responding as if it were an apple. Hence most difficult areas are often left to specialists who have a commonality of language and sequence flow expectation that can keep their separate mind sets on similar tracks.

Life however is not just for specialists. We all need to be thinking about how we perceive the world and checking amongst ourselves that our view is not too discordant or distant from those we expect mix amongst. This vital cross checking, making sure we as an individual are not too far out of line with our compatriots, is not a quick and easy exchange. I have indicated that it takes time to check the basics, that we are both thinking about lemons for starters. This process of exchanging and comparing ideas well suited a reflective society. Such a society as served by the village pub where, of an evening, the elders gathered and exchanged opinions about events of the day and their world around them while the younger generations listened and learnt the process.

Those reflective days are past we are now in a headline era. We now have an instant consumption society. The tweets, the facebook messaging interaction and our urgency and impatience with anything long winded and drawn out work against reflective, considered, check and counter checked discussions. Where, in this age, can we find these freely and open counter-checks to the vagaries of our conscious minds workings? Tweeks and facebooks give off a tremendous buzz of connectivity with a hugely out there world. Very seductive but so shallow, superficial and so lacking of content. All done for instant impact, move on, next. Yet we do need to expose our thoughts to more than just the pre-digested neat packaged focus group approved targeted media items. A soap storyline or even a earnest documentary are unlikely to tweak out the weaknesses in our own line of thinking. At best just confirm the headline content but it is all in the details, as always, behind the headline, where the real issues are to be found. This is the confrontation area, where conflicts of differing thought processes are to be found. That for our own sanity, we need to face and reconcile our thoughts against where we see our peers thoughts are. This not about highfalutin philosophical maxims, just the ordinary every day garbage, how does a husband relate with a wife, what should limit teenage behaviour, when does cheek become rude, what is exploitative and what is commercial enterprise, just those every day grist's of every day life.

Having posed the question I have no answers to offer. Currently we are overwhelmed with undreamt of access to information. Information in such volumes that we drown in it, unable to devise coping strategies, twitching from one information feed to the next, but unable to digest and absorb the significance of any. (See the New Scientist articles linked in, you will need to register.) My hope and expectation is as we come to terms with this instant access to information and our IT develops we will pass through on to a more contemplative phase, were we spend our time thinking about the significance of information and not just the hunger famine stuffing of everything on offer. This is were our minds excels, leave data trawling to the bots.