The science of communication does not exist actually, there is no science of communication
as of yet, although to a limitted extent, we do communicate, but communication is misunderstood.
For example, if a price desires a particular woman, he may send her a gift, the expense
of that gift determines to what extent that women will yeild to the prince, so that's
a form of communication. You ask an ordinary man to repair your roof, he might say "no".
If you offer him 20 dollars an hour, he might say maybe. If you offer him 30 dollars an
hour, he says "when do you want me to start?" So money can be a mechanism that affects human
behavior. Ultimately, communication was a means of trying to affect human behavior.
A woman that can operate a sawing machine quite well can not communicate with a physiologist.
Only to a limitted extent. So communication, in the society where there are multiplicity
of different reactions and different values, does not assure communication. You understand
what that means? You have problems with that? Ok. So, if a man is very good with a bow and
arrow, in order to serve his tribe, he might train others to use the bow and arrow efficiently.
Now when people fly an airplane today, they try to aim the missile at an airplane. If
someone designs a heat seeking missile, that goes up the hot end of an airplane, or the
exhaust port, they don't need to aim or develop a training program for that. You merely release
the missile and it seeks heat. If you released a missile and it seeked the human body, you
don't need to train people to aim. So communication, to a limitted extent, has to do with the state
of technology today. Do you understand? Communication as a system, is always undergoing change.
Now if you sit there and say "well what is communication?" well in essense, you want
control the behavior of another person. That's what you say "I'll see ya Wednesday" Wednesday
means the same thing to the other person, but if it's a forgeiner he says "what means
Wednesday?" So you have to find out what that means. So when people set out to communicate,
they set out to share language, and that all depends on what the rewards are, for a certain
behavior. If you have a certain philosophy, and you're a ruler of a certain country, and
someone offers you 2 million dollars, you may sell your country short, if they deposit
2 million in the bank, so the 2 million dollars is a method of persuasion, or communication.
Do you understand that? That's why it's not possible, in a monetary system, where there
are certain ways of gaining advantage. If the communication takes away your advantage,
there's no need for you to learn that kind of communication. If you're head of the Catholic
church and the Presperterian church becomes dominant in your community, there's no basis
for you learning about that, because it takes away your job. So in a monetary system where
rewards vary, it's very difficult to establish communication. That's why people that come
from different cultures, can not communicate, except to a limitted extent. If one Indian
tribe has a different philosophy than another, the may not want to communicate, cause it
may upset the conduct of people in the tribe, but if a common enemy appears, then the tribes
might merge temporarily, to defeat the common enemy, but they don't sit down and communicate.
They communicate - their communication is maintaining positions of differential advantage.
They do not seek to communicate, they seek to maintain those positions. Now there's many
scientists that say "yes, we're interested in developing a means of communication" but
even scientists have vested interest, so their communication is affected by vested interest.
Nobodies so pure as to say, "I seek pure communication" you'd have to forget all about your culture,
advantages and living in a nice house making money, all of that would interfere, but if
you wish to communicate with another person, you either set out advantages - in other words
you bring the other person gifts, then they say "what have you to say?" If you come at
them and say "we're taking your land away, cause we can operate your land more efficiently
than you can" they don't say "great, do that" they have vested interest, and they maintain
their vested interest, that's why you can communicate on the nature of the plannets,
and people will listen to you, it doesn't affect their income, their style of living,
or their values. If you tell them that the moon always faces the earth as it goes around,
they're willing to listen to that, but if you tell them things that interfere with their
positions of differential advantage, communication fails, that is there's no such thing. Am I
clear up to now? This is why people, can only communicate in areas where they have common
values, and common sense of gain, in learning to communicate. If you learned to communicate
with very primitive people, you might be able to talk to them, but it's no real advantage
to you if you're technical, to communicate to primitive people, unless you're doing a
autobiography of some particular cheif. So I would say, in the future, all primitive
people would be updated, not treated as an anthropology study. Anthropology will be considered
socially offensive behavior. If you go to a primitive tribe and make notes of how they
behave and what they talk to the trees about, would not be the propper study of mankind.
The propper study would be the conditions they live under and their limitted communications.
You would have nothing to say to a seminal Indian, of extensionality of you, you might
be able to extend the Indian a little bit, but he can't say anything that would help
you. That's why I point out, it wouldn't make much sense for you to talk to children, because
they can't say anything new. If they're 10 years old, say "my daddy has a bigger car
than your daddy" - they can't say "the engine of a Mercedes displaces so many cubic inches,
therefore it's more efficient." They can't about those things, unless they have wrote
memory, with unreal or no real understanding of what they're saying. So when you say "is
it possible to develop a science of communication?" I would say no, not within established systems.
If a system's established, it automatically cuts communication. Now, if you visit people
from another planet, that have achieved, most - and have solved most of the problems we
had here, there's a reason for you to learn their language, there's a real advantage,
in learning their language, if they've overcome cancer, heart desease, most nervous disorders,
there's a reason for you to listen. But some people have such a damaged ego, they can't
even hear things that would serve as an advantage to them, they really can't hear it, he may
say "well they don't wanna hear it, cause they feel they've achieved a level advantage,
and who are they to listen to other people?" You know you've got ego problems, so let me
say this, in order for us to communicate we have to establish what communication is! If
we don't establish what that is, and we can't at our present state of development. Say "what
is communication?" without using a referent of our own values, so I'm using this term,
it is impossible to communicate with other people today, unless you teach them your language,
your referants, and they accept them, then you might be able to communicate within the
referants you have given others. So there's no reason right today, for republicans and
democrats to communicate because there's one system that offers advantages. Nobody is interested
in long term advantages. If I say there's an advantage to your culture 50 years from
now, he says "what will serve now?" So that's what he wants to learn, the advantages of
the immediate. If I say 500 years from now, people will live perfectly well, nobodies
interested, because there's no communication of value, that they can receive. So, if scientists,
really were able to - which is almost impossible - to let go of everything they have and ask
what is communication? They can't ask that question. Do you understand? Ok. So when you
effectively communicate with another person, you either are training them in some way so
that you can - your words would have similar meaning, not subject to interpretation. If
a person develops even a hearing aid, and it works better than another one, he has to
communicate the means of making that work better. Now why does he want it to work better?
Because he gets more money for it. If he doesn't get more money for it, he doesn't concern
himself with it. So there can't be a science of communication, where there's a system of
differential advantage. So it's much easier to give a young girl a gift, and she says
"oh, I'm so impressed by the expense of gift you gave me" what you're doing is softening
her up, toward your value system. She has no fixed value system, if that occurs. If
a person has a fixed value system, like religion which is rigid and fixed, they're not interested
in any kind of communication which takes that away, cause the project a lot of meaning into
that, and you say "their communication is ineffective" they don't give a damn. It does
not communicate what you have in mind. So, first of all, before you even talk about communication,
you have to convince people that they tend to move along established lines, cause they
have proven to be worth while, within a given culture. Do you understand what I'm saying?
I'm leaving out sunny day in May, I'm going right to the point. So if you sit down and
you wanna communicate with another person, first ask them, why they wanna listen to you,
because it serves no immediate value. Unless they're studying communication. Now, the science
of communication today, would be within a given field. If you learn mathematics you
can get jobs doing certain things. So people do not study to improve communication, they
study to pick up advantage to advantage to this system. Is that clear? They do not study
to improve communication, even though a person says "I'm a student of the language of communication"
they can't be that, and be a member of society. Do you understand that? If a person comes
up to you and says "I'm completely neutral, I've come to study communication" that is
not possible. Do you understand why? No one can be completely neutral, you're always a
victim of culture.