Nul Context

[R.W. (Bob) Erickson]

Communication is about context

Sometimes the context is so obvious that the frame is nearly invisible,
sometimes the context is so subtle that indications of obvious
significance can only be detected after much study.

Language and meaning involve sharing of contexts.

This is obvious, what is less obvious is the way that communication
implicates a context one might call, A Theory of Mind

What does this mean? Well a lot of it is hidden in what we call common
sense, or folk psychology. You know what I mean because I'm behaving
conventionally in my choice of words, and saying stuff that makes sense.

When we use language conventionally, we talk about things that are
happening and what people are thinking. When we talk about things that
matter we wonder what others think. We think about what other people are
thinking, all the time.

Its a common enough usage of language, and quite comprehensible. Which
makes it all the more peculiar that for a long time science had a weird
rule that said that unempirical terms like intention and purpose, not to
mention perception and comprehension were "metaphysical nonsense".

Science has come a long way since the logical positivists held sway. Its
not that they were wrong, the problem was they couldnt be right. The
original proof that they were wrong was at hand for most of the 20th
century, in the interference pattern between the works of Wittgenstein
and Gvdel,

As recently as the middle of the last century, back when Chomsky was
doing his seminal work in deep structures, psychology was firmly stuck
with Pavlovian Reflexes and Skinner Boxes and vigorously opposed
adopting any working theory of mind. Stimulus Response Theory just cant
handle task of explaining what an artist does. Into this context, Modern
Linguistics was born.