The Dichotomy Of Action

[cal]

There are two different kinds of action Humans can commit- verbal and physical. They say actions speak louder than words, but then they also say that the pen is mightier than the sword. This thread is aimed to clear up how powerless and weak one of these categories is, namely the verbal category.

 

What do I mean by "verbal" action? I mean anything that is spoken and heard with auditory perception, written, typed/texted, or enumerated or utilized under the conventional forms of linguistics and communication (not including body language). What I mean by "physical" action is pretty much any action that falls outside of the verbal category, for example, your heart pumping, your hands shaking, your fist hitting, and things of that nature.

 

Now let me be very clear, verbal action matters not. There is nothing you can ever verbally commit that will have intentionally controllable direct effect on another person. What I mean by this is that the speaker (person committing verbal action) is not the one who chooses to get offended by what is said, it is the perceiver of what's being said that chooses to get offended, or happy, or melancholy, etcetera. You might say, "well what if someone says they're going to kill you? Doesn't that have direct effect?" And yes, it does, but the speaker is also implying physical action on top of verbal action, so the two categories are one in the same in this scenario. If by way of verbal action you directly imply physical action, the verbal becomes just the same as if the physical were happening. Implying physical via verbal is what bridges the two categories. What I mean by this is that if you are to verbally threaten someone's life directly, it is the same as physically threatening that person's life.

 

Why am I saying all this? Unless someone is speaking about direct physical action towards another person, you have no reason to be offended by anything they say. If you are offended, keep in mind that was your choice, not theirs. Words only have as much meaning as you hold them to.

 

Side note: there is a bit of a taboo against using certain words on this forum for reasons unknown to me. I've been told these certain words are bad, but cannot ascertain as to why they are better or worse than any other word, as all words hold the same value (a word can only hold a value of 1 or 0, either it means something or it doesn't). If you choose to be so deeply offended by a specific word, why not just implement a word filter? I mean I'm principally opposed to censorship, but not saying a word at all is stronger censorship than filtering the word. Not to mention, you can make it an option in your profile to turn off the filter so that you can view the forum ver batum.

 

All that being said, discuss the ideas and proposals here. I'd like to see what the hypography community thinks of this.

[SaxonViolence]

"In the Beginning was The Word.

 

"And The Word was with God

 

"And The Word was God"

 

Words create the World.

 

Actions without a Verbal Subtext to give Contexts are largely meaningless.

 

 

Saxon Violence

[cal]

Actions without a Verbal Subtext to give Contexts are largely meaningless.

Not true at all, think about what people did before there was verbal language. They still had to eat and mate and do things as a group. Apes don't really have language and they commit lots of directed physical action with specific purpose following those actions all without ever saying anything (or grunting much).

[Rade]

Now let me be very clear, verbal action matters not. There is nothing you can ever verbally commit that will have intentionally controllable direct effect on another person.

Well, suppose the situation where you are hiding a male friend in your house because the police is looking for them to question them about some event. Knock-knock on door...a single police women asks if you have seen your friend and you lie and tell them no. Seems to me your claim is falsified, for clearly your verbal action will have an intentional direct effect on another person (both your male friend and the female police women), and YOU and YOU alone were the one who controlled the outcome of the verbal action.

[cal]

Well, suppose the situation where you are hiding a male friend in your house because the police is looking for them to question them about some event. Knock-knock on door...a single police women asks if you have seen your friend and you lie and tell them no. Seems to me your claim is falsified, for clearly your verbal action will have an intentional direct effect on another person (both your male friend and the female police women), and YOU and YOU alone were the one who controlled the outcome of the verbal action.

Right but that's the bridge, you're implying physical action by lying, claiming that an entity (your/my friend) exists in another place besides where you know he exists. That implies physical action and is therefore the bridge between the two. I suppose you could argue that most lying would be direct physical action (the bridge between) in this sense.

 

White lies I think escape this property, as they don't tend to imply physicality like your example.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Snax

[Rade]

Right but that's the bridge, you're implying physical action by lying, claiming that an entity (your/my friend) exists in another place besides where you know he exists. That witimplies physical action and is therefore the bridge between the two. I suppose you could argue that most lying would be direct physical action (the bridge between) in this sense. White lies I think escape this property, as they don't tend to imply physicality like your example.

No, I disagree. The ACTION in my example is not what is implied as physical space that contains the body of the male friend, the ACTION is what is said as verbal sound within time. Clearly, you may think you lie to the question asked by the police women (do you know where your male friend is ?), but it is clearly a false assumption to so imply that you have such knowledge. Suppose your male friend jumped out the window when he heard the knock at the door. In fact, at that moment in time when you provide a VERBAL ACTION to answer the question, you have no idea where your male friend is located, and thus to say "no" I do not KNOW where my friend is located is not a lie. Therefore it is an illusion to suppose there is any PHYSICAL ACTION being controlled in the example I provided. The circumstance (e.g., the future actions of both the male friend and police women) is CONTROLLED 100% by the VERBAL ACTION of the person who answers the knock at the door. The only "known" physical action involved is that you know where you stand in relation to physical objects (door and police women) which are simultaneously linked the the verbal response via perception. In my example, nothing can be implied about the status of the physical space of the male friend.

[cal]

No, I disagree. The ACTION in my example is not what is implied as physical space that contains the body of the male friend, the ACTION is what is said as verbal sound within time. Clearly, you may think you lie to the question asked by the police women (do you know where your male friend is ?), but it is clearly a false assumption to so imply that you have such knowledge. Suppose your male friend jumped out the window when he heard the knock at the door. In fact, at that moment in time when you provide a VERBAL ACTION to answer the question, you have no idea where your male friend is located, and thus to say "no" I do not KNOW where my friend is located is not a lie. Therefore it is an illusion to suppose there is any PHYSICAL ACTION being controlled in the example I provided. The circumstance (e.g., the future actions of both the male friend and police women) is CONTROLLED 100% by the VERBAL ACTION of the person who answers the knock at the door. The only "known" physical action involved is that you know where you stand in relation to physical objects (door and police women) which are simultaneously linked the the verbal response via perception. In my example, nothing can be implied about the status of the physical space of the male friend.

But you knew he was in your house prior to the question so it's irrelevant if he hopped out the window in that three minutes. The police officer isn't being entirely literal... That'd be like if you were in class and someone asked where your car was and then you replied that it is impossible to know where your car is because it might have been stolen since you left it. That's not what the question is asking, and you will walk directly back to where you left your car parked when class is over, so you did in fact know where the car was. Key word was; is becomes was after the question is asked because time has passed. You can truthfully say you knew where the car was, where your friend was, and not have it be a lie.

 

But I don't think any of that matters since you're arguing for me at this point. You're saying that nothing is connected to verbal action in your example. Good, that means there's less bridges my schema has to account for. So now I have to ask you if you're agreeing or disagreeing with my original post?

Edited June 23, 2013 by Snax