Context

Okay, so I’ll admit it now.  I suck at remembering to update this blog.  It has been around 2 weeks since my last entry, and I am really sorry about that.  If I don’t keep updating regularly, even those of you who actually know me are not likely to keep checking back.  I do have some news that might help me to remember to write in my blog.  I have to write 6 blog entries for my Philosophy course, and so I will be writing them here and copying them over to the school “blog” site.  I’ve taken a look at the blog and it looks more like a message board than a blog to me.  But, it’s where my posting has to go therefore that’s where it will end up.

Anyway, the idea that has been bouncing around in my mind a lot lately has been the concept of how important context is in understanding absolutely everything that we do.  Take almost any quote that you hear and remove it from the context from which it arose and it will either lose meaning, or you will be able to infer a completely different meaning from the sentence.  This lack of context can very easily change the meaning of a sentence.  For example:

“They will store food.”

What is this sentence talking about?  Is it talking about a refrigerator?  Maybe a granary or silo?  Oh, or perhaps mice, squirrels or hamsters.  Just searching “They will store food” on Google, quotations and all, will give you over 20,000 results (as of September 30,2010 11:03 am).  Simply removing the quotations will give you a staggering 243,000,000 results.  Where in all of that are you supposed to know what that original sentence was referring to?  How are we, as humans, supposed to filter through all of our accumulated knowledge to understand what someone else is trying to say to us?

Context.

It’s as simple as that.  If we know the context of the sentence, if we can understand what is going on in the world at that time, we can understand each other.  Oh, and before I forget to mention, I found the previous quotation from the wikipedia page on the bridled titmouse.  (Bonus points for noticing that the bridled titmouse was the inspiration for that birdlike design on the top of my blog.)  But this context is so important for understanding.  Even simple words require context to be quickly understood.  The best, and fastest example I can think of to demonstrate this is a simple one word question: “Sex?”  Now, there are two distinct ways that we can interpret this question.  The first, and more likely scenario (at least in my mind), is that someone is asking for the gender of the person or creature being registered for some service or other that requires a form to be filled out.  The second way, and quite possibly the way that most people think of first (I must count myself among them), is as a proposition for physical intimacy, albeit a clumsy and slightly awkward one.  So if “sex” can be interpreted in two ways, and there is no way to differentiate between the two either phonologically, or literarily, how do we know that the attractive veterinarian’s secretary is asking us for the gender of our cat, and not a quickie in the office closet?  Based on the context the secretary is simply asking for the gender of our cat.  If we are incredibly lucky, or incredibly smooth and winning, then the secretary could potentially be requesting a quickie, but such events are unlikely to occur.

Context isn’t just important for the present, or for recent history.  Context is just as important to understand what has happened throughout history as it is to understanding “eggs and rice” as a response to “what did you eat for breakfast today?”.  In fact, context is arguably more important to understand history, and historical documents.  We live in the present time (philosophical arguments aside) we usually know the present context of things that we read see and hear and read.  Not as many of us know the full historical context of Plato when he was doing his great works.  In fact, I had to do some research to learn about the context in which Plato wrote Cratylus.  And by research, I mean I asked my professor about it.  Plato was living in a time where Greek was the “enlightened” language.  The language of learning.  All other languages, to him, would have been considered barbarian languages, if they were even considered language at all.  That’s not to say anything of his personal life, which I can’t speak of here since I have no credible sources. (Sorry, Wikipedia, you don’t count as credible.)

I’d like to leave you with a quick comic from www.xkcd.com that I think shows more or less the importance of context.

Used with permission from XKCD: http://www.xkcd.com/794/

Cheers!

It is time…

Hey y’all!

It is time.  The break is over, and school is starting again.  I’ve picked up most of my responsibilities again, and I’m ready to go.  It’s time to call all the animals back to Pride Rock and it’s time for my life here to start again. (By the way The Lion King is pretty much one of my favourite movies ever.)

Sorry for the long delay in blog updates.  It took a lot longer than I had expected to get settled back in to the Canadian way of life, and trying to get everything settled for getting back into the school year.  Okay, that’s not entirely accurate.  I also spent most of my free time playing StarCraft 2, instead of letting the internet know what I was up to.  I do apologize for that, and hopefully my school schedule will make it easier to do semi-regular updates of this blog.  I would have to say that you shouldn’t expect the updates to be daily anymore, but I will be aiming for around three or four per week, depending on how eventful my week is, or what I have to talk about.

I also have to spend some time organizing all of my previous posts and maybe polishing them up a little.  Though, to be honest, I kind of like it when the author (in this case me) leaves things in their original form.  It makes the writings more… lively, I guess you could say.  But that will be an ongoing project, and I don’t expect it will make much of any difference to the regular viewings of this site, but hopefully (and I flatter myself to think that people will be doing this) it will make it much easier to search through older entries to find one that you’re looking for.

It has been an interesting few weeks since I’ve come back from Turkey.  There is indeed a reverse culture shock happening to me right now, it’s has been difficult to get used to some things again.  Traffic lights, and stop signs were the biggest readjustments that I’ve had to make.  I also really miss the fresh bread that I would get at every meal, and I have given serious thought to getting a bread maker.  Then I realized that I’d have to actually take the time to make the bread, and that after one use I’d be bored and would probably never touch it again.  Still, the temptation is there, if only to have fresh bread that one time.  Another big difference is being able to talk to and understand what everyone is saying.  I had forgotten how much you learn about random strangers by inadvertently eavesdropping (or for some of us I guess it’s purposely eavesdropping) on their conversations in public.  Since I didn’t speak Turkish, I was… I guess insulated, or isolated from what was going on around me.  Knowing everything, understanding everything, is a surprisingly large burden to bear.

Another issue I’m having is the food in general.  I’m not used to Canadian food, and in looking back at what I used to eat before I left for the summer, I’m not sure now how I ever survived on those foods.  I have been making much more of an effort to cook healthier meals, and I’m loving it so far.  Hopefully my enthusiasm for cooking will continue after my courses get into full swing.  I was also told of a great online Turkish Cookbook that I’ve been using a little recently.  It’s actually very good, and it’s in english.  So if any of you are interested in Turkish cuisine, you should probably go and check it out.

Anyway that’s all the time I have to write today.  I have laundry to do, groceries to buy and a long overdue haircut waiting for me.  I hope you’re all well.

You’ll be hearing from me soon,

Mike