An Experientially-Based Informationless Communication

Abstract

In this chapter I present an outline of my approach to communication and information, which is based on a previous cognitive model (Vilarroya 2002). According to this approach, the cognitive system parses its experiences in units. Units of experience are spatio-temporal units with boundaries, normally integrated by coherent sequences of events spatially, causally or thematically related. In this framework, the meaning of a word corresponds to the network of units of experience in which the word is grounded. Accordingly, the reference of a word is an experience, and words should be understood as evocative, not symbolic. Hence, communication cannot be based on the transmission of a “thing”, but on the completion of an “act”: the evocation of the right network of experiences.