The Listener & The Seer

Receptivity

We focus here on receptivity as an aspect of Communication. That means restraining the natural tendency, perhaps inadvertently implied at times, to focus on or identify with the sender or initiator of a communication.

Of course, endeavouring and handling situations depends on initiative, but successful engagement with reality is not only active.

In our man-made world, doors slam, traffic lights change colour, stock exchange tickers generate strings of symbols and numbers, large banks pay big bonuses, workers in hospitals go on strike, television shows films, newspapers peddle stories. A lot happens. 

If we are interested, if we give due attention, these innumerable stimuli may move from simple L1-stimuli to being L2-signals ("I must stop the car at this intersection!"), or L3-signs ("this looks like a year of labour turmoil, we need to adjust our portfolio allocations"), L4-symbols ("money speaks"), L5-terms (used to tell stories) and L6-meanings (of all sorts).

Psychosocial reality is a continual source of non-verbal communication: intentional or not.

The meaning of these stimuli is determined, correctly or mistakenly, beneficially or harmfully, using our psychological capabilities and social tools.

The simplest most fundamental and biological form of communication is via stimuli-L1. The receptive side of this is the perception generated in response to the stimulus. At L7, we may distinguish between openness as receptivity and as expressivity or generativity.

All other Levels: signals, signs, symbols, terms, meaning, have the same nature for both sides of a communication.

L1: Stimulus — Perception

We live in a sea of stimuli, just as a fish lives in water.  

Living creatures deliberately or instinctively emit stimuli: dogs bark, wag tails and bare teeth; cats hiss and arch their backs; bulls snort and paw the ground; and crickets chirp, often in unison. People release stimuli of all sorts in their appearance, manner, gestures, postures, movements, accoutrements. It is surely only natural that all stimuli are potentially perceived as communications. Some forms of stimuli—thunder, lightning, earthquakes—are extremely intense and force themselves upon us. At the other extreme, the tiniest grain of sand underfoot, the smallest leaf, or the gentlest breeze may be sensed. 

How do I know that any particular stimulus or pattern of stimuli are not communications to me? Nothing to this point provides an answer. Might it be because the source of the stimuli has no purpose, or none in relation to me? Perhaps, but that would be an assumption.

While purpose is intrinsic to endeavour and applies easily to higher Levels of Communication, it is not intrinsic at L1. Stimuli, the lowest Level of Communication, are pure means for conveying meaning. So the whole universe is a potential source of non-verbal communication: intentional or not. These stimuli generate meaning within us, wisely or superstitiously, correctly or mistakenly, openly or covertly.

Our minds have evolved to be aware (even if we are not) that the meaning inherent in stimuli of any sort must be managed.

L7: Openness

There is a time for being contemplative, for resting and reflecting, for listening and being attentive, for sensitivity to what others—to what the world—is trying to tell us.

This type of open and receptive listening is ready to treat any and all stimuli as relevant. Through the imaginative capabilities of openness-L7, the world can and does speak to us. In the early days, people thought of this as «God» speaking. Some still do. The rest regard it as superstition or chance ideas. But what was true about human interaction with the universe then is true now: God hasn't stopped, gone away or died—we just describe and handle the same important phenomena differently. Or we wilfully refuse to countenance them. 

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Neither the natural world nor the man-made world (apart from humanity itself): 

• creates terms-L5,
• is constructed and driven by meaning-L6, and
• provides openness-L7.

We must attend carefully to the world generated via these three highest Levels. The next sections examine the interaction of Levels, and the use of the Elemental Levels as part of a whole inter-connected system.

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Other Review Options ►

• For the diligent: another check for hierarchy.
• Why and how communication usually fails.
• Focus on the communicative event and the role of critical factors, like context and the reference group.
• How precision and ambiguity reveal that communication is often made subservient to other demands.
• how elements of experience fit with elements of communication
• Focus on words and how they fit within communicative events.

Originally posted 27-May-2011; Last updated 25-Jul-2011.