Dear Eduardo, and list,

In this post I briefly outline some of the concepts and assumptions that I believe underpin views of the sort that claim that human communication contains or transmits knowledge. However, I want to bracket the discussion of the distinction between information and knowledge, and instead focus more clearly on the concepts of containing and transmitting in communication.

There are several fields such as theory of communication, linguistics, information theory, knowledge management, and psychology that are relevant to this discussion. And there are several experts in those fields, who regularly post to PHD-Design list, who can explain the detail of these issues with greater nuance than I can. That said, in my view, there are at least three models whose concepts and assumptions underpin the standpoint that human communication by texts, utterances, or other signals contain or transmit knowledge. These are (1) the conduit metaphor folk theory, (2) Ferdinand de Saussure’s speech circuit model from his 1916 Cours de linguistique générale, and (3) Claude Shannon’s mathematical information theory developed for electrical engineering and telecommunications in 1948. It is probably true that the concepts and assumptions of these three models have been incorporated to some degree into the range of views that claim that human communication contains or transmits knowledge.
 
The first model, the conduit metaphor, is the folk theory that a person’s thoughts are sent from sender to receiver via a conduit. This metaphor is implied by expressions such as “putting your thoughts into words”, “getting your ideas down on paper”, and “getting your ideas across”. The conduit metaphor suggests that a person’s thoughts are contained in words or symbols, which serve as a package that is sent along a track or in a vehicle to a receiver who unpacks those thoughts at the other end. However, the conduit metaphor cannot be true since, for example, in writing this post I have not literally put my thoughts into words. Instead I have produced little dark marks on the computer screen, a copy of which you are now reading. The little dark marks do not literally contain my thoughts; my thoughts remain where they have always been, inside my head. 

The second model is Saussure’s speech circuit. A speech circuit between person A and person B begins in person A’s brain when (1) thoughts or concepts are associated with representations of signs or sound patterns through a psychological process. (2) Then person A’s brain transmits an impulse to their speech organs corresponding to the signs or sound pattern that initiates a physiological process by which sound waves are produced and travel from person A’s mouth to person B’s ear. Next the circuit continues in person B in the opposite sequence: (3) the physiological transmission of the sound pattern from person B’s ear to their brain; then in person B’s brain (4) the psychological association of the representation of this sound pattern with the corresponding thought or concept. 

A key point to note regarding Saussure’s speech circuit model is that it is a linear transmission model that describes the continuous journey of a unit of thought from one point in space, person A’s brain, to another point in space, person B’s brain. 

The third model is Claude Shannon’s model from his 1948 paper ‘A Mathematical Theory of Communication’. Shannon presented a probability model for measuring the effectiveness of the transmission of information between any two points via electrical signals. From Shannon’s view as an engineer and mathematician, the problem of communication is to reproduce at the destination, the exact message that was selected at the source. There are five parts to Shannon’s model of communication. (1) A source selects a message, and then (2) a transmitter operates on the message using a code to produce a signal suitable for transmission over a channel to the receiving terminal. A code is an algorithm that defines the relationship between the pair (message, signal). A signal is a modification of the external environment produced by the transmitter (e.g., electrical impulses, a wave form). (3) The signal may be disrupted by noise during transmission over the channel. (4) The receiving terminal reconstructs the message from the signal by performing the inverse operation done by the transmitter, decoding the message by using an identical copy of the code. (5) Successful communication has been achieved when the destination has reproduced an identical copy of the message at the source. 

In Shannon’s model, the message encoded by the transmitter to produce the signal is not a mental representation or thought in a person’s mind, instead it is a string of symbols such as a sentence of words made from letters of the alphabet. The transmitter’s role is to operate on the symbols using a code to produce the signal that is then transmitted. Where the message came from, how it was conceived, or what is means, is irrelevant to the engineering problem of transmission. Furthermore, to reproduce the message at the destination, it is essential that both the transmitter and the receiver possess identical copies of the code. Also, in contrast to the conduit metaphor, the message does not travel from the source to the destination.

In 1949, Warren Weaver published an article that argued that the elements of Shannon’s theory could be extended from electrical engineering to human communication in general. Weaver’s article was intended to present Shannon’s model for publication in the popular press and so removed the technical engineering focus of Shannon’s original paper. Weaver modified Shannon’s theory and introduced assumptions from the conduit metaphor in his explanation. The “Shannon-Weaver” model influenced information theory based accounts of human communication, and once it influence extended into linguistics, the model was readily combined with Saussure’s speech circuit model to influence that range of views of the sort that claim that human communication contains or transmits knowledge.

Views of the sort that claim that human communication contains or transmits knowledge are probably underpinned by concepts and assumptions similar to those found in the conduit metaphor, the speech circuit model, and the Shannon-Weaver model. The following list summarises some of the assumptions (Also see: Blackburn, 2007, pp. 82-86):
(1) Languages are codes that define the association between pairs (message, signal). 
(2) Languages exist independently of the speaker and hearer
(3) The speaker and hearer must share the same code for successful communication to proceed
(4) Texts convey messages
(5) The creator of a text encoded a message when they produced the text
(6) The receiver of the text decodes the message when they read the text
(7) Communication is successful when the message received is the same as that sent
(8) Communication may be inhibited by noise
(9) The speaker and hearer are connected via the channel of communication
(10) Communication requires intention by the speaker and response by the hearer

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The view that books, texts, utterances, gestures, artefacts and so on, contain or transmit knowledge is pervasive and tenacious, and it is difficult to appreciate that it a view that is open to debate and critical discussion. In my view, all of the assumptions in the list are debatable in different ways, and that there are sufficient grounds to warrant doubting that books contain or transmit knowledge.

Best regards,
Luke

Blackburn, P. L. (2007). The Code Model of Communication: A Powerful Metaphor in Linguistic Metatheory: SIL e-books.


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