On the Nonlinearity of Human Communication: Insatiability, Context, Form

Abstract

This manuscript defines nonlinearity, outlines the phenomenon of insatiability, and shows how alphabetic literacy and technologies made possible through such literacy increase the possibility of experiencing insatiability. It also attempts to demonstrate how notions of context, insatiability, expressive form, and denotative content can be integrated into a broad-based model of the nonlinearity of human communication. Finally, it argues that only by learning how to articulate difference and distance, (i.e., build form) can we deal sufficiently with the nonlinear dimensions of human communication and life more generally. Once it is ours, we crave for something else. So an unquenchable thirst for life keeps us always on the gasp. Lucretius Exceed due measure, and the most delightful things become the least delightful. Epictetus Abstraction is the enemy wherever it is found. Wendell Berry

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