Dear All,
Relevance Theory
Relevance of an input to an individual
a. Other things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive effects
achieved by processing an input, the greater the relevance of the input
to the individual at that time.
b. Other things being equal, the greater the processing effort expended,
the lower the relevance of the input to the individual at that time.
Irrelevance Theory (tentative):
G: What is the nature of Buddha?
S: I eat rice every day.
Irrelevant, purely phatic communicative moves (phatic communication
being the opposite of informative communication) when used as a
well-planned communicative strategy (not resulting from slips of the tongue or mental
disorders) have greater perlocutionary effects (encouraging to dig deeper with the
purpose of discovering that there is nothing to be dug up),
cause more processing effort, thereby yielding greater probability of exposure to
extralinguistic reality (aka enlightenment, satori, samadhi etc.) as illustrated by the practice of
koans in Zen Buddhism and Absurd Literature (Lewis Carroll).
(Note: increased cognitive effect about the "verbally described" world yield
nothing but ...)
References:
Lao Tzu
Chuan Tzu
Alan Watts
CARLOS CASTANEDA
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