Chapter Two

The Understanding of Understanding

The three component parts of understanding are Affinity, Reality and Communication. These can be considered as points of a triangle and they are inter-related. As any one of these parts of understanding is affected so are the other parts. As all aspects of human action and inter-action, include Affinity, Reality and Communication, a further study of them is necessarily important if one wishes to know more about man. As a person can be brought to the point where he is able to have or not have affinity, to have or not have reality, and to have or not have communication at will, he becomes more capable of understanding and successfully handling life.

To simplify matters, a brief description of affinity, reality and communication will first be given followed by a more comprehensive explanation.

COMMUNICATION is the interchange of ideas or particles between two points. Communication is the consideration and action of impelling an impulse, or particle, from a source point across a distance to a receipt point with the intention of bringing into being at the receipt point a duplication of that which emanated from the source point. The formula of communication is Cause-Distance-Effect, with attention, intention and duplication.

REALITY is the degree of agreement reached by two ends of a communication line. In essence, it is the degree of duplication achieved between Cause and Effect. That which is real is real because it is agreed upon.

AFFINITY is the relative distance and willingness to obtain similarity of the two ends of a communication line. A person who creates affinity is willing to be like or to share that which he is creating and feeling affinity for. The word itself implies that the greatest affinity there could be would be the occupation of the same space. Where things do not occupy the same space their affinity is delineated by the relative distance and degree of duplication.

Though the three sides of the Communication A R C triangle are interdependent, Communication is by far the most important side. It is the solvent, the magic fluid of life which brings dreams to reality and untangles the masterknot of human fate.

Communication

Communication is an ability. Like any ability, it can be increased through knowledge and through practice. Just as a person can learn through practice to play a violin (a specialized form of communication), one can improve his communication ability through determined practice. The ability to use the language (another specialized form of communication) enables one to earn more money. The ability to communicate better in all respects will enable a person to earn more money and actually to appreciate increasingly many types of communication which is payment far superior in the long run to money. The man who plays the violin or who uses the language well enjoys life more through these abilities; the man who communicates well in all respects enjoys life even more fully through this ability. Communication has a definition, a formula, a set of mechanics and usage. These will be discussed further in turn. Unless otherwise stated, communication will refer to life, communication of and between living forms.

First is the definition. This may sound complex, but as each part of it is understood it is easily comprehended. Communication is the interchange of ideas or particles between two points. Communication is the consideration and action of impelling an impulse or particle from a source point across a distance to a receipt point with the intention of bringing into being at the receipt point a duplication of that which emanated from the source point. The formula of communication is Cause-Distance-Effect, with attention, intention and duplication.

This is not merely the definition of language; it is the definition of all types of communication from throwing a ball, to a handshake, to a smile. Communication essentially requires at least one life form, a man, an animal, an insect, etc. Something must be there to do the communicating. Further, in order for two-way communication to exist there must be at least two life forms. This may seem obvious; nonetheless, when the obvious is stated it is much more likely to be useful.

Cause is one of the component parts of communication. Again, this means that something must be there to originate and to start a communication on its way. The Cause can be a man who has for example the intention of conveying an idea to another person, whose body would be the receipt point. Two bodies do not occupy the same space in this universe, so the idea must be sent across a distance. As stated, Cause must have the intention of originating a communication. Intention is essentially the idea of doing something which has been thought of and planned. The sender must also put some Attention on his message and upon sending it to see that it arrives at the receipt point in such a form that the receiver can duplicate the message. Duplication plays a vital role in communication. As duplication occurs, then good communication occurs. If one man says to another, " Battleships are large ships " and the receiver pictures a rowboat or a canoe, there is not likely to be a high degree of duplication. If a woman talks about a sewing machine and the listener pictures a needle, there again is a poor degree of communication. Although the receiver is listening, he also plays an active role in deliberately creating a duplicate of the idea which the sender communicated. The sender must, to some degree, be certain when he communicates something that the person receiving the message is capable of duplicating it. If one speaks English to a Chinese who doesn't speak English, duplication of the message is unlikely no matter how well the Chinese duplicates the sound of the words. Agreement is necessary to reality and to communication and as there is agreement (duplication) about the meaning of a word then relatively good communication becomes possible.

If one has ever ordered a cup of black coffee in a restaurant and has instead received a cup of tea with milk, one can appreciate the importance of duplication in communication. If one man says to another " I admire you " and the other hears it as " I inspire you ", one can easily see that some misunderstanding will exist. Duplication in pronunciation is also a factor, though not so important. However, if one listens to a conversation between an American, an Englishman, a South African and an Australian, one might wonder is they are really speaking the same language. Nonetheless, in such a case, there is usually a sufficient degree of duplication to make satisfactory communication possible.

Duplication also includes the ability to repeat. In Western countries a fairly strong dislike of repetition exists. People have agreed to consider that repetition is boring, dull and uninteresting. Yet this is only as true as one agrees with it. As people become more and more unwilling to duplicate their own actions in some thing such as housework, or factory production, this unwillingness tends to extend into all aspects of living; and what, at first, is only unwillingness in time becomes an inability. A person who cannot enjoy doing something again and again will eventually find nothing new to enjoy. Actually, the consideration that a repeated experience is the " same " is a failure to differentiate in time. The person who limits his pleasure to only new things limits himself to a fantastic extent; particularly because once something has been experienced it is then no longer " new " and so new experiences become increasingly rare. The rehabilitation of a person's willingness and ability to duplicate are extremely important in terms of increasing his ability to communicate and to understand.

As a person becomes unwilling to let something happen again he tends to cut down his ability to communicate. The person who is unwilling to let something happen again almost always chronically carries with him a mental picture of that which he is unwilling to let happen agairr. In order to prevent it from happening again he is, in actuality, making it continually exist within himself. Through his own fear he becomes the constant and unwilling effect of that which he fears. If he were willing to let it happen again he wouldn't have to constantly carry the mental image around with him and so he would be more free. There are many, many things which could be discussed about duplication as part of communication, but they can be found in other publications on Scientology.

There are various types of communication systems. The human body itself is a communication system. It can be the source point for communications which can be sent, for instance, via voice, gesture, emotion, action, smell, and writing. The body receives messages during every moment of life through the perceptions. Where the human body is an inadequate transmitter or receiver, there are various communication systems which man has created to supplement the limitation of the body. The telephone, television, office inter-communication systems, loudspeakers, radio, radar, megaphones are just a few of the systems man has devised to increase his ability to communicate more effectively. However, a system is only as good as the sender and the receiver at the two ends of the line. The sender (cause) must consider that he can and will communicate and have some intention of so doing and put some attention into it. He must be able to create a form to send through the system which can be duplicated and recognized by the receiver (effect). The receiver must consider that he can and will receive the communication and be willing and able to duplicate and recognize the message when it arrives no matter what system or via is used.

The sender of a message must take into consideration the form his message will take and the distance it has to travel. He must consider any existing barriers, such as walls or excessive noises or bright lights or darkness. He must consider whether his message has sufficient force to arrive and must also make certain that there is not too much force. In other words, the velocity of the impulse or particle is important in good communication. A cannon ball is a communication particle and if it lacks sufficient force it will not arrive at the intended receipt point. A spoken word must have sufficient force and volume to reach its destination or it will not arrive, and if it has too much force or volume it may arrive as a garbled noise.

If a wall exists between the sender and the receiver then the sender must create a means of insuring that the message arrives through the wall, or around it in some fashion. If the sender's intention to communicate is strong enough, he will devise a workable means of successfully sending his message. Distance can also be a barrier to communication if the sender is limited in his methods of communication. The more ways he has available to communicate, the more possible it becomes for him to make certain that he can communicate whatever he wishes. A man standing on the desert could be out of voice range of another person and if he could only talk or yell he probably couldn't communicate effectively and so distance would be a barrier. If, however, he could send morse code with a mirror or use semaphore he would not be so limited. Perhaps you can think of someone you know who doesn't have a telephone. Distance could be the barrier because you'd have to visit him or do something else in order to communicate.

Time can also be a barrier. Joe may have telephoned but when you ring him the line is busy, so you have to wait to deliver your message. This could be a barrier if the communication was important. Distance and time quite often combine to form a barrier to communication. You might wish to talk to someone on a boat which will not arrive for a week and there is no radio on the ship. Thus, time and space would create a communication barrier.

The component parts of communication would then include : Cause, Consideration, Intention, Attention, Source-point, Distance, Effect, Receipt-point, Duplication, the velocity of the impulse or particle, nothingness or somethingness. A non-communication consists of barriers. Barriers consist of Space, Interpositions (such as walls and screens of fast-moving particles), and time. Again, the formula of communication is Cause-Distance-Effect with Intention, Attention and Duplication. When a communication is returned the formula is reversed, with the receipt-point now becoming a source-point and the former source-point now becoming a receipt-point.

If one wished to increase a person's ability to communicate, he would then create processes which would increase the individual's ability to start, to change, or to stop any one of the above component parts of communication. For example, a process would be invented which would improve a person's ability to create considerations.

Considerations are essentially created thoughts which can be arranged to devise systems of mechanics. One might consider, for instance, that men could fly. Once holding this consideration, a person could then invent a means by which this could be done regardless of differing considerations held by others. Considerations take rank over mechanics from the Scientologist's point of view. Considerations can be sub-divided into ideas, opinions, decisions, postulates and assumptions. As a person can freely create considerations; as he can knowingly hold considerations; as he can willingly change considerations; and as he is able to stop or destroy considerations; he is more able to communicate and to live freely and effectively.

So far we have only considered the definition of communication and its component parts. A further amplification can be found in Scientology publications listed in the bibliography. At this point, we will proceed into a description and analysis of the mechanics of two-way communication. To repeat, there are three major aspects to communication; the definition, the formula and the mechanics of two-way communication.

[Next week The Mechanics of Two-Way Communication]