The Importance of Me(aning)
The text you will read is an essay on “communicate-ing.” That’s not a typo — we were just undecided whether we should use the infinitive, the imperative, or the present continuous.
We’ll explain.
From the languages we speak to the symbols we use, every interaction is a testament to our quest for connection and understanding. Communication is about exchanging information — from one “me” to another “me(ow)” — it’s about how we connect and interact with what surrounds us, with other animals, plants, objects, and places. It ensures a shared reality where meanings evolve and adapt to collective experiences as something communal (hence the word). Each expression, thought, sound, or gesture carries layers of significance constantly in flux, influenced by the cultural, social, historical, personal, natural, and even the artificial.
Can you now grasp our existential indecisiveness? When we write about communication, understanding it as a way to relate to the world(s) around us makes the decision of what verbal form to use more complex than we initially expected. Writing and describing communication encapsulates the infinitive — because it’s writing about purpose, intention and potential — the imperative — because it ultimately relates to actioning, asking, wishing (and sometimes demanding) — and the present continuous — because when we communicate, we relate to what has occurred, to what will change and what will continue.
Ultimately, to communicate/communicate!/communicating is to actively participate in a common shared experience — it’s what builds the fabric of life, what makes existence real and slightly more tangible. We communicate, or we are communicating, constantly — within ourselves, with others and even sometimes with places or objects.
However, grasping communication as something so immensely complex, can be somewhat overwhelming. Maybe we need to attempt to break it down into tiny pieces — fragments to build again — in order to understand what constitutes communication and how we can integrate this new perspective in our collective narratives.
So, what concepts surface when we do this (simple?!) exercise? Well, one of them is, undeniably, the idea of time.
The Timely Testimony of Rocks
We’ve always struggled to grasp the concept of time. Comprehending the vast expanse of space and time in which we exist is both complex and daunting. It might explain why so many physicists turn to philosophy. The idea that there was time before us and there will be time after us challenges our understanding of the world and forces us to question what we consider absolute truths. But isn’t time just this technology we’ve conceptualized to make sense of our existence and experiences?
Rocks, in their silent testimony, might be the closest we get to the embodying of time and its passage. They help us see beyond our immediate experience and grasp the broader layers of the context of our existence and the long, interconnected history of life on Earth. Rocks are made of atoms that allow themselves to melt, freeze, break, reform, and, in short words, transform. Plus, they were here when it all started and were by themselves for around 1 billion years before the first form of life joined them to inhabit the planet. After all, despite knowing it for a fact, it’s only reasonable to consider that we are all made of the exact same things — probably made of rock-(stars). But are rock formations conscious of the eons it takes for them to come into being? Is a mineral aware of how long it has existed?
Do rocks ponder about time the same way we do? And other beings?
From sunsets and sunrises, from the effects of seasons passing to the ticking of a clock or the days marked on a calendar, time is this magical tool we’ve found and taken as ours, giving it a sense that derives from our perception. This technological lens allows us to segment our existence into comprehensible units — seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years — satisfying our continuous need for structure and order. Earth, on the other hand, is divided into what we call geological epochs, which are no more than units of geological time that represent the periods during which a rock series is deposited. (See what we felt the need to do, we considered rocks also needed their own time framed — humans being humans).
The Anthropocene will likely be the shortest geological time ever. First, we need to make clear that the term that defines an epoch in geology doesn’t have a consensus within the scientific community. It hinges on establishing clear, globally identifiable stratigraphic markers — amidst indicators like plastic pollution and increased carbon dioxide levels. Debates persist over its proposed start date, ranging from the Industrial Revolution to the mid-20th century’s “Great Acceleration”. Unlike other geological epochs defined by slower, more profound changes and more expansive time(s), the Anthropocene’s recent and rapid impacts complicate its classification. Formal recognition requires rigorous scientific scrutiny and consensus, as it would significantly impact existing geological frameworks. Eventually, someone or something, maybe sometime in the future, will look back and decide if we were that relevant, or not.
Back to our assumption of Antropochene… Even though we inhabit such a narrow slice of time and space, we’ve managed to profoundly hurt the natural systems that surround us. Throughout this period, we have placed ourselves and our perspectives at the center, continuously enforcing what (when looking at the greater scheme of being(s)) can be an extremely limited perception of time, constantly assuming the role of masters of knowledge, meaning and sentience.
Why are we so certain we are the ones who get to say when time begins and ends?
We delineate days based on light, yet many species thrive without it, and others have entirely different concepts of time. The rhythm of life for nocturnal creatures or deep-sea beings, untouched by sunlight, defies our human-centered constructs. While we mark the passage of time with the changing seasons, many species have their unique rhythms. Arctic animals, such as polar bears, operate on cycles dictated by the polar day and night, which last for months. Their biological processes, from migration to reproduction, are finely tuned to these extreme conditions, illustrating a temporal existence far removed from our own. In the plant kingdom, certain species — like the century plant — challenge our temporal norms by living for decades and flowering only once before dying.
Cyanobacteria have inhabited the Earth for 3.5 billion years. As a Phylum containing multitudes of different species, they compose the most numerous taxon to have ever existed (at least on this planet) and the first organisms known to have produced oxygen. These biologically simple — yet evolutionarily complex — organisms have witnessed beginnings, endings, and in-betweens. What does it mean to perceive the vast expanse of time through their “eyes”? Even here — let’s pause for a mere second.
We struggle to avoid attributing human meaning. How can they “see” without eyes? How can they have borne witness to the passage of geological time if they inherently exist beyond the bounds of our comprehension? In cosmology, the concept of time, beginning with the Big Bang, challenges our everyday understanding of time as infinite and unending. Yet, philosophers and theologians have long debated the nature of time, eternity, and infinity, suggesting that our current scientific models are just one way of comprehending an elusive and abstract concept.
In pondering these questions, we confront the limits of our anthropocentric worldview. Our attempts to impose human concepts on such ancient and fundamentally different life forms reveal our struggle to grasp a reality outside our own experience. In their silent and enduring presence, the cyanobacteria challenge us to reconsider our definitions of perception and existence, inviting us to embrace a broader, more inclusive understanding of life’s narrative through time. And the rocks, let’s not forget the rocks and what we decided for them.
We have reflected on the intricate relationship between time and the way we interact with the world around us — how the way we perceive it can deeply define the way we communicate.
But besides time, there are also the relationships with different beings/elements. When we try to write an essay about communicate-ing, we need to reflect on the exchanges between these actors, how they relate within themselves or outside of themselves, and what that might look like.
Inter- “relationspecies”
“Every living being creates its own environment which determines its behavior and interaction with the world.” — Jakob von Uexküll
Jakob von Uexküll was the first to define the concept of Umwelt. Being the German word for environment, it denotes an organism’s unique sensory world.
Umwelt is all about how creatures experience their environments, communicate, and find meaning in the world around them. It’s like a personal bubble of perception and interaction unique to each species. It’s how a bat navigates through the night using echolocation, the way a bee sees ultraviolet patterns on flowers; a lizard seeks heat to pump up his blood, a dog follows rich scents kilometers away and even how sunflowers follow the light no matter what. It’s the sensory playground, the way species make sense of the world.
The human Umwelt is a curious adventure, filled with sights, sounds, tastes, and textures, combined with a particular cognitive capacity. It shapes our understanding of the world and how we communicate with it. Think of it as the lens through which we interpret reality. Now, understand that this lens is not static; it evolves with our experiences, knowledge, and emotions.
Now, let’s consider the letter A. Originally an ox head in ancient Semitic alphabets, its shape and meaning has transformed over millennia. From representing an animal to becoming the first letter of many alphabets, it illustrates how we’ve been looking into nature, into other species and how we relate to them, not only to attribute meaning but also to construct the means to relate and widen our environments.
We have always yearned for interspecies communication — to relate, connect, and exchange meaning with the myriad forms of life that inhabit our world. This desire stems from the profound realization that we can only truly understand what lies within our own personal Umwelt, the subjective universe we each inhabit. Everything beyond our individual experience remains elusive, challenging our comprehension. Despite our ability to touch, feel, smell, see, think, question (and write), it remains extraordinarily difficult — some might argue impossible (we call them pessimists) — to grasp what it feels like to be a sediment forming, a caterpillar transforming into a cocoon, or an octopus growing a new limb. Maybe this is what generates that feeling of existential emptiness, that we all have felt at some point.
There are countless universes we do not know. Not in the sense of interplanetary exploration, but within the boundless diversity of experiences that coexist on our this planet.
Imagine the profound transformations that would unfold in communication if we could enter these other Umwelts. What new forms of living, creating, interacting, and exchanging might surface, develop, and evolve? The symphony of interspecies dialogue could usher in an era of unprecedented empathy and creativity, where the lines between self and another blur, and we learn to navigate life with a deeper, more inclusive consciousness.
Actors and time. Time and actors. What else might be missing in the profound process of communication?
The tools that shape
“If our inability to tell meaningful, actionable stories about our changing planet is part of the problem, then we need to rethink the tools we use to make culture itself. Technology can be part of the communal, sense-making process. In order for this to happen, we need to stop using it as a way to constrain time and enforce our perspective, and instead deploy it to widen our vision and expand the scope of our attention.” — James Bridle in Ways of being
In recent years, the conversation surrounding AI and large language models (LLMs) has become ubiquitous. Tools like Gemini, Claude, Perplexity or even Chat GPT and Google have profoundly influenced the way we explore information and knowledge. In an already fast-paced society, technology now accelerates this pace even further. The rapid dissemination of information and the impact of social media on our perception of the world have deeply affected how we communicate — or how we believe we can communicate — with our surroundings, fostering a more passive, less exploratory mode of being. In a planet in crisis, it is striking to observe how disconnected we have become, trapped within our limited technological worldview.
Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, and artist, made significant contributions to biology and evolution. Let us pause on the word “artist.” How does one intersect biology, philosophy, and naturalism with art? Through his microscope, Haeckel glimpsed the intimate parts of organisms, unveiling a new way to perceive the natural world. Isn’t the microscope also a technological tool that helped us craft a new way to perceive other organisms? Haeckel translated these discoveries into beautiful illustrations that reshaped our understanding of living creatures.
Today, organizations like CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) are gathering data to create a large language model of sperm whale communication. This LLM aims to develop an AI that could potentially allow us to understand what whales say to each other. Here, technology serves as a tool to bring us closer to nature and other species, with the potential to uncover entirely new forms of communication that are utterly alien (pun intended) to us. What do we imagine whales say to each other? What if they’re also caught up in a poetic attempt to define love? What if they talk about something completely different, beyond the boundaries of our imagination?
Understanding that we need to deepen our connections and embrace the existing entanglement is crucial. We are not the center of the universe but rather a part of the whole. The path to regeneration lies in recognizing this interconnectedness and redefining our technological tools, so that they can serve as links of new exchanges. Technology and innovation, if designed beyond human-and-time-centered economical/social/cultural systems, will open the necessary space to new ways of living that can transform relationships with the planet and each others.
The end?
After reflecting on the nature of communication and grappling with existential and seemingly nonsensical questions, we begin to build a framework to better understand the components that shape communication as a shared and common experience.
The Actors
Who or what inhabits this shared experience? Here, animism offers a fertile starting point for expanding our Umwelt, or our perceptual world. In animism, every element of nature possesses its own form of consciousness or spirit, resulting in a world that is fundamentally animated and sentient. This worldview embraces ontological pluralism, suggesting that reality comprises multiple, interrelated spiritual essences. Such a perspective invites us to adopt a more inclusive understanding of existence where rocks, rivers, animals, and humans coexist on a common spiritual plane.
Consider the implications of blurring the boundaries between the living and the nonliving. What transformations might occur in our perception if we engaged with the world from the perspective of a rock or cyanobacteria? What insights could emerge from a conversation with a sperm whale? These questions invite us to rethink our place in the cosmos, recognizing a tapestry of interconnected consciousnesses.
The Events
Challenging our perception of time is the next step. By examining geological time, we begin to understand that the future is far more intricate than merely forecasting the next decade or century. The planet will persist beyond our existence, continuing its dance of creation and destruction. Events unfold within this vast temporal canvas, where we become compost, nurturing future life forms. What does this mean for the present moment (or the present continuous?) How does this broader temporal context reshape our understanding of today?
The Tools and Technologies
Finally, we turn to the tools and technologies we employ. Through this new lens, technology becomes a catalyst for transformation. It offers us the means to transcend our Umwelt, fostering connections and exchanges with the world in novel ways. This exploration is both exhilarating and daunting, pushing the boundaries of our cognitive and philosophical capacities. Yet, by embracing these challenges, we can rewrite the narrative, using technology to forge deeper connections and new forms of being that render us less apathetic and more immersed, entangled, complex, and beautiful sights.
In the words of Donna Haraway, “It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” Indeed, it matters. It’s matter.
We finish as we started, reflecting on words and their form.
This essay transformed itself during the writing process. What started as an essay is now an invitation to reimagine our place in the world, to embrace a multiplicity of perspectives, and to recognize the profound interconnectedness of all things. Through the creation of a framework, we strive to reshape our understanding of communication, creating a more inclusive, dynamic, and meaningful shared experience. It demands a conscious effort to understand the long-term implications of our actions and to act in ways that ensure a healthy planet for future generations. The power of me(aning) in communication is not just in connecting us with each other, but in connecting us with the past and future, fostering new relationships and possibly imagining new tools.
Well, anyway… We hope that it at least inspires a new plurality of expressions the next time you need to choose a verbal form.
This article was written by our Strategic Designer & Project Lead, Ana Oliveira (with the contribution of our Communication Coordinator, João Moreira).
