July 1999
Definition of Communication: Something communicates if it affects or relates to something else.
1. To exist is to communicate. All existing things communicate with other things constantly.
2. Affect can be considered both positively and negatively. What something does or doesn’t do.
3. Affect can be considered both agentive and nonagentive; agent beings decide many affects.
4. Agentive communication may be divided into messages. Each message has four defining variables:
- a. Purpose: What the agent is trying to accomplish.
- b. Main assertion: How the agent is trying to accomplish the purpose.
- c. Support: The strength of the communication, internal (stated) and external (environmental).
- d. Relevance: The importance (consequences) of the message.
5. Agentive communication may also be internal (within oneself) or external (affecting others).
6. Agentive communication may be non-verbal or verbal. The non-verbal is the basis of all verbal communication.
7. Ordinary human agentive communications are a mixture of good and evil because we humans are both good and evil.
8. Agentive power of attention gives one the ability to absorb some communications, reject others. We tend to become like the sources of communication we give our attention to.
9. We agents shape ourselves by selecting the communications we receive and by meditating internally on those communications. We are also shaped by our environment. Some environments foster agency; others do not.
10. The purpose of the Restored Gospel is to give us the power to reshape ourselves into the kind of being God is, so that we can communicate with others only good, as God does. This can be done by communicating with God.
Conclusion: Our being (what we have been shaped to be and what we have shaped ourselves to be) is demonstrated by the communications we send to others. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:20 “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.” Matthew 7:18
Application: Our most important communications are with God, spouse, children, other people, and nature, in that order.
Language
Definition: A language is a mutually stipulated set of signs by which humans stimulate thinking, feeling and action in one another. A normal language has signs to represent things, actions, modifiers and connectives.
1. All human communication is invented. There are no natural words or natural grammars.
2. There is no such thing as “The English Language” (or any other colloquial language) though there are standard “Englishes,” hundreds of them. In a sense, each individual has a personal language unlike any other.
3. Language is what makes a being a human and gives a person the possibility of agency.
4. A first language cannot be learned if one begins after puberty (limit of 50–100 words).
5. Each human being has a private thought-world of concepts: a mind-set. Words represent concepts.
6. Linguistic communication is a complicated process.
Person #1 [Mind set: Speaker’s beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, likes, dislikes] Concept set > Word pattern > Utterance > Physical transfer > Person #2 Reception > Word pattern > Concept set > Significance. [Significance: What a communication does to the receiver’s mind set.]
7. Human language communication is never complete and is often not accurate. It does not transmit ideas. Meaning is always invented by the sender and by the receiver and is always context dependent.
8. There are levels of language development (Pidgin, Creole, Full) and usage (Common, Erudite, Specialty).
9. The unit of communication is the assertion (message): there are four basic kinds of assertions:
- a. Disclosure: The person expresses feelings about something.
- b. Description: The person tells how something looks or acts.
- c. Directive: The person tells another person what to do.
- d. Declaration: A person of authority makes a change by speaking.
10. The best way to improve language communication is to clarify concepts. Example: Repentance.
- a. Base: LDS
- b. Etymology: Latin re=again, pentir=to turn: thus, to turn again.
- c. Dictionary definition: a turning of the heart and will to God. (LDS Bible Dictionary)
- d. Example in base: “… if a man repent of his sins, he will confess and forsake them.” D&C 59:43
- e. Related concepts:
- 1) Genus: A necessary component of faith in Jesus Christ.
- 2) Prerequisites: Understanding of right and wrong, desire to do what is right, hearing the Restored Gospel, etc.
- 3) Opposite: Sinning Counterfeit: Paying money for an indulgence. Similar: Contrition, reformation
- f. Levels:
- 1) Celestial: After baptism, living by the Holy Spirit in all things.
- 2) Terrestrial: Recognition, remorse, reformation, restitution.
- 3) Telestial: Saying “I’m sorry.”
- 4) Perdition: Being baptized and taking the sacrament with every intention to continue sinning.
- g. New definition: Replacing all sinning with acts of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ and the ordinances of the Restored Gospel. Every human act is either a sin or an act of faith in Jesus Christ.
- h. Key Questions:
- 1) Does repentance bring forgiveness of sins? Celestial repentance, yes.
- 2) If one sins after forgiveness, what happens? The former sins return. D&C 82:7.
- 3) Can one repent all at once, or is it a gradual process? For most people, it is a gradual process.
- 4) When is repentance complete? When one has stopped obeying Satan and totally obeys God.
- i. Conclusion: Language is the only way anyone can learn about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Through language one partakes of the ordinances, learns how to live as Christ did, and thus may enter into salvation.
- j. Application: Learning how to repent and repenting should be the major daily activity of a Latter-day Saint.
Thinking
Definition: Arranging ideas in one’s mind. Principal theories as to what thinking is:
1. Verbal: Arrangement and rearrangement of words in the mind.
2. Behavioral: Sideshow of ideas which are an epiphenomenon on actions of the body. (No agency.)
3. Concept: Development and rearrangement of concepts in the mind as preparation to act.
Basic kinds of concept thinking:
1. Linear: Pursuing a problem to a conclusion. Usually follows a rut (habit).
2. Lateral: Finding all of the possible ways to solve a problem. Additions to the rut.
3. Systems thinking: Seeing the problem and possible solutions as part of a larger whole.
4. Holistic thinking: Seeing the problem and possible solutions as part of the whole universe.
A problem is a disparity between one’s present situation and the desired situation. Ways of problem solving:
1. Buddhist: Let desires go to zero and all problems are solved.
2. Western: Gain power over all things and arrange them to suit desires.
3. LDS: Give heart, might, mind and strength to God and work only on His problems.
Factors which affect thinking: Desires, knowledge, skills, effort, wiring, environment.
Tasks of thinking: Planning, memorizing, reciting, enjoying, analyzing, synthesizing, creating, etc.
Types of systems thinking: Analysis, synthesis, evaluation, operation
Example of systems analysis: Systems Analysis Format
Target system: The Atonement of Jesus Christ. Atonement: To enable all men to become one with Father.
1. Static analysis: Fallen state of Man, the need for redemption.
System boundaries: The heavens and this earth.
System environment: All of God’s creations.
System parts: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Satan; Adam, Eve and all of their children.
2. Dynamic analysis: Problem: How to save men from the fall and not destroy their agency.
System function: God is just. He blesses obedience, but will not and cannot tolerate sinning in any degree.
System input: Men obey God sometimes, but also sin by obeying Satan.
System output: Father’s justice: Men become angels to Satan if they serve him. Only perfect obedience to God enables any human to receive all of Father’s blessings (exaltation). Father’s mercy: Sending His Son to reconcile men with himself.
System opposition: Satan opposes everything Christ does.
3. Agent analysis: Agent: Christ.
Agent goal: To enable every child of Father to become exalted as Father and our Savior are; to bless each maximally (as much as each is able and willing to receive).
Agent resources: The knowledge and power of God plus the ability to sin and to die, plus the strength not to sin and to die for men.
Agent strategy: Obey Father in all things, suffer for the sins of all men, voluntarily die to seize the keys of death, teach all men how to repent and give them the power to do so, then to bless all men to the degree to which they have repented.
Agent tactics: Teach the Gospel, bestow the priesthood, organize the church, set all things in order. This so that every soul might have an opportunity to hear and accept the Gospel of Jesus Crist, repent, receive the true authority, unite with the church and receive the temple blessings, which is the means to full repentance to become as God is.
Agent work: Create the earth, enable the Fall, send angels to teach the Gospel, bestow the priesthood, organize the earth, suffer for the sins of all men, seize the keys of death from Satan by voluntarily dying, then to resurrect and continue to preside over the earth and the church, to give a final judgment to each person, exalting those who fully repented, blessing all others as much as they can receive.
Agent assessment: The Savior was (is) in constant contact with Father, taking instruction, working, reporting back.
Agent evaluation: The joy that passes understanding comes to the Savior as the children of men repent.
Key Factor: [Which system factor is most influential, the one which gives the operator of the system the greatest power and control: Christ: Total obedience to the commandments of the Father. Men: Total obedience to the commandments of the Savior.
Conclusion: Thinking is the exercise of agency, and is the basis for all human action. Systems thinking gives one a sense of the whole order of things, and is an approach to the holistic thinking of God. It gives humans an opportunity chance to appreciate the goodness of God in providing a way for the salvation of men.
Application: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. A man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge.