How to Stop Making Sense: the reducing valve of virtual communications

Published on 2.19.24 at garyborjesson.substack.com

It appears that the soul is moved by the things it perceives most of all. - Aristotle

I almost started this note with an unforgettably fragrant patient. Like their body odor, it would have been gripping. But first I want to sketch the bigger picture in which that smell lingers on.

Here and in the next few notes, I am exploring a question of special interest to those who work closely and collaboratively with others: How do the different technologies by which we connect affect our alliances? As I said in my last note, this wasn’t a question that made much sense until 150 years ago, when technologies like the telegraph and telephone began ushering in the era of virtual connections, and virtual relationships.

It’s no coincidence that in this era of virtuality we face a massive mental-health crisis. To put it paradoxically, the ways we’re connecting are, on balance, making us feel disconnected. This sobering reality is getting a lot of deserved attention. But in our urgency to find solutions, it’s easy to overlook the root causes. So it will be useful (and interesting I hope) to do here as philosophy does, and go a little deeper into the obvious. Let’s start exploring how technology affects our alliances by looking for what’s so familiar and obvious—like the nose on our face—that we may overlook it.

Here’s an obvious question: how does the form of connection affect what’s able to be perceived and experienced and known? What difference does it make whether we doctor, teach, or do therapy in person or by Zoom? Take that gripping body odor. If I had met them by Zoom I never would have known that they smelled, much less that they smelled of body odor and urine. If we had “met” by phone, my experience would have been reduced further still. I wouldn’t have seen how disheveled they looked—hair uncombed, jeans dirty, posture slumped. If we had “met” by text, I might not have heard so feelingly how dejected they sounded. But because we met in person, all of this was available to me in the field.

Their smell was disgusting, but I didn’t feel disgusted. To the contrary, what made the meeting so memorable was what I did feel: a spontaneous surge of empathy. It was as though my senses themselves had triggered empathy (not pity) and warm regard—through no choice or special virtue on my part. They were having an epically awful week, and I was able to take this in through all my senses. It was moving beyond words.

Indeed, our senses and emotions are closely tied. I asked a recent acquaintance, ChatGPT, what they know about the connection. (“Them” seems a plausible pronoun, since these large-language-model AIs are speaking in a collective voice acquired by gobbling up so many voices.) Just for fun, here’s what they said:

The olfactory system, responsible for our sense of smell, is closely linked to the limbic system, which governs emotions and memory formation. This connection explains why certain smells can evoke strong emotional responses or trigger vivid memories.

That’s spot on. We could trace parallel connections between our core emotions and our senses of touch, taste, sight, and hearing. Let me add another obvious but often overlooked fact: we’re unconscious of the greater part of our perceptions and emotions. I’ll say more about the significance of this in a later note.

The deep and obvious point here is that when we’re together in person, all of our senses are at play. There’s a maximum thickness of presence and power to experience each other. Since VR technology is still in its infancy, the next best thing to “being there” for most of us is audio-video. This mode of connection immediately lops off three senses —smell, touch, and taste—not to mention restricting the range of hearing and vision we’re left with. With the phone we’re down to one sense. And with text we’re down to none. True, we need our eyes or ears or fingers to read or hear or feel a text, but there’s no sensory access to the actual person behind the text. Who knows for sure that it’s even them? Do you know for sure that I’m writing this, and not ChatGPT?

To drive home what’s lost when we lose our senses, consider that a large area of our cerebral cortex is devoted to gathering and processing sensory information. As Aristotle observed, most of what is in our minds comes from our senses; they provide the material about which we feel, imagine, think, reason, and remember. So, when we lose our senses, we are literally losing the use of a large area of our cerebral cortex, which otherwise would be enriching our experience. In turn, our power to affect someone or be affected by them (by their smell for example) is necessarily reduced. Any such reduction in our brain power has profound social consequences. How could it not, when our brains evolved in large part to facilitate sociability and cooperation.

Image made by ChatGPT, in response to my prompt: “make an image of the human cerebral cortex, identifying and labeling the regions associated with touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing.” (I’d give their work a C.)

On Zoom I still would have felt empathy for my patient, but I doubt it would have been as warmly spontaneous. For I’d have lost some of my sense and some of my mind, some of my soul’s capacity to be moved by what’s perceived. That means I’d have had a diminished ability to respond to all that their thick embodied presence was “telling” me.

When using Zoom or talking by phone, I try to keep all this in mind. Nowadays when I have phone conversations and something in the person’s tone catches my ear, I’ll sometimes mention it and ask what they’re noticing. When I’m having a notable reaction or feeling, or when I say something I fear will be misunderstood, I find myself adding, “I have a smile on my face as I say this.” Or “I hope you can hear how tenderly I mean this.” Or “If you saw me right now, you’d see my discomfort.” Without having intended to, I’m adding verbal emojis to compensate for the lost senses. Trying to supply the missing data, to borrow an expression from information technology. Or maybe a better way of putting it is that I’m trying to start making sense.