Levels of Communication

I've been reading a book I bought a couple weeks ago about Carl Panzram, and it got me to thinking, in regards to the prison practice of solitary confinement, and "the hole".

The act of segregating and isolating a person can be considered as punishment. Often part of the point of these practices.
In this aspect, the simple ability to communicate is all that makes the difference.

This sort of punishment, like others, may perhaps lead to increased aggression in people..
Panzram explains;

"The last two years and four months confined in isolation with nothing to do except brood upon what I thought was the wrongs that had been done to me. Not allowed to receive letters or visits from friends. ... My whole mind was bent on figuring out different ways to annoy and punish my enemies, and everybody was my enemy. I had no friends. That was the frame of mind I was in when my five years was up and I was turned loose to go anywhere I wanted to go. My intention was to rob, rape, and kill everybody I could, anybody and everybody."

The thought that occurred to me is that the difference between this sort of solitary confinement and non-solitary (but still nevertheless)confinement is a rather simple thing. Simply, the ability to communicate and interact.
The ability to send and receive letters is a very clear demonstration of this. In such a case, communication occurs even without the physical presence of another individual.

The point I am getting to here is not all that deep of one, but rather just a curiosity. About primates, in fact, in apes compared to humans and the levels of communication.

See, primates, relative to humans, routinely show pretty brutal aggression, and as well are not able to communicate on the level that humans are. Communication still takes place, of course, but is limited to grunts, screams, pats, bearing teeth, horseplay, eye contact, and so on. This does not allow for the same expansion and description upon one's feelings and thoughts, in detail or some form of depth, as with articulate human language.

As I consider this, I realize that this (lack of language ability) must be just as well a form of isolation and confinement within oneself.

I wonder, is it possible that this forms part of the reason why apes show greater aggression relative to humans? Because they are more stuck inside themselves, in a way, like Panzram, stuck in solitary, "brooding upon what I thought was the wrongs that had been done to me."? Not being allowed an outlet to explain oneself as fully as one wants to, perhaps. Or to gain acknowledgement, visibility from others of the ruminations upon one's mind.

"Shared Loneliness"

What might be even more interesting is to take this a step farther, and realize that our relatively sophisticated ability to communicate in depth as humans is still lacking in many ways...

I can describe, defend, make known and explain things to my fellow man which the chimp cannot. I can elaborate on complex ideas or attempt description of emotions.. But.. I am also still lacking in my ability to directly convey the total exact experience which I carry. And I am unable to really share the feelings which motivate me behind perceptions I hold which are just too personally conflicting and confusing for me to even really defend, in my verbal explanations. Situations which may even be too elusive for me to really comprehend within myself, but which I carry a feeling or opinion about. And talk with this language has this element of confusing and mudding up such communication, so that we end up stuck on certain concepts or the specific words which are being said, thus losing sight of the motivation of what was really meant to be communicated - expressed - in the first place.

Anyone with half a brain can see that frustration is often just the result of an attempt to communicate something which is just not getting through to the other person. You're not able to explain it exactly like you mean to, and/or they're not listening intelligently enough. But with this new thought about our ability to communicate vs. our confinement within ourselves, this description of frustration takes on a very literal new meaning.

"Alienated Dehumanization"

I have to wonder if the evolution of creatures in the universe inevitably leads towards higher levels of communication, ultimately. Would we someday develop things like telepathy, then emotional telepathy, then intuitive telepathy, if we make it far enough? The thought of being able to just engage a person, look at them, and just have a very in-depth understanding of what is on their mind, complete even to being able to understand the interacting layers of confusion, conflict, and emotional and intuitive subtleties that are operating within, is an exciting thought, that reduces our own current ability to communicate to a primitive state.

As I write this, for example, I use our would-be-outdated, primitive form of words to explain myself. And the reader is free to become bored, and have their eyes glaze over, and begin to see nothing but a bunch of empty words that eventually create a lack of interest within them. But what if they could mind-meld with me (or something) and instantly gain all the subtleties and emotions and curiosities and perceptions of whatever it is that I'm trying to communicate? All of the unspoken things, and maybe even my motivations and level of understanding of it? A more intelligent person could, for example, see the exact understanding I'm at, and be able to offer me any extra understanding they carry.

As I think of this, it just seems like I would be capable of feeling such a deeper connection with a person, if all these extra things could be communicated like this. Really, so much so that it seems to me that the ability to properly communicate is indeed the exact and only thing which defines the connection or closeness between two people. It's weird to think that the simple concept of understanding a person fully can create such a feeling as... souls combining, let's say.
If a person says or does something which I really understand, it as if they are there in my head with me, instead of the echoing sense of vacancy which usually inhabits my mind.

"Existential Scream"

In writing this, it seems a mechanic of communication which I am uncovering here is also a necessary ability to understand oneself. Without this, the message gets confused and lost. I cannot understand the subtleties and meanings of so much of what I have to express, which is the exact reason, itself, why I desire to express it in the first place oftentimes... to figure it out. Really, I am unable to communicate with my own self. I am unable to understand my own self. My deeper or more intuitive/emotional self.


And when you really consider all of this... how much of human conflict results from a failure to properly communicate and understand each other? And ourselves, in what really plagues us? It seems like an awful lot. And our reactions to one another which result, violence and so on, these reactions themselves are also a form of communication. Expression.