i partially disagree. I agree that formal philosophical axioms as we understand them are out of reach by puffs of smoke, since philosophy tries to begin from a place of as limited context as possible. I disagree that the lack of that formality is an appropriate litmus for the sufficiency of a medium to harbor successful communication.
pairing known ideas can create new ideas by guiding a contextualized listener to discover the essence of the idea themself. if a cloud of smoke could represent a well known idea, which it can, and about 10 different smoke shapes are possible (for example).. then after 8 puffs of smoke the shaman can create up to 100000000 distinct chains of ideas to direct his audience to whatever it is he wants to them to understand. with smoke symbols for north south east and west, and the delays between when he creates them having assumed meaning, he could give directions to any location on earth - theoretically - with just two to three puffs of smoke
since language is shorthand and referential, it can never contain all the knowledge within itself that is necessary to properly understand it - which is part of the point of the original post. within my tribe, a single word might need a novel to explain to yours, if it is explainable at all. Kind of like being at the bar and something is said and a bunch of people start laughing and all they can communicate to you about it is "you had to be there". the ability to describe details is not the same as the ability to communicate
The smoke puff might be nonsense to an outside observer, but after a few carefully selected puffs curated for the perfect audience - you can communicate literally anything.
likewise, although i have given up on twitter - i do respect that there is often a mountain of context behind popular tweets. although those tweets might not be saying much to me, there is a tribe out there who have a much deeper experience with it than i do. And timing is a huge part of it, as well as the context of mainstream news, and a bunch of other things depending on the intended audience
pairing known ideas can create new ideas by guiding a contextualized listener to discover the essence of the idea themself. if a cloud of smoke could represent a well known idea, which it can, and about 10 different smoke shapes are possible (for example).. then after 8 puffs of smoke the shaman can create up to 100000000 distinct chains of ideas to direct his audience to whatever it is he wants to them to understand. with smoke symbols for north south east and west, and the delays between when he creates them having assumed meaning, he could give directions to any location on earth - theoretically - with just two to three puffs of smoke
since language is shorthand and referential, it can never contain all the knowledge within itself that is necessary to properly understand it - which is part of the point of the original post. within my tribe, a single word might need a novel to explain to yours, if it is explainable at all. Kind of like being at the bar and something is said and a bunch of people start laughing and all they can communicate to you about it is "you had to be there". the ability to describe details is not the same as the ability to communicate
The smoke puff might be nonsense to an outside observer, but after a few carefully selected puffs curated for the perfect audience - you can communicate literally anything.
likewise, although i have given up on twitter - i do respect that there is often a mountain of context behind popular tweets. although those tweets might not be saying much to me, there is a tribe out there who have a much deeper experience with it than i do. And timing is a huge part of it, as well as the context of mainstream news, and a bunch of other things depending on the intended audience