Jack -
Ah, now I see. Hadn't thought of that.
Wonder if it's changable. Given that there's a big difference between the
active, participating silence and the dead absence, might contributors
signal 'uh-huh' from time to time, or send some ASCII equivalent of a nod.
Time certainly seems to flow differently in this sort of discourse,
doesn't it.
I'll suggest that the closest *current* equivalent measure (colloquially,
like eye contact in a face-to-face conversation) we have here of "active"
silence is the thread itself on a day-to-day basis: if there's a high
level of activity, I'm posting into a very active "silence" -- even if my
post isn't a direct response to anyone else's.
In my own experience, the question of active or dead silence doesn't come
up. I just like the silence. It *always* feels active; if, around this
particular campfire, I've been baring the secrets of my soul while
everybody else is falling asleep -- well, there'll always be another more
wakeful campfire, and I get one more opportunity to revise and reorder the
secrets.
What sort of a group would this be if we all had CU-SeeMe?
Uh. I *like* the lower bandwidth.
On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, jack hirschfeld wrote:
> In a
> conscious dialogue - in my opinion - it matters a great deal if people are
> present and if they are attentive. But they may be silent. If I can't
> see them, how can I know whether silence is rumination or absence?
> Interruption is not the issue; active silence is. There may be no way to
> overcome this, but I needed to put the issue on the table.
--
Regards
Jim Michmerhuizen jamzen@world.std.com
web residence at http://world.std.com/~jamzen/
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