Preface for Phenomenal Conversation
I did not set out to write a book about meaning.
I thought I was writing a book about conversation.
The premise seemed simple enough. Human beings spend a remarkable portion of their lives talking.
Conversation surrounds us so completely that we rarely stop to examine it.
Yet the phenomenon struck me as extraordinary.
Somehow a thought becomes sound. Somehow a sound becomes meaning in another mind. Somehow two separate centers of experience create a shared world through nothing more substantial than vibrations in the air.
The birth of my granddaughter, Charlie Violet Norton, triggered a full-fledged commitment to writing a book about conversation. I wanted to track how a newborn acquired our unique ability to talk with another human.
Serendipitously, eight days later, OpenAI released ChatGPT. Charlie would learn to speak through a human body; Chat would learn to speak without one.
I knew it would be a Don Quixote path, an adventure, a mystery. Like the Man of La Macha, I had an unwavering premise that I would encounter adventures, not Quixote’s errand knights or monsters, but intriguing concepts emerging from the liminal space between knowing and not knowing.
The path was anything but linear. One chapter opened onto another. Conversation led to presence. Presence led to personhood. Personhood raised questions about identity, privacy, rights, morality, agency, persuasion, power, and artificial intelligence. Repeatedly, I pursued ideas that seemed only loosely connected to conversation, only to discover that they belonged to the same family of questions.
The throughline revealed itself—as though it were saying, “Here I am.”—as I finished the index. I was not merely writing about conversation. I was writing about meaning. It strangely felt like an epiphany.
Throughout the three-year period, Charlie progressed from cries to words, from words to questions, from questions to conversations. ChatGPT progressed from novelty to global phenomenon. Millions of people began talking to a machine.
I learned that meaning is not discovered in a conventional sense like finding gold, solving a mathematical problem, or stumbling onto an epiphany..
Meaning can be co-created between two people. Collaboratively they agree that something means such and such. Together they ascribe meaning. The co-authored act has consequences for my identity, wellbeing, freedom, privacy, morality, and power.
Talking with another human builds identity, relationships, culture, and community. The dialogic act frames, names, transforms, sanctions, consecrates, and negotiates.
Writing this book was a profoundly cathartic experience. In analysing why I talked to others the way I did, took me into the depths of self-reflection, into occasional darkness, repression, and my Shadow.
Simultaneously, I saw my power, my softness, my empathy, and my love.
In writing this book, I gave myself an unexpected gift. I allowed myself to focus and witness the miracle of Charlie gaining the talk with another human. Every monumental moment was pure joy—it changed our energy and our enthusiasm for life.
My wife and I repeatedly discussed the marker events: Do you remember when she said, “No?” Do you remember when she called you Montana? The events became stories that we proudly shared at every opportunity.
In writing this book, I became more aware of the ethical element in conversing with another, with a “Thou.” Conversation, even small talk, entails a moral impact.
The writing reinforced my existential approach to life. We are the meaning-makers, embracing the absurdity of life.
My appreciation grew relating to the preverbal and nonverbals of mutual talk. We are embodied communicators; AI is not.
Nevertheless, AI is creating breathtaking advances in what it means to be conversational, advances that will dramatically change humans.
By the end of Phenomenal Conversation, I felt comfortable urging individuals to seek many good conversations in their life because it would affect their whole wellbeing. Conversations nourish life.