What is Post-Symbolic Communication?

Communication that shares sensations, feelings and experiences with others directly, without first turning them into "symbols" such as words or pictures. The term was coined by the virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier, and the book *Plurality* presents it as a chance to extend, with technology, old forms of intimacy like dancing and embracing.

When you hold someone dear, you do not need words. When you dance together, or get carried away by the same match, feelings pass between you without going through language. Post-Symbolic Communication means this kind of communication that does not go through symbols. The book ⿻ Plurality asks whether technology could extend it further.

In short

It is communication that shares sensations, feelings and experiences with others directly, without turning them into "symbols" such as words or pictures. A "symbol" represents something by means of something else (a word or a picture), and "post" means "beyond" [1].

The term was coined by Jaron Lanier, a pioneer of virtual reality (VR). The book presents it as a possibility of extending old forms of intimacy, such as dancing and embracing, with devices that connect to the brain and with AI that generates images and text [1][2].

For example

"The Park of Aging" at Miraikan (Odaiba, Tokyo). This is a permanent exhibition at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) that lets you experience the sensations of an aged body. "Visors blur vision, mimicking cataracts. Sounds are stripped of high pitches." Visitors walk on pedals with ankle weights on while leaning on a cart [3].

The book places this at the opening of chapter 5-1. Visitors do not just decode words and symbols; they take in information through all the senses of the body. The book uses this as an example of post-symbolic communication that reaches even the internal sense of one's own body [3]. When Glen Weyl visited Japan in 2024, he said he had been to Miraikan with his family the day before, and that such technologies can help avoid creating divides between generations [4].

Wordless exchange, starting in the womb. The book gives examples of post-symbolic exchange that already exist: the synchronization of heartbeats between a mother and her unborn child, especially when the mother breathes rhythmically; compounds in human sweat that convey stress or fear to others; and dance (such as the jumping dance of the Maasai people), sports, romantic intimacy, religious experience and meditation [5].

Tang's joke. In November 2023, in a conversation with the researcher Mario Fritz, Audrey Tang wrapped up a discussion of trust that relies on text-based proofs by saying: "Or otherwise, we move to post-symbolic communication and just have tea together." The room laughed, and she added: "The words we say are just captions to the tea we share" [6].

In more detail

High-"bandwidth" experiences strengthen bonds

The book calls experiences in which information arrives from many senses at once, including the internal sense of the body, "higher-bandwidth communication". "Bandwidth" is the amount of information that can be carried at one time [7].

According to the book, such experiences, when shared, "are also correlated with long-lasting human bonding and connection". It speculates that "Perhaps it is the diversity of information simultaneously presented to the senses (depth) that contribute to the significance of the experience and therefore strength of connection" [7].

Origins: Lanier and "The Lost Dao"

According to chapter 3-3 of the book, Lanier was "A student and critic of AI pioneer Marvin Minsky". He sought a technology as ambitious as AI, but centered on human experience and communication [8].

Lanier saw existing communication as constrained by symbols processed by the ears and eyes, such as words and pictures. He wanted to enable deep sharing of experiences that can only be expressed through senses like touch and the internal sense of the body. Through his work in the 1980s, the book writes, this grew into the field of "virtual reality" [8]. Chapter 5-1 of the Japanese edition explains that Lanier was inspired by animals like the octopus, which conveys complex messages by changing its shape and color [9]. → The Lost Dao

Tomorrow's technologies

The book says the field is on the verge of an explosion, and names a range of technologies [10]:

devices that connect the brain directly to computers (brain–computer interfaces)
technologies that return a sense of touch; the book also describes experiments in which people learn to control a virtual tail
three-dimensional sound
wearable devices that track emotions and bodily states
technologies that measure brain activity and feed it back to the person, or adjust it through stimulation

Combined with AI that generates images and text (generative foundation models), the book writes, these could turn ideas into visible form as fast as they are imagined, and create virtual environments that respond immediately to emotions and actions. It also describes a 2023 study in which a patient with paralysis was able to walk using a device linking the brain and the spinal cord [10].

Uses for reconciliation

The book imagines uses like these: "imagine a child immersing themselves in the sensory experiences of their parents at the same age. Or two warring groups experiencing the pain and loss of their adversary's family members" [10].

As a further "frontier", the book goes as far as a world in which telepathy becomes a scientific reality and children grow up immersed in the experiences of every culture and era [11].

What is debated

A window into the mind is also a window of influence. The book itself lists several dangers: a loss of individuality; thoughts, emotions and motivations being watched and manipulated (the book writes that "any window into our mind is also a window of influence"); a dark future in which people lose their inner world while also being cut off from the outer world; a decline in the power of ordinary conversation; and everyone's consciousness merging so that thoughts and experiences become uniform [12]. → contextual integrity
Thin communication has its role too. The book values low-bandwidth, structured communication: speech and text, and also market prices and voting. Because they gather preferences without revealing every thought, they serve as a check that is "essential to preserve privacy, autonomy, diversity, and human governance" [12]. → ⿻ Voting, Social Markets
Isn't this just science fiction? The book writes much of this as visions of "tomorrow" and "frontiers", and things like realizing telepathy are speculative [11]. In a review, Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, compares it with another book making similar arguments: that book puts weight on shared stories and on lasting over time, while Plurality puts weight on sensory immersion and brief experiences. Which view will work out is something we will learn, in Buterin's assessment [13].

Where it fits in Plurality

Part 5 of the book sets out seven forms of collaboration. Post-Symbolic Communication sits at the most intimate end. Chapter 5-0 arranges collaboration by the trade-off between "depth" and "breadth". Measured by bandwidth, the book writes, "Capitalism tends to reduce everything to a single number (scalar) of money", while intimacy immerses all the senses and reaches the internal sense of the body [14].

The book's chapter summary says: "On the most intimate end of the spectrum, 'post-symbolic communication' aims to create direct brain-to-brain connections to allow deeper sharing of subjective experience than ever before" [2].

Next to it is Immersive Shared Reality, multi-sensory sharing that reaches somewhat more people. Buterin places immersive shared reality between post-symbolic communication and ordinary conversation [13]. After that comes Creative Collaborations.

Chapter 5-5, "Adaptive Administration", writes that, to make up for how hard it is to see inside AI, post-symbolic communication and immersive shared reality might build the kind of trust that lets people hand over decisions [15].

Sources

Plurality, 5-1, section "Intimacy today", paragraph 1 — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, chapter summaries (Chapter 5-1) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/blob/86158859464aee75633acd854c656928121a7fd8/contents/english/8-blurb.md ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-1, opening — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/eng/ ［CC0］
WIRED.jp, "デジタル・デモクラシーは多元的テクノロジーによって実現する" (2024, in Japanese) — https://wired.jp/article/glen-weyl-talk-2024/
Plurality, 5-1, section "Intimacy today" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Audrey Tang, "Conversation with Mario Fritz" (2023-11-01) — https://archive.tw/2023-11-01-conversation-with-mario-fritz ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-1, paragraph right after the break following the opening — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 3-3 "The Lost Dao" (the paragraph on Lanier) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-3/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, Japanese edition, 5-1, section "今日の親密さ" (Intimacy today) (in Japanese) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/jpn/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-1, section "Post-symbolic communication tomorrow" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-1, section "Frontiers of post-symbolic communication" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-1, section "Limits of post-symbolic communication" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Vitalik Buterin, "Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell" (2024-08-21) — https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/08/21/plurality.html
Plurality, 5-0, section "The depth-breadth spectrum" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-5, section "Limits of adaptive administration" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-5/eng/ ［CC0］

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