I’ll need to figure out a better way to title this ‘idea’ later, but I’m sticking with this for now. For one thing, the idea of a parasite is that it gives nothing in return to that which it lives off of. I will later circle back to this and write about how communication does positively affect the material elements it uses.
What do I mean by this? Communication is the sending and receiving of information, yes? And, limiting this to just communication of ideas between people for now, accepting that we can’t directly connect with the ideas of another people, my assertion above hinges on the fact that all of our communication is done by the manipulation of different materials or media. Speaking being sent by sound waves usually through air, writing by use of symbols seen visually. Beyond that, electronic communication like radio manipulates the properties of electromagnetic waves to encode information.
The ideas themselves aren’t what are conveyed, though. In these few listed cases it’s a symbol of the idea that is conveyed and received, and particularly a symbol that takes advantage of the properties of the medium being used.
So, by ‘parasitic’ I mean that communication takes its existence from another material substance. Baring direct connection between the minds of one person or another, we will remain manipulators of the material world in our efforts to make our ideas known.