Human communication is amazing. Or, rather, it is amazing that we communicate at all. Our ideas are fundamentally incoherent, and our words are blunt and often inaccurate. If we have an idea that we want to convey to someone else, here is the process we generally use:
- Have an idea based on our own personal experiences with the gaps filled in by our assumptions, which are also based on personal experience (and myth).
Wrap the idea up in whatever words seem most likely to approximate the general meaning of the idea, and deliver those words to somebody else
.
When we receive one of these messages from somebody else, we use a similar process for decoding it:
- Receive a bundle of words. Unwrap it and inspect the words.
- Line the words up and read them, drawing meaning from them that is based on past experience, and filling in the gaps with assumptions, also based on experience (and myth).
- Assume that somehow through some divine or otherwise cosmically unlikely coincidence, we have the slightest idea what the originator of the message was on about.
Assuming that none of us has the same set of experiences, how do we manage to convey any meaningful ideas about abstract concepts at all?
Yes! Exactly. For example, in the other thread, when I said my pendulum died of wrench curd, nobody seemed to care, really :cry:
Quote from: vexati0n on June 30, 2010, 04:30:58 PM
Assuming that none of us has the same set of experiences, how do we manage to convey any meaningful ideas about abstract concepts at all?
but we have remarkably similar experiences
I can say "I'm in love", and you basically know what I'm talking about
Now it may be that you're in love with your wife, and I'm in love with a cat, but we've both seen the episode of Full House where Jessie tells Rebbecca he loves her.
Communication is an integral part of my job. There is a big section of my workplan devoted to it. And part of what I have to do is not wrap the idea in words that best approximate what I'm trying to convey. I have to figure out which words will resonate most with my audience. Which means I need to understand my audience. For example, I have to present this program I'm doing to Somali families. I'm going to have to have it translated linguistically AND culturally. I think that is where a lot of communication backfires. When framing the concept the end user needs to be considered.
Everyone has the same set of basic experiences. None of us was raised by wolves (Except Nigel, but she made up for lost time by living in Portland), so I'm not entirely sure I see the point, here.
No offense, but this is coming off as an "all is Maya" belly button lint picking fest.
Dok,
Eating a picture of the menu.
related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btHzhVATKhA&feature=related
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 07:04:31 PM
Everyone has the same set of basic experiences. None of us was raised by wolves (Except Nigel, but she made up for lost time by living in Portland), so I'm not entirely sure I see the point, here.
No offense, but this is coming off as an "all is Maya" belly button lint picking fest.
Dok,
Eating a picture of the menu.
You're probably right. I admit I didn't spend a lot of time thinking this out before blathering on about it. But I'm not sure it can be shrugged off that easily.
In the example of being in love, yeah, I have a general idea of what it means. I know what it means to me, what it means in the movies, what different kinds of love with different objects mean in various contexts. Saying "I'm in love" conveys something, it gets in the ballpark, but that statement alone isn't very precise. It also raises in my mind a lot of ideas that aren't necessarily connected with the definition of love. Ideas about how likely the love is to endure, how appropriate the love is and what that says about you, how interested I am which influences other opinions about you, all based on my own experiences which may be completely inconsequential in reality.
If I am talking specifics, numbers, rules and regulations, that kind of thing is easy to communicate. If I am trying to convey my ideas about what God is, though, or why I think social services are both necessary and evil, or why sunlight depresses me, it becomes more difficult. Not only to say what I think without contaminating my speech with my own presuppositions but to even describe my opinion in universally recognizable terms.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 30, 2010, 07:45:47 PM
You're probably right. I admit I didn't spend a lot of time thinking this out before blathering on about it. But I'm not sure it can be shrugged off that easily.
The fact that I was able to read and understand your post argues otherwise.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 07:47:36 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on June 30, 2010, 07:45:47 PM
You're probably right. I admit I didn't spend a lot of time thinking this out before blathering on about it. But I'm not sure it can be shrugged off that easily.
The fact that I was able to read and understand your post argues otherwise.
Fuck.
The idea that communication is difficult and that other people do not share, for the most part, the same basic set of experiences, emotions, and motivations from which to understand us is not only incorrect, it is the basis for xenophobia, and therefore evil.
Human beings are remarkably similar and communication is part of our fundamental nature, so much so that when a person is incapable of communication due to injury or mental illness we consider them horribly broken and feel compelled to try to fix them, or to lock them up.
We are so good at communicating that we can do it across barriers of language, of deafness, and even (thanks, Helen Keller) deafness AND blindness. That's how hardwired we are to express ourselves and be understood. My lover has devoted his life to communication, and can stand in front of a classroom full of people who don't speak the same language and teach them to communicate with him and with each other in matter of weeks.
If human beings are designed by nature to do any one thing, it is to communicate.
Even a person raised by wolves has a wolf mother and wolf siblings, and knows about love, strife, play, hunger, bounty, shelter, joy and sorrow.
Yes, we can communicate across barriers of language, culture, etc.
But I think the problem is that not everyone takes the time to think about the best way to do that when someone speaks another language whether it be linguistically, socially, culturally, or according to literacy levels. It's why I have to tailor a single message about substance abuse prevention 10 different ways for 10 different audiences. If I don't do that, maybe only 2 or 3 of the audiences get what I'm saying, even if linguistically, we are speaking the same language.
And I think that is where a lot of culture clashes come from. The inability and unwillingness to communicate in ways each party understands.
Quote from: Nigel on June 30, 2010, 08:38:29 PM
Even a person raised by wolves has a wolf mother and wolf siblings, and knows about love, strife, play, hunger, bounty, shelter, joy and sorrow.
They have the additional knowledge of running down a rabbit by the light of the moon, and eating it raw.
And still getting the kilns going in the morning.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 09:23:10 PM
Quote from: Nigel on June 30, 2010, 08:38:29 PM
Even a person raised by wolves has a wolf mother and wolf siblings, and knows about love, strife, play, hunger, bounty, shelter, joy and sorrow.
They have the additional knowledge of running down a rabbit by the light of the moon, and eating it raw.
And still getting the kilns going in the morning.
:lulz:
RWHNHTCM
Quote from: RWHN on June 30, 2010, 08:46:58 PM
Yes, we can communicate across barriers of language, culture, etc.
But I think the problem is that not everyone takes the time to think about the best way to do that when someone speaks another language whether it be linguistically, socially, culturally, or according to literacy levels. It's why I have to tailor a single message about substance abuse prevention 10 different ways for 10 different audiences. If I don't do that, maybe only 2 or 3 of the audiences get what I'm saying, even if linguistically, we are speaking the same language.
And I think that is where a lot of culture clashes come from. The inability and unwillingness to communicate in ways each party understands.
Understanding that it's possible is a crucial element in providing the motivation to try.
Quote from: RWHN on June 30, 2010, 08:46:58 PM
Yes, we can communicate across barriers of language, culture, etc.
But I think the problem is that not everyone takes the time to think about the best way to do that when someone speaks another language whether it be linguistically, socially, culturally, or according to literacy levels. It's why I have to tailor a single message about substance abuse prevention 10 different ways for 10 different audiences. If I don't do that, maybe only 2 or 3 of the audiences get what I'm saying, even if linguistically, we are speaking the same language.
And I think that is where a lot of culture clashes come from. The inability and unwillingness to communicate in ways each party understands.
good example is in Japanese the whole language is built around hints and culturally negotiated meanings. If you don't understand me in English it's because I explained it badly. If a Japanese person doesn't understand another Japanese, it's because they understood it badly.