Some further thoughts on "Thread Dynamics..."
An intriguing aspect of message boards you allude to is that communication is limited to the written word. When you think about it, this technology provides the first time for us to be able join into a community of people from all walks of life and to exchange ideas back and forth, day in and day out, with a large number of persons that we know only by their aliases. We can say whatever is in our heads, and we never can be sure who will answer us, or how they will interpret our messages.
Thus, our use of language becomes a key. Obviously, across the spectrum of SI, there are great difference among people in their command of language. Some have better vocabularies than others. Some are more familiar than others with common idioms. Some have a better grasp than others of literary devices such as sarcasm or irony. (footnote: I have learned from painful experience here to be extra careful to make liberal use of ggg's and ;-)) Some are simply better writers than others. In 3-D communication, we supplement language with a host of clarifying cues, such as tone of voice, facial expression, gestures, or body language. But here, the written word stands alone. We may be talking to people who share very little of our own perceptions, beliefs, and experiences. Generally, we do not spend great time perfecting our messages; sometimes the pace of message exchange is fast, and we write down our thoughts as quickly as they come to us. Thus, for all these reasons and more, the opportunities for misunderstanding and miscommunication are greatly amplified.
I have the habit of using "you" as an impersonal pronoun, as in "You can't have your cake and eat it too." This habit has gotten me in trouble on the boards. The person my message is addressed to says, "How dare you say that about me. (footnote: Often, the point of our message is not particularly meant for the person we are responding to, as much as for the broader audience ... another opportunity for misunderstanding).
A lot of message exchanges here, especially in controversial discussions, focus extensively on what may have been insinuated, implied, inferred, or the like. In other words, there is extensive "reading between the lines." This complicates matters considerably, as what the reader thinks we are covertly meaning to say becomes more important that what we actually say. Of course, some times the reader is perfectly correct in this belief, while other times not. More misunderstandings.
Beyond these pitfalls for misunderstanding, effective communication needs more than that people share the same language. They must also share a similar sense of reality, a similar frame of reference. Communication basically involves a sender encoding a message and delivering it to a receiver who decodes it. If there is no real common frame of reference between the two parties, a lot of scrambling is going to take place on both sides. Quite a lot of lot of the "dialogues" here consist of messages flying back and forth with little comprehension or understanding occurring on either side.
Robert J. Morton (The Lost Inheritance) has this to say:
Again, the reader's brain (or the artificial neural network) needs a key to interpret the written words into the vocal sounds they represent. So too the reader's mind requires a key to interpret the 'vocal' sounds into the writer's thoughts.
The first syntactic key comprises the vocabulary and grammar of the spoken language or digital code which relates a set of symbols to a set of sounds. The second semantic key is an amalgam of all our personal experiences of nature, life and society which relates the spoken word to thought, significance and meaning. For a reader to understand perfectly the words of the writer, the reader must be in possession of the writer's semantic key. Since no two people share exactly the same fundamental experiences of life, such perfect understanding is clearly impossible.
These are just some further, imperfect thoughts on your thesis.
Hmmmm, mulling over what I've just written ... I guess I should not expect you to understand a word of it.
( <gggggg> hehehehe ;-) :-) :-( <more gggggg's> that was a joke, just kidding, OKAY?) |
