Big Blue Head,
Eh... let me see if I can help. It may be that you haven't encountered failed communication so much; perhaps you are a better communicator than I.
I guess that what you call "failed communication" is this very situation we have right here?
I think I have encountered many many failed communications. But I did not perceive them as "failed communication" -- to me, it was a matter of colliding interests, colliding egos, real misunderstandings due to a lack of information ...
Maybe I am just an old-fashioned European. Maybe it is me being a future teacher (hopefully) that makes me see communication differently. Hell, maybe it is because I'm a woman, and women have a different sense for communication already implanted in our brains.
I don't know, maybe it is about being a "professional student" that I am, that I am used to read theories, and take them with some reservation -- I always try to allow as much room as possible, I am always trying to be ready that there could be a misunderstanding, and when I enter communication, it is with the readiness to clear up any misunderstandings that may come up.
I'll try to provide an illustration of the problem I'm talking about here - namely, that I think the lack of exactness is a much wider gap than most people think it is.
Yes, I guess that the lack of exactness could be overbridged by directly communicating qualia -- just like robots though ...
As for the wide gap: I'd say that the *lack of willingness* is a much wider gap than most people think it is. The problem isn't exactness, IMO, it is willingness to communicate.
In this sense, I can totally understand why someone like Jesus came up with the idea of "love ye one another": listen, give people time, give things time, let them evolve, don't push your opinion, maybe the other person doesn't know all the stuff you do, meet them halway.
Uh, needless to say, this is not very capitalistic -- but it is efficient when it comes to communication as such.
Imagine you are reading a theoretical proof that you don't understand, to a professor of that field. They asked you to because they're stuck somewhere with no access to media except a telephone. It's a short, easily surveyable proof but you just don't get it because you don't know anything about the field, so you're rattling off the figures on the page over the phone to the professor.
When you get finished, they say, "Ah, so the reorientation of the primary fields is what leads to the blah blah blah et cetera." Let's say for the sake of the argument that they now understand the proof quite easily and completely, they just never had a chance to read it until now.
In fact, I have encountered such situations. I have to call places sometimes for my dad, ask questions about things I have no clue of, write down answers I have no clue of.
But what I do do is this: Before I have to do something like that, I ask my dad to give me the exact questions I need to ask, possible additional questions, what the answers I will get are going to be like and such.
And then I take the postion of the transmitter ... and things work. And I don't just rattle off the figures. I read them slowly and comprehendably.
So were you communicating with intent to explain the proof?
My intent was to communicate what *somebody else asked* me to do. My intent was *not* to explain the proof. When I need to make a call like that, I take this very position: "Hello. I am calling in the name of XY, and he has asked me to ... He has given me these exact questions and I would like you to ..."
My intent was to function as a transmitter, as a mediator, not as someone who is presenting some data as the original source of it, and I say so.
And when the other party says something like "Ah, so the reorientation of the primary fields is what leads to the blah blah blah et cetera.", I say something like, "I hope that the message I transferred was useful to you, but I really couldn't say anything about it. You'll have to talk to my boss."
You should play secretary for someone sometimes!
You couldn't really, because you didn't understand it. The intent behind the communication was someone else's - the writer of the proof. They're piggybacking on your words; you act as a channel for an intent without actually having that intent.
Everyone entering communication has some intent, and everyone also assumes that everyone else is acting on some intent.
Once these intents are *clearly communicated* and communication positions taken in a clearly understandable manner ("I am so and so and I call on the behalf of so and so"), misunderstandings and failed communication are not so prone to happen.
Thus, the intent of the immediate communicator is not necessary for communication, and the meaning of the communication rides entirely on its content.
We (almost) always have the opportunity to explain the meta-aspect of communication; or to find these explanations ourselves ("Aha, SF. I only type, people cannot hear my voice or see my face. When I am joking or being sarcastic, I have to write it -- *grin*, *joke*...).
It is very true though, that people are often not good at this. I see it all the time, so I try to step in, meet them halfway, I figure out what their exact intent is. This can then easily be misunderstood and misconstrued as smarminess, corniness, lack of integrity, general twatness, hidden agenda ...
The information theory explains communication thus:
There is a source of information -- a *sender*, transmitting a *message* by a *means* of communication along the information *channel* to the *receiver* of information.
(I translated this, so there may be some different terms in English.)
All these participants can be meta-explained when in actual communication:
1. I meta-explain the sender: "I am calling *on the behalf* of ..."
2. I meta-explain the message: "he asked me to tell you this ..."
3. I meta-explain the means: "my English is not very good, so please remind me if you shouldn't understand something ..."
4. I meta-explain the channel: "Oh, there are some problems with the phone connection, I'll repeat what I just said ... Did you hear me?"
5. I meta-explain the receiver: (I know whom I am calling -- in the sense that I know what I can expect -- even though my expectation may be "I have no idea what the other person is like or what they'll say. Let's see.").
It is good to keep such things in mind when communicating ...
I am after this Ding an sich because I have known a few people (in RL and on the net)who consistently fail to communicate because they are locked into their own context so firmly that they can't be bothered to try to inherit other people's intended communications.
This is a matter of clashing egos, clashing interests, not necessarily a clash of communication.
You say it: "they are locked into their own context so firmly that they can't be bothered to try to inherit other people's intended communications" -- they are not conscious communicators.
In such a case, the conscious communicator is conscious enough to *step back* from trying to communicate something to that person -- unless this person is your friend or close or important to you in one way or another.
In that case, you will use other ways to make them see you point.
Here the simple truth is to be kept in mind, that we cannot change other people, neither should we try to, unless they explicitly came to us, seeking advice.
You can witness this in the WE/P forums here... and the failure to communicate in that case seems to say more than just "inexact" to me.
Each of us has a certain background, a certain experience, certain theories and knowledges -- and the other party in communication doesn't know everything that we do, and we don't know everything they do.
Just think, how wonderful and easy it can be, if this happens: "Ok, we have both studied Wittgenstein's writings about language, and now we can talk about this very post in terms of his theory." -- we will have understanding, mostly. Because whatever we say, our basis are W.'s writings, this is our common platform, and we just present different POV's from off this platform, but there will be no contradictions (that is, if W.'s theory is completely without inner contradictions).
In RL, such things rarely happen, as we usually don't have such a common platform. But, in time, when we get to know the other person, we learn something about their platform and
the way their terms translate into our platform.
By now, I know what "fittest" means when Wes uses it; I know what "inhumane" means when Votorx uses it; I know what "fear" means when QQ uses is; I know what "mysoginic mysanthrope" means when Gendanken uses it ...
I don't think that your strife for exactness and das Ding an sich will bear fruit, and I don't mean to discourage you or offend you. I think that seeking such exactness in everyday RL is a try to mechanicisize RL, in order to make it more manageable.
Well, that's what I think. Let me know what you think.
