Understanding (Mis)Communication
Human language can be used honestly and effectively, but we have to understand how it works
I have put it in a poem and in longer essays, but I want to emphasize perhaps the most important thing to understand about how we humans communicate. We depend on a balance of economy and precision in our use of language. From the most ordinary requests — “Could you please hand me that?” — to the most profound discussions — “Do you believe in God?” — we often use as few words as we think we need to, in order to make our meaning clear. And we often err.
Our interlocutors may reply, “Hand you what?” or “What do you mean by God?” and we try to clarify by using more words, until we seem to understand each other well enough to agree or disagree. But the problem is that we often are unable to get quite all the way. The more language we exchange, the closer we may come, but misunderstandings can still remain.
What we need to understand is that this is how our brains and languages work: Our brains grow far more complicated memories and ideas from our experiences than we, as individuals, can ever hope to convey completely to other people. But our ideas are still discrete and incomplete; after all, as complicated as they are, our brains are only small parts of a vastly larger universe, including the other people we share our lives with. And language is even more discrete and incomplete than our other ideas, because our language abilities are only a small part of our total cognitive abilities. What we say is usually just an approximation to what we mean, except in the most trivial cases.
Furthermore, what we mean by our most abstract ideas is usually a simplification, rather than an elaboration of “reality”. Dimensionless points and perfect straight lines exist nowhere outside our theories of geometry, and absolute good and evil exist only in our theories of philosophy and theology. Ideas of infinite space and time are likewise easy, but inaccurate as components of models of the universe, as are ideas of irresistible forces and immovable objects, and of omniscient and omnipotent beings. And as other people have pointed out, names alone tell us nothing about the things named.
So our attempts to use very precise language fail to the extent that they convey only approximations to the ideas we are trying to convey. We can make them better approximations, but only by increasing the amount of language we use.
And we still have to agree on the meanings of words themselves. Whether we try to draw distinctions between concepts based on boundaries (What is the boundary between green and blue, or between warm and hot?) or based on distributions or examples (What is the purest yellow or a typical dog?) people will disagree.
A particularly interesting aspect of human communication is ambiguity — expressions that can have two different, even opposite, meanings. Ambiguity can occur deliberately or accidentally. Deliberate ambiguity is often used to humorous effect. (Sign in a clock shop: “There’s no present like the time and there’s no time like the present.”) Accidental ambiguity can cause misunderstanding (“Where should I turn?” “Right here. No, left here!” — Notice that both “where” and “right” are ambiguous.)
A special case of ambiguity involves language that can be interpreted either literally or metaphorically. If someone tells you to “fight like hell”, you can say you thought they meant that literally, but they can claim that they meant it metaphorically. And if they say, “I will be with you when you go,” they can say they meant “with you in spirit” rather than “with you in person”.
Some dishonest people are adept at using the limitations of language to deliberately mislead their listeners. It’s wise to be aware of such possible deceptions and to call attention to them when they occur.
But because of the way our languages work, even honest people with good intentions are bound to have misunderstandings. So when we encounter inevitable disagreements, and we feel the urge to decide who is “right”, perhaps even resorting to violence to try to do so, we should resist that temptation and try to seek a more complete, mutual understanding. Let’s accept that, although our agreements may be only approximate, our disagreements may be only temporary. And let’s be humble; we don’t know how far our human knowledge can extend.
