Discussions are like a game of telephone; you're converting idea into language and expecting the recipient to flawlessly translate it back into an idea.

ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 11 points –

I can only imagine the difference it would make if instead of telling about your idea you could show it

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I really hate it when people call for impromptu meetings and are completely oblivious to what you mention. People are absolutely incapable of bridging mental gaps. Nobody explains common vocabulary. Nobody explains the expected goal of conversation. Nobody evens the playing field. Instead, you watch people confused and asking stupid questions, before they arrive at a constructive mental place, right before the meeting is over.

Communication is art and a skill. Just because someone is talking a lot, doesn't mean they communicate well.

If you can efficiently enable a group of people to arrive in a mental context where they can contribute value to a decision or process, you are a valuable team member.

IMHO this always requires preparation. You can't expect to have a valuable exchange if you yourself can't fully imagine the mental context the other people are in. At every moment you have to understand what might be keeping them from understanding you, and then approaching the specific conflict. "Why don't you understand me?" is something you should never have to ask yourself.

Also, yes, build more prototypes and actually watch some shit go instead of talking so fucking much. Pictures are a thousand words and a real thing is like thousands of pictures. Stop talking already!

There's research that shows that even when 2 people are talking about very simple matters, the their mental models of the issue and interpretations of the subject are completely different the vast majority of the time. There was an interesting podcast about it that I'll try to dig out from months of history in my podcast app.

This is why it's critical for us to predefine thematically relevant words and phrases we intend or assume to be relievent to important discussion. Language is an imperfect tool. This is a common communication factor considered for philosophical discussion that I think is undervalued in day to day discourse.

There's also the difference between what you think the words you say mean and what they understand from your words.

i think you misunderstood OP.

I don't think so, my point was that there's not only uncertainty in converting the idea to language and language back to an idea, but there's also uncertainty when transferring language from one person to another.

That's compatible with information theory. You have a piece of information, the moment you encode it (turn your idea into words) that piece of information is transposed to a little different piece of information, then the channel of transportation adds a bit of noise (depends on the environment, most often literal background noise), and then the receiver decodes the to a different piece of information (turn your words into an idea of their own).

Understanding this concept is an important communication skill. Information theory gives a bunch of tools to minimize the difference between the idea in your head and the perception of the idea by your peer.

  • You can add redundancy, aka say the same thing twice in a slightly different way.
  • Use questions to validate your understanding.
  • Have your peer use their own words.
  • Use a different encoding, aka draw a picture, a diagram, or use gestures instead of using language to communicate