>Effective communication is very difficult to achieve between humans. >It
is an art that requires much training and practice.
I think a lot of communication stems from assumption. Assumption is
a primarily human trait that enables us to make a judgment without hearing a
whole situation. This realization was quite apparent for me yesterday after
an unfortunate car accident on my behalf. Anyhow, I believe that assumtion
is one of the biggest flaws of human language. Once someone makes an
assumption, that assumption will eventually turn into what that person sees
as true. For example, a person passing by the scene of my accident might
say "He must have been going too fast around that turn." when truly, that is
not the case as all. That person could go home and tell his\her family
about how someone was "...going too fast down Nash Street". That is not
effective communication.
What *is* effective communication is fact-based discussion. If the
person [mentioned above] who saw my car after the crash was to find out
*exactly* what happened, then he\she could effectively tell his\her
family...or whoever truthfully. However, if humans were to use fact-based
discussion all the time, there would be a tremendous lack of creativity in
the human race. We're back where we started. What exactly is the
definition of 'effective communication'? Sure, fact-based discussion is
effective...but it gets very boring. There has to be some sort of
equilibrium between fact and filler. There must be some way to say what we
want to say while still keeping some sense of 'being human' within our
words. Any help or enlightenment as to *how* would be appreciated! :~)
Ingredi Externus!
-E. Shaun Russell
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"My words are a whisper, your deafness a shout."
-Ian Anderson
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>P.S. E. Shaun Russell, you wanted to start a thread on semantics. This is it
>(in case you didn't notice).
>
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E. Shaun Russell Extropian poet\musician
e_shaun@uniserve.com
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