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Holy shit! Where does the time go?
Life's been a bit of a blur since I last posted but amidst the craziness I did find the time to have a bit of a ponder about the nature of communication.
Now I've written many times in the past regarding the defining significance of sharing information to humanity, ie. it's what makes us what we are.
Seems like accurate communication, or the lack thereof, lurks at the heart of most problems facing the mankind so maybe a bit more exploratory thought on the subject would prove helpful.
In order to encompass as many, if not all, forms of communication some abstract thought tools wouldn't go amiss. How about thinking of communication as having three aspects:
source - location of info before communication
info - the information to be communicated
process - the system of communicating the info
Now each of these aspects can act on the other two, giving us six relationships to consider. In order to concentrate on three of them, obviously, let's plough through the first few nice and quick.
source > process & info > process
Both the nature of the source and of the information itself define the most appropriate and effective process to use.
info > source
While initially it would appear that the info held by a source can't change it, because the source has already received the info and reacted to it, the process of communicating the info may reveal previously unseen aspects that can then further change the source.
The second three are, I think, a bit more interesting and relevant:
process > source
Now the last couple of posts have had what you might call a darker tinge too them, feeling a bit down as I was.
I find this blog very useful for venting and exorcising my demons but often find myself feeling guilty after doing so.
The paradox is that sharing my pain makes me feel better, ie. it lessens it. So while when I tell you guys that I'm feeling shitty I'm not lying, the very act of telling you makes me feel less shitty.
So I'm sometimes left feeling a bit embarrassed that I've kicked up such a fuss and actually don't feel so bad. Of course if I'd kept it to myself I'd still feel so bad so it's the lesser of two evils.
The information being communicated is not being changed, it's accurate at start of the process. It's just that by the time the information has been received, the situation it describes has altered.
Here the process itself actually alters the source of the information, rendering the information inaccurate without actually changing it.
Another example of this is the study of sub atomic particles. One of the more well known concepts in modern physics is the idea that you can't observe something without altering it.
The majority of us take sight for granted and never give it much thought. Instinctively we know that we 'see' the things around us.
It's worth remembering though that what we actually 'see' is not the object itself but light that has bounced off it.
In the case of sub atomic particles no mater how little light, (energy would be a more appropriate word but that's not really important here,) you shine on the particle, it's enough to alter it's nature.
Again the information coming out of the source isn't corrupted or changed, it's inaccurate because the source itself has been altered.
There's not a great deal can be done to counter inaccuracy in communication due to this relationship. However just being aware of this fact at least allows the inaccuracy to be considered.
source > info
Now this is probably the most familiar relationship and, if I didn't enjoy rambling on so much, it could be summed up in two words: Chinese whispers.
Basically the information is inaccurate because it is corrupted by the source. Both politicians and media professionals are experts in this, ie. saying something that, while is technically true, gives a false impression the furthers their own needs.
This can be overcome to a certain extent by understanding the nature of the uniform bias applied to any information so as to be able to account for it.
For example if you were to read coverage of the same news event in both The Daily Mail and The Guardian you'd be likely to find two very different stories.
Taking into account the open political bias(1) of each however the two together could actually provide a more accurate picture.
Such a correction is limited however. The problem with bias, with the source altering the info, is not so much with the bits of info subtly twisted or changed, but more with the bits left out.
Things left out because they are deemed either irrelevant or harmful to the source drop out of the communication process completely.
Inaccurate information is always better than none as something can always be at least implied or deduced. You can't do much with a blank page, believe me.
process > info
Has this ever happened to you? You're filling in some form or questionnaire and you're faced with a multiple choice question.
Unfortunately none of the answers provided are yours and there isn't an other box.
You, the source, are unable to communicate accurately due to the system you are forced to use.
Instead of supplying an answer that describes your situation you either have to choose something outright wrong or not make a selection leaving compete ambiguity.
I find myself in this position quite often at work. I am asked to produce some report or other to monitor some aspect of the business, only I have to do it in line with an existing format to allow cross comparison.
Basically I have to present the figures via a method designed by somebody else. Unfortunately the method is pants and renders the info, at best, difficult to access and, at worst, downright useless.
One example of this was a benchmarking exercise wherein I was asked to arrive at an average cost for a selection of common repairs to council houses.
The number of jobs carried out over the considered period would be tens of thousands and yet I was directed to work from samples of ten jobs because this is what other teams had done and the figures needed to be compared.
Ten jobs out of tens of thousands? That's less than 0.1%, ie. in no way any kind of representative sample.
Regardless, I still have bust my ass to produce figures that I know don't really mean anything.
A slightly less self indulgent example would be a retelling of our first idea with the questionnaire.
When you, as a free citizen of free democracy with FREEDOM, (sorry, let me just wipe the rabid spittle from my chin,) cast your vote in an election what happens if you don't feel represented by any of the available options?
Due to the lack of a NON OF THE ABOVE box,(2) you are left either supporting a party you don't actually like or sending an ambiguous message to the politicians that can interpret in the way most useful to them.
When people talk about voter apathy they base it on the number of people who didn't vote.
Such a statistic has very limited usefulness however because there is absolutely no way to determine how many of those that didn't vote did so due to apathy or lack of representation, or any other reason.
So overall it's not a great picture in terms of our ultimate aim of perfectly accurate communication.
All humans feel angst at some point in their lives, (do correct me if I'm wrong,) regarding a desperate need to be truly understood by somebody else.
Turns out though that the deck is well and truly stacked against us. The six relationships above have been briefly considered in isolation.
Each one presents an obstacle to accurate communication and we haven't even considered the reality, ie. that actually all six relationships are constantly impacting on each other.
Why is it so hard? There's a bit in the bible about how in the beginning humans all spoke the same language and that god mixed it all up so that we wouldn't be able to understand one another.
From the picture painted so far it might actually be quite tempting to believe that somebody somewhere doesn't want us to communicate.
Before we all start throwing ourselves on the floor and hating gay people though let's take a minute to consider the wider context.
Since when did communication need to be accurate?
Most of the processes in the universe that fall under our broad yoke of communication are actually mechanical processes intended to provoke some physical response.
When photons tear around the universe smacking into stuff neither they, nor the particles they hit, care about how any information they may exchange is distorted and they're certainly not interested in what that information may suggest about the opposite party.
It's just another transfer of energy.
The point is that we're the only ones to whom such accuracy is important. As far as the rest of the universe is concerned if it gets the job done it's good enough.
So we're fighting against the natural order of things, but with good reason. The more sophisticated our systems of communication have become the more capable we've become of delivering a higher standard of living.(3)
There is another reason why accuracy is so important to us, namely the perception of time.
Everything else in the universe, from sub atomic particles to animals, lives in the moment. Even when animals draw from memory they're still doing so in response to some immediate stimulus.
We, on the other hand, perceive something called time, or rather its passage.
Perfectly accurate communication would be, in effect, a form of time travel. Everything is a state of constant flux, but by communicating something perfectly you would be recreating a past instant in time.
Communication is the technique we have, quite unconsciously, developed in order to overcome time.
Instead of being trapped on our own one way road through time communication allows us to see the view from other routes and places and thereby build up a wider picture.
So where've we come to? Communication, it's hard but it's worth it. Guess that about sums it up really.
Just a point of interest: maths is a system of perfect communication.
This statement can very easily be misinterpreted and is on a daily basis by many of the most powerful people in the world,
It does NOT mean that anything proven by maths is perfectly true. The accuracy of any maths is inevitably restricted by the accuracy of the data being used.
Maths is a system of perfect communication in another, quite different way.
The reason perfect communication is, apparently, impossible is due to the constantly changing and interactive nature of the universe.
In maths however an incredibly basic, non-physical world has been constructed which is utterly static.
The point here is that 1 is always 1, and to write 1 is to perfectly communicate the nature of 1, etc.
It's a kind of backwards cheat if you like. I can't run twenty six miles, I'll die, so instead I'll just change what a marathon is, twenty six feet sounds better.
I guess that final thought here is that, thanks to the nature of communication, many of the concepts I've tried to take from my head and make available to yours here will be lost, fallen by the roadside, never to be seen again, with just scraps making it through the gauntlet to you guys, panting and ragged.
Thing is we've been getting by like this for a fair while now, and we haven't done too bad from it either, know what I mean?
footnote
(1) I don't think there's anything wrong with political bias in the media as long as it's stated up front and opinion isn't presented as fact; I would in fact be far more suspicious of a media outlet claiming to have no political bias whatsoever as I'm not sure that's actually possible,
(2) I've been informed that they do have such a box on electoral ballots in Holland; the Netherlands was also recently announced to be the best place, (ie. safest with most opportunity,) for kids to grow up in, all this with brilliant public transport and legal access to weed, what the hell am I still doing living here?!
(3) notice I say 'capable' of delivering a higher standard of living, we are currently quite capable of clothing, feeding, housing and employing the entire human race, we simply choose not to,
