Language works when we think the same, connecting the words to the same meanings and such. But that never actually happens 100%. It might be closer to 80%. (or if it’s a strange subject, 15%)

So this “conversation” that we’re having here is, to some degree, not actually happening.

But we pretend that it is.

So how much are we pretending? How much of the conversation is hallucinatory conversation?

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    14 hours ago

    From a technical perspective, you might wanna look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-channel_coding_theorem

    It basically says, that even when your channel over which you’re transmitting the data is noisy (i.e. does not transport the information exactly as you want it), you can still establish a clear communication over it. It’s fascinating, and i highly suspect that something similar is happening in our spoken language. The words in itself are ambiguous, but through relentless redundancy, somehow, the information still comes through clearly.

    It is probably one of the reason why i have a habit of always saying the same sentence 2 or 3 times in a row, with slightly different wordings. I guess it is because i’m utterly aware of that information can get lost during talking, especially in a noisy situation, and that repeating the information helps splendidly with making it more clear. Other people, however, seem to be a bit annoyed by it :p