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Interesting. All of the above rebuttals are basically: ignore this because it's context and should be obvious. Well, that's the problem. It might seem obvious
by ta1234567890 7y ago
Interesting. All of the above rebuttals are basically: ignore this because it's context and should be obvious.
Well, that's the problem. It might seem obvious to you now, but it is not obvious to everyone all the time, which is what makes any statement ambiguous.
Additionally, I don't know the purpose of what you are saying. For example, you might say you ran a mile because you wanted to express you were tired, or because you wanted to imply you are healthy, or who knows why, it is definitely not clear from the statement alone what you wanted to convey, which is the main problem.
We feel something internally and then we try to express that in words, hoping that those words will mean the same to the person perceiving them. That process is highly suceptible to noise in many forms, like the other person not hearing you correctly, being distracted, being stressed out, or maybe they speak a slightly different version of your language and some of the words or expressions mean something a bit different to them than to you.
In the end, any statement doesn't have meaning by itself, it only acquires meaning when someone interprets it and understands it in a certain way. That is always a subjective process.
- soulofmischief 7y agoHonestly I feel like we could have a very deep conversation about this because I certainly agree with a lot of what you're saying. Language is certainly subjective, but I would argue that we can make certain concessions on what context truly is "obvious" and what isn't. And I think the matter of what level of precision is acceptable enough to consider a statement or idea "understood" is up for debate and is also contextual. At some point, any extra information is just that, extra information. The core idea may have been expressed fully, even if there are certain small ambiguities or if the listener wishes to draw insight from the statement beyond the basic sentiment expressed.
- ta1234567890 7y agoCompletely agree with you. Language is an incredibly useful tool and it works very well for most of our daily lives and many important things without thinking too much about it. It's just very interesting to me to see how something that seems so solid, in some ways is much more fluid and fuzzy. Thank you for keeping this thread going, really enjoyed discussing this.