> That is, how well you can understand someone else doesn't depend just on common ground, but perhaps even more on how mature of machinery for understanding tha

> That is, how well you can understand someone else doesn't depend just on common ground, but perhaps even more on how mature of machinery for understanding that you have. I disagree, and believe I can explain why. If I wrote: I can think of a few HN posts I have written which did not properly express my intent when I wrote them. Is this a statement that you can relate with? Even if not, does it communicate an experience you could envision based on your being a participant in this forum, having written posts yourself, and knowing I am a person just as you are doing the same? What if I texted the sentence to someone who has never heard of HN? Now what would happen if I wrote that same sentence on a piece of paper and handed it to a random person in a train station where no one spoke English?