Wednesday, March 21. 2007
Depths of communication and mutual understanding
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I had some thoughts as feedback:
In my opinion, the purpose of communication is not competition. Our professor at AUCA, Steve Staley, used to say that it is very difficult to be a gentleman. One who considers himeself a gentleman will be able to converse on any level depending on who he is talking to. If you are talking to a farmer, you use his terminology, if you are talking to a scientist, you can adapt to his. And in both instances, these people will consider you as theirs.
But even this doesn't summarize the purpose of communication.
I personally think that the deepest level of communication is when you can look at the person and your eye contact says it all, you both just had the same thought process, understanding, evaluation, analysis and conclusions and you both know where each of you stands and both feel instant pleasure that you found deep mutual understanding with a simple eye contact. This doesn't require knowing facts, citing sources etc.
If you are conversing with another person you have never met before, the purpose is not to find out how book smart that person is, the purpose is to learn something new, share something with the person and grow in the mutual exchange. This, in my opinion, doesn't have an end as a certain level reached on a scale. This is an ongoing process. I can talk to a farmer and constantly learn something new tapping at his wisdom channels that I otherwise would have never explored on my own. I can talk to a child and constanly learn something new by keeping an open mind and learning to approach issues in life from the child's perspective. I recently talked to a retired president of a university. One would think what could possibly a 27 year old girl and a retired president of a university have in common... But we had a great dialogue as both of us were wise enough to listen to each other, share experiences and be open to learn.
I do agree though that the more intelligent your partner is, the more interesting it could be to converse, it represents an exciting challenge whereas it's not only you motivating yourself to develop, but your partner plays a big role in that also. However, I just look at the process and the act of conversations differently I guess.
I guess I consider wisdom as the major component rather than intelligence etc. Wisdom doesn't require book smarts or education, it's the intelligence and the kindness of the soul. From wisdom come all the wonderful virtues such as the ability to converse on deep levels and understand people.
Asel
In my opinion, the purpose of communication is not competition. Our professor at AUCA, Steve Staley, used to say that it is very difficult to be a gentleman. One who considers himeself a gentleman will be able to converse on any level depending on who he is talking to. If you are talking to a farmer, you use his terminology, if you are talking to a scientist, you can adapt to his. And in both instances, these people will consider you as theirs.
But even this doesn't summarize the purpose of communication.
I personally think that the deepest level of communication is when you can look at the person and your eye contact says it all, you both just had the same thought process, understanding, evaluation, analysis and conclusions and you both know where each of you stands and both feel instant pleasure that you found deep mutual understanding with a simple eye contact. This doesn't require knowing facts, citing sources etc.
If you are conversing with another person you have never met before, the purpose is not to find out how book smart that person is, the purpose is to learn something new, share something with the person and grow in the mutual exchange. This, in my opinion, doesn't have an end as a certain level reached on a scale. This is an ongoing process. I can talk to a farmer and constantly learn something new tapping at his wisdom channels that I otherwise would have never explored on my own. I can talk to a child and constanly learn something new by keeping an open mind and learning to approach issues in life from the child's perspective. I recently talked to a retired president of a university. One would think what could possibly a 27 year old girl and a retired president of a university have in common... But we had a great dialogue as both of us were wise enough to listen to each other, share experiences and be open to learn.
I do agree though that the more intelligent your partner is, the more interesting it could be to converse, it represents an exciting challenge whereas it's not only you motivating yourself to develop, but your partner plays a big role in that also. However, I just look at the process and the act of conversations differently I guess.
I guess I consider wisdom as the major component rather than intelligence etc. Wisdom doesn't require book smarts or education, it's the intelligence and the kindness of the soul. From wisdom come all the wonderful virtues such as the ability to converse on deep levels and understand people.
Asel
Asel,
thanks for contributing your thoughts on the topic, it makes me feel I'm not wasting my time writing.
I completely agree that finding out how book-smart the person is, is not the goal. By being book-smart a person does not necessarily have his/her original thoughts and opinions on the subject. I can cite Dostoevsky all day long, but it is not going to make me even closer to Dostoevsky.
In your example with a farmer, all I can add is that new data is available via variety of sources. New data is coming from farmers, from university professors, from any person in the universe. But the quality of that data is different. Being a farmer is much easier than being a university professor and that alone warrants the number of farmers to be much greater than the number of professors. That makes the data, available to farmers, to be highly available, which reduces its quality.
In the example with conversing with a professor, I would start thinking about who of you was on which communication level. If you were on your deepest one and the professor wasn't, it means that there is plenty of potential for you to go deeper and deeper with the help of this individual.
So, even though as there is plenty of new information available, one must be quite selective about what information to allow in, otherwise you might risk overwhelming your brain with unneeded data, which will prevent you from analyzing the right data. I explained it here: http://www.grinchenko.org/blog/index.php?/archives/65-Give-your-brain-a-chance-to-think.html
P.S. awesome feedback. we'll have to discuss it in real life too sometime. :)
thanks for contributing your thoughts on the topic, it makes me feel I'm not wasting my time writing.
I completely agree that finding out how book-smart the person is, is not the goal. By being book-smart a person does not necessarily have his/her original thoughts and opinions on the subject. I can cite Dostoevsky all day long, but it is not going to make me even closer to Dostoevsky.
In your example with a farmer, all I can add is that new data is available via variety of sources. New data is coming from farmers, from university professors, from any person in the universe. But the quality of that data is different. Being a farmer is much easier than being a university professor and that alone warrants the number of farmers to be much greater than the number of professors. That makes the data, available to farmers, to be highly available, which reduces its quality.
In the example with conversing with a professor, I would start thinking about who of you was on which communication level. If you were on your deepest one and the professor wasn't, it means that there is plenty of potential for you to go deeper and deeper with the help of this individual.
So, even though as there is plenty of new information available, one must be quite selective about what information to allow in, otherwise you might risk overwhelming your brain with unneeded data, which will prevent you from analyzing the right data. I explained it here: http://www.grinchenko.org/blog/index.php?/archives/65-Give-your-brain-a-chance-to-think.html
P.S. awesome feedback. we'll have to discuss it in real life too sometime. :)
Igor,
I still think that communication doesn't have levels. There can be different degrees of intelligence though. A university professor can be more intelligent and thus, can be more interesting and challenging. However, a farmer can be very knowlegeable about his field and the reason he is a farmer is because he chose to be one, not because he is less intelligent although there are some like that also. In my rotary club, I know of a doctor (PhD, MPH) who is a farmer...
I know what you mean by digging deeper and deeper as far as testing the ability of another person to perceive, understand, process and apply new information by way of thoughts, analysis, interpretations, conclusions and challenging feedback. However, this has another definition - carrying on a discussion with an intelligent person whether it's for personal or professional reasons.
I took quite a few communication classes and once you get into studying it, you start to understand how interesting the field is. Language is just one way of communicating, and sometimes, not the most effective one.
I praise your ability to cite Dostoevsky!! I couldn't do that...
Asel
I still think that communication doesn't have levels. There can be different degrees of intelligence though. A university professor can be more intelligent and thus, can be more interesting and challenging. However, a farmer can be very knowlegeable about his field and the reason he is a farmer is because he chose to be one, not because he is less intelligent although there are some like that also. In my rotary club, I know of a doctor (PhD, MPH) who is a farmer...
I know what you mean by digging deeper and deeper as far as testing the ability of another person to perceive, understand, process and apply new information by way of thoughts, analysis, interpretations, conclusions and challenging feedback. However, this has another definition - carrying on a discussion with an intelligent person whether it's for personal or professional reasons.
I took quite a few communication classes and once you get into studying it, you start to understand how interesting the field is. Language is just one way of communicating, and sometimes, not the most effective one.
I praise your ability to cite Dostoevsky!! I couldn't do that...
Asel
Asel,
I believe that levels of intelligence is something a little different. The professor, who selected to be a farmer is one of a kind, that makes him an out lier, and I'm trying to kind of generalize.
The proof which shows that levels are there, is that the same person can talk about the same thing in a number of ways. One way can be as simple as re-telling something that he was able to observe, another way can be as deep as in talking abstractly yet in connection to the same thing, by expressing own original ideas and thoughts.
Looking forward in discussing it in person. :-)
Igor
I believe that levels of intelligence is something a little different. The professor, who selected to be a farmer is one of a kind, that makes him an out lier, and I'm trying to kind of generalize.
The proof which shows that levels are there, is that the same person can talk about the same thing in a number of ways. One way can be as simple as re-telling something that he was able to observe, another way can be as deep as in talking abstractly yet in connection to the same thing, by expressing own original ideas and thoughts.
Looking forward in discussing it in person. :-)
Igor
Over and above the topic I want to identify the problem of difference in understanding language. We all use the same words, but put absolutely different meaning in each word, based on our background, culture, etc. All people are unique in their thoughts because of their background, which form a sort of wisdom and experience.
This makes the way the term “understandingâ€, as it is usually being understood, to be very loose. Pure understanding should be based not only on the information being delivered by certain words, but also on awareness of the culture and background of the provider of the information. That’s why it’s very important to read biography of the author to get the clear perception of his ideas.
For example, if I would discuss a book by Dostoevsky with any person who read the book in translation and who is not very much aware of Russian culture I might have experienced a miscommunication, based on difference in perception of the events described in the book. This could happen even if we both on the same depth of thinking but have different background and therefore perception. Besides, words in different languages sometimes have slight difference in meanings – thus there are words that cannot be exactly translated to another language.
As Ludwig Wittgenstein stated, a language is not simply a means of communication but reflects a mental condition of mind. Majority of words describe not some material objects, but processes, emotions, attitudes, etc, and everyone may have his own perception of such things. For example: one may think that “good†is when he is not offended or beaten. One may think that “good†is when he is not hungry. One may think that “good†is when he may buy a car of exactly the model and exactly the color he likes. And it’s all “good†but from different perspectives. We all understand what is “good†differently, so that what good for one, bad for another – different perception of “goodâ€.
The same applies to all words that don’t have exact, standard meaning.
Another example:
A little joke about perception: one scientist was learning the behavioral aspects of cockroaches.
He pulled one of cockroach’s legs off and then made a noise, so cockroach started to run away. He makes note: “loosing a lag does nothing to cockroachâ€. Then he gets the cockroach and pulls another leg off and creates a noise – cockroach is running away again. He makes a note – “Nothing changedâ€. And so on. Than he pulls the last leg off and makes noise – cockroach is not moving. He makes a note – cockroach doesn’t hear without legs.
The purpose for the example is to show that sometimes we tend to make wrong statements, based on the information we’ve got so far.
I might have gone beyond the scope of the topic – I just wanted to show that communication and understanding have way more criterions that are always should be considered.
This makes the way the term “understandingâ€, as it is usually being understood, to be very loose. Pure understanding should be based not only on the information being delivered by certain words, but also on awareness of the culture and background of the provider of the information. That’s why it’s very important to read biography of the author to get the clear perception of his ideas.
For example, if I would discuss a book by Dostoevsky with any person who read the book in translation and who is not very much aware of Russian culture I might have experienced a miscommunication, based on difference in perception of the events described in the book. This could happen even if we both on the same depth of thinking but have different background and therefore perception. Besides, words in different languages sometimes have slight difference in meanings – thus there are words that cannot be exactly translated to another language.
As Ludwig Wittgenstein stated, a language is not simply a means of communication but reflects a mental condition of mind. Majority of words describe not some material objects, but processes, emotions, attitudes, etc, and everyone may have his own perception of such things. For example: one may think that “good†is when he is not offended or beaten. One may think that “good†is when he is not hungry. One may think that “good†is when he may buy a car of exactly the model and exactly the color he likes. And it’s all “good†but from different perspectives. We all understand what is “good†differently, so that what good for one, bad for another – different perception of “goodâ€.
The same applies to all words that don’t have exact, standard meaning.
Another example:
A little joke about perception: one scientist was learning the behavioral aspects of cockroaches.
He pulled one of cockroach’s legs off and then made a noise, so cockroach started to run away. He makes note: “loosing a lag does nothing to cockroachâ€. Then he gets the cockroach and pulls another leg off and creates a noise – cockroach is running away again. He makes a note – “Nothing changedâ€. And so on. Than he pulls the last leg off and makes noise – cockroach is not moving. He makes a note – cockroach doesn’t hear without legs.
The purpose for the example is to show that sometimes we tend to make wrong statements, based on the information we’ve got so far.
I might have gone beyond the scope of the topic – I just wanted to show that communication and understanding have way more criterions that are always should be considered.
Complete agree. Different backgrounds make us into very different human beings, let alone differences in perceptions. Just like we discussed Leo Tolstoy the other day, only a true master can use the words so that any person speaking the language would understand the idea. In the hands of the true master words themselves don't really matter separately, but only by the right combination of right words can the idea be written out, so that anybody could easily absorb it.
Just to add my 2 cents. Often when I find myself at a social gathering with folks of differing ages I tend to have the best conversations with people older than myself (I am mid 40s). An example is a recent holiday party at a good friends house with brothers, sisters, parents and friends all in attendance. I spent time with everyone there, but the most interesting conversations were with my good friend's father-in-law and father. My friends are intelligent people, however I think the social setting (or maybe the alcohol) keeps their conversations on the lighter side and that doesn't seem to be the case with the more "mature" partygoers. At any rate, I also agree that conversations tend to find their own level and once that level is established with someone it tends to stick.
