Misunderstanding is part of a healthy communication

DeReel's picture
Forum: 

Hello,
I had an illumination about forum discussions and RPG as a conversation. It happened reading this article https://journals.openedition.org/questionsdecommunication/432, specifically contrasting the diagram p 31-32 with the telegraphic model of communication I was (we were ?) taught in school. In practice, everybody knows and experienced this : once our words are out there, every body will see something slightly different in them. Of course, we are not from different species, but the model of interaction applies all the same. The article only proposes this : instead of lamenting the decay of the message through communication, make misunderstanding a feature of healthy interaction. This slight change of perspective doesn't seem ground breaking. I am just calling your attention to the fact that I was (we were ?) taught a model so raw it's not only impractical, it's totalitarian in its implications. No less. The result is that all around the world, you've got people insisting, in good faith, on defining concepts and classifying them by properties alone. This world definitely needs a crash course in (socio)linguistics.
In this perspective, isn't the game state model necessarily bound to philosophical skepticism ?

Paul T.'s picture

Quite thought-provoking. I will think about this for a while - it applies to so many things in life!