Language doesn’t exist in isolation, it exists in the presence of other people. Speaking requires placing yourself in the other person’s mind; and listening requires figuring out what the speaker is trying to communicate.
There are four conversational maxims that people use when cooperating in conversation, to make it meaningful and purposeful.
1. Maxim of Quantity – Be as informative as is required, but no more.
2. Maxim of Quality – Be truthful, and avoid saying something you believe is false.
3. Maxim of Relevance – Be relevant and appropriate to the goal of the conversation.
4. Maxim of Manner – Be clear, and avoid both ambiguity and wordiness.
Most conversations break apart when they stray away from these maxims, mainly because we assume the other person is actually attempting cooperate. Whenever someone does violate these maxims, we attempt to infer the reason why: Are they trying to not hurt my feelings? Are they hiding something? Are they being dishonest? Are they trying to be misleading and argumentative? The precise rules of a conversation do change depending on the person and context. Speakers unconsciously agree to certain rules every time they interact, giving new meaning to words, based on how it is used in the conversation, where you are when using it, and why you are using it.
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Most people do a great job of understanding and communicating. Other's not so much, and they attempt argue against the words you use instead of how you are trying to use them. Personally, I have too many writing assignments to focus my attention on, to be putting that much effort and precision into an online forum. I suspect the same is true for others. These posts are neither being submitted for publishing, nor for a grade, nor for income. They are meant to simply express people's opinions, and discuss them casually not professionally.
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Nyar tries to mathematize language consistently. You are not allowed to use words such as "all" "never" "often" "many" "most" and other grammatical determiners, unless you ascribe a number and a measurement for them. He also refuses to accept that "Never" and "Always" don't always mean "never" and "always." Something most people grasp from an early age.
Cyber often hides behind what she hasn't said, and complains when you naturally try to fill in the gaps. She also dislikes generalities because they do not apply to her specifically, ironically enough.
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Actually I don't have a problem with "often" and "many" as they don't provide much information. However; "most" (also "more" & "less") describes a relationship between two objects where the magnitude of one is greater than the other; at which point I'm likely to ask about those magnitudes to see if the speaker is serious or just making shit up.
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X doesn't mean X; too funny.
"'Accuracy becomes pedantry if it is indulged for its own sake. A classic writer will phrase a subordinate point precisely but without the promise that it is technically accurate. The convention between writer and reader is that the writer is not to be challenged on these points because they are mere scaffolding.' Any adversary who is unscrupulous enough to give the least charitable reading to an unhedged statement will find an opening to attack the writer in a thicket of hedged ones anyway." -Steven Pinker, Psycholinguistics Professor at Harvard University
"Accuracy becomes pedantry if it is indulged for its own sake"
Maybe I'm crazy, but If you tell me more people drive Chevys than Fords: I don't think it is pedantic to ask you how many more, and how exactly you got those numbers.
Unfortunately, your criticism aren't about how many more people are driving one car vs another. Instead they are like this:
"What are the dimensions of complexity? What is a unit of complexity? How much of this unit does "human vision" have."
Also CyberLN's response to my comment that fear is often irrational: "Often? How often? What are the parameters of irrationality in this case?"
Even your response to my comment that phobias in females outnumber male phobias 4:1: "I know that isn't true. It might be true that females are 'diagnosed' with phobias at some increased rate"
Really? Does that not go without saying that we are talking about diagnoses? How else would we know anything if it is not first measured and diagnosed? That is precisely what is meant by being a pedant. You state the obvious and pat yourself in the back for it.
I can't think of a situation were calling something complex or irrational has ever needed a unit, dimension, or parameter to justify its use. People know exactly what is meant when something is called complex, regardless if you agree with that description or not. Those types of questions are nonsensical, and I have to assume you know this. So what is your purpose behind it, because it isn't for clarification. No one asks for clarification by requesting words to be mathematized.
When someone says more people drive brand X car than brand Y car, I want to know how many more, and how they determined that.
When someone says X is more complex than Y, I want to know how much more, and how they determined that.
You didn't seem to have a problem with the questions about cars; but you did when I asked about your statements. Weird huh?
A car is a physical, tangible, countable object. The words 'complex' 'design' and 'irrational' are not physical, tangible, countable objects. They are descriptive adjectives and nouns. You can't count complexity, you label complexity. There aren't any standardized units of complexity, there are standardized definitions of complexity. You can look those definitions up in a dictionary if you don't know them. For you to request the unit of complexity seems completely illogical to me.
Weird is also an adjective. Please tell me, what units were you using to determine it? How many of those units do I need before I cross the line between weird and not weird? I have to ask you about those magnitudes to see if you are serious or just making stuff up.
Complexity can and is counted regularly. And I already told you the dimensions/units it is typically counted in.
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I didn't not make a statement about the magnitude of weirdness of something. You did make a statement about the magnitude of the complexity of something.
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And just for kicks:
V.S.
This is what I'm against, your dishonesty in dialogue. I can't tell when you misunderstand something or are purposefully distorting it.
Your comparison isn't for kicks, its to misrepresent: "You can't count complexity.." uses your car comparison to explain that complexity isn't a physical object that can be counted. "Complexity seems quantifiable.." was an old attempt to reason with you, by finding a middle ground and quantifying complexity since the dictionary isn't enough. The fact that you misunderstand that is troublesome.
You can quantify anything you want. In fact I'm required to do so in psychology. If I'm going to conduct research on hunger, that means I need to turn hunger into a number. That means redefining hunger as hours after a meal, or the number of peristalsis and segmentation contractions per hour. I can even quantify hunger as a blood glucose level below 100mg/dL.
But if I tell you I'm very hungry, and your response is to request the dimensions/units of hunger or else you're going to assume I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to assume you're an undercover psychologist, I'm going assume you just escaped an insane asylum.
That's my point.
But that isn't the kind of statement I take issue with; as I have explained ad nauseum: that statement does not set up a relation. The kind of statement I would take issue with is if you said you were more hungry than Joe or twice as hungry as Joe; then I would want to know what the dimensions of hunger and an example unit you are using; and how you measured it.
That's just not true. There were no relations, contrasts, or comparisons in my post. So what are you talking about:
"Human vision exhibits a high level of design. By that I mean that even with our designed technology, we haven’t fully been able to replicate the entire system. This complexity means that all mechanisms have to work together, in perfect balance, for the entire process to work correctly."
V.S.
Hilarious, I figured you were going to use this exact quote and pretend its what you were talking about this whole time. So I saved this screenshot since yesterday as proof that its not. Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see you being concerned with Planarians and Jellyfish when you requested for dimensions here. In fact, you never brought them up until now to save face.
So I'll say it again. There were no relations, contrasts, or comparisons in my post. The one that YOU quoted. So what on earth are you talking about?
Feel free to stop your dishonesty at any time.
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You are right, I'm not concerned with Planarians or jellyfish (in fact I'm not even sure what Planarians are); but I am concerned with complexity. If you said Coke was more complex than Pepsi; while I might not be interested in soda, I would be very interested in how you arrived at that comparison.
I'm also interested in your usage of the word design; while you defined it in a way that seems Boolean, you quickly used it in a way that seems to represent a magnitude ("high level" I think you said).
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I can do without the personal attacks.
This entire thread is personal. I'm criticizing your approach to conversations. You can take offense to it, or you can fix the problem.
1. "You are right, I'm not concerned with Planarians or jellyfish.... but I am concerned with complexity.... I'm also interested in your usage of the word design"
Great, that's been my point. You don't care about what I'm saying, you only care about the words I use.
2. My opening line in that OP should have been enough: "I never found 'intelligent design' or 'irreducible complexity' to be objective arguments. So I decided to loosely give them operational definitions, which aren’t perfect, but get the point across in an objective way. Design – Anything requiring unique intervention to be achieved. For example, an anthill shows design because dirt does not gather into intricate mounds on its own, it requires ants. (Notice this is extremely broad; but contains no subjective notions about what is and isn't good design)."
Clearly you're not interested in my usage of the words. I told people how I'm using it. I'm literally quoting the OP. This was how my entire thread started. Yet you ignored it all, the first moment you got: "What are the dimensions of design? What is a unit of design? How much of this unit does "human vision" have?"
3. That's petty in my opinion, and it wouldn't be a problem if you weren't responding to my every post with that approach. It also wouldn't be a problem is people weren't falling for your dishonesty and agreeing with you. You have one purpose, and that is to twist people's words, and take them out of context. That is your end goal, not clarity.
Well you do make that really easy; consider your last post:
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V.S.
I literally broke it down for you by numbers. Hopefully some people can see through your dishonesty.
John: Have you ever focused on anyone's use of language in the manner you criticise in this thread? Good OP by the way!
I can't think of many situations where your words are more important than your point. I tend to always give the speaker the benefit of the doubt when possible.
I choose not to play, John. Being specific about what I've said and about what applies to me is, I think, completely reasonable. So, we seem to be at an impasse. Ok. L8R...
As I mentioned in my OP, conversing requires cooperation. Calling this an impasse from the start seems to be the opposite of cooperating. That's fine, I'll still talk so at least others can see what I mean:
When someone says something about atheists, your immediate reaction is to criticize it if it does not apply to you specifically. Atheism doesn't have increasing levels of specificity like Christianity does. It doesn't have denominations and sects. The only level of specificity in atheism is the individual itself. So when your argument against someone who uses the word atheist in general, is always that it doesn't apply to you specifically, you are generalizing not the person. This is because people are rarely making claims about you specifically. Yet you respond as if the word atheist meant whatever CyberLN is.
John, what a wonderful post, one of the best OPs I've read in this forum so far. You've made me more aware of my own communicational flaws, which are many, and I want to thank you for that.
It'd be very useful if we payed more attention to our posts, and your 4 maxims are pretty good advice. We, atheists, are always claiming to be willing to help people improve their critical thinking skills, so it's more than fair to take advice on how we should write its results on a post. Point taken.
But I completely disagree on those critics to Nyar and Cyber, because every one of us is has a different reasoning process, and I like to read Nyar's strict logic point of view, as well as I enjoy reading Cyber's posts or yours... And if you feel that someone is forcing your answer at any time, just make it clear on the next post you write. But this complaint as part of an OP topic, probably not one of your best ideas.
Well thank you, I wasn't sure what people were going to think.
As to your disagreement. My problem is that their approach (Nyar's in particular) isn't constructive. There's a time and place for that level of strictness, and it usually isn't online. But if you're going to require it online, at least let it have a constructive purpose. Nyar doesn't usually have a constructive purpose, sometimes he doesn't appear to have a purpose at all other than to criticize people's use of words.
My OP wasn't intended as a complain, as much as it is a declaration of where I stand on the subject. I've been on the forum for little less than a year. Apart from me there aren't that many other theists on here. So as the person that most people are engaging in conversation with, I think its important to make an entire OP on the subject.
I too appreciate Nyar's point of view, but its often wasted on petty matters, attacking the words and not the argument. Its a tactic that I've begun to see spread to other people who converse with me.
John, 'though this has become a "one to one" battle, I want to restart the bright side of the OP, which is the improvement of our communicational skills on this forum. I've come across these sites, with simple explanations and examples of logical fallacies and bias for dummies like me, and I think that maybe someone else could use it.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
https://www.yourbias.is/
Angiebot: Thank goodness for clarity!! A really interesting exchange of ideas.
Great post, John.
Basis for understanding in communication is prime in the internet world that does not provide the non-verbal communication cues of normal discourse, which has become wholly lost on the keyboard, leaving all to expound their statements beyond simple personal expression to satisfy audience demands for higher level explanations often with supporting citations.
Ridiculous.
You just can't say what's on your mind and leave off with that these days.
It's all relative to the here and now or there and then so the data or evidence to support an issue that has moving goal posts is in itself irrelevant. Everyone wants to be read as well-read but they determine privately to sue their fellow authors for libel without supporting citations in whatever weights and measures they themselves deem peachy-keen-neato-boss enough to feel the point has been properly supported, as if they actually have that level of expertise to judge.
In other words, the citations might be as questionable as the issue itself to such extent that none of it gels. But, those citations need to be there to clear the claimant of all libel for (unqualified) freedom of expression.
Ridiculous X 2.
Or...
I say what I have to say most times and revisiting it to stroke the reader's inquiry is a rarity. They can just as easily find their own citations supporting anything I have to say if they're so engaged, and they should. Reading (general knowledge) is a fundamental that they should voluntarily embark upon without relying upon someone else to bring it to their lazy asses.
The internet forum for discourse has become a courtroom for peer judgement.
Ridiculous X 3.
Join a debate forum and you can expect people to debate you.