I don’t seem to have as bad a case of finding inexact communication painful as you do, but I’m frequently enough brought up short when what seems like a perfectly clear and obvious feeling doesn’t have words to express it. Sometimes I can get a pretty good fit with a lot of thought.
I didn’t realize just how bad English is (I don’t know whether other languages are better) for describing simple spatial relationships. I think it took ten minutes or more for me to describe a little pivoting brush in my printer to a mechanically adept friend. I knew what I meant, he’s good at visualizing. Maybe I can come up with a protocol for such things with an order for talking about orientations and motions.
I’m not sure whether that was a sidetrack, but it might be a clue that when accuracy of communication can be checked, there’s much less of it going on than one might think.
Anyway, I agree that conveying what you mean rather than just kidding yourself that you’re getting anything across is a real problem.
You probably are making it harder by starting with very abstract, emotionally charged concepts. but it’s a hard problem. People don’t even agree on what science fiction is, or to put it another way, “science fiction” is a more abstract and emotionally charged concept than it appears to be at first glance.
I’m tempted to conclude with some advice, but I probably don’t know enough about your situation.
I don’t seem to have as bad a case of finding inexact communication painful as you do, but I’m frequently enough brought up short when what seems like a perfectly clear and obvious feeling doesn’t have words to express it. Sometimes I can get a pretty good fit with a lot of thought.
I didn’t realize just how bad English is (I don’t know whether other languages are better) for describing simple spatial relationships. I think it took ten minutes or more for me to describe a little pivoting brush in my printer to a mechanically adept friend. I knew what I meant, he’s good at visualizing. Maybe I can come up with a protocol for such things with an order for talking about orientations and motions.
I’m not sure whether that was a sidetrack, but it might be a clue that when accuracy of communication can be checked, there’s much less of it going on than one might think.
Anyway, I agree that conveying what you mean rather than just kidding yourself that you’re getting anything across is a real problem.
You probably are making it harder by starting with very abstract, emotionally charged concepts. but it’s a hard problem. People don’t even agree on what science fiction is, or to put it another way, “science fiction” is a more abstract and emotionally charged concept than it appears to be at first glance.
I’m tempted to conclude with some advice, but I probably don’t know enough about your situation.