I think you are thinking about this the wrong way. Coming into a social situation with a prepared set of ideas to cover is something a preacher does. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its place for certain situations, but it is not the way to approach having a conversation.
Good conversations are a complicated interaction between people. If you want to have a good one with someone, you need to hold their interest as well as your own. To extend a ridiculous metaphor a little further, cache misses in this context with cost you a bit more than a few hundred cycles, it could blow a chance at a quality interaction with another person.
I find the best technique for conversation is to try to find something that they are interested in. You never know where it might lead, and that is interesting.
I think you’re misinterpreting my post somehow. I’m not saying you should have a ready list of ideas to convince other people of. I’m saying you should be prepared to have something to say about a lot of things, and be able to shift topics until you find a subject the other person also has an interest in.
Of course, if the other person is capable and willing to do that, that’s fine as well, but not everyone is. You’ll miss out on a lot of interesting discussions if you’re not capable of doing your own part.
Don’t know if I did, but I think this caching notion is a bad way to look at it. However, to inject a positive note, thinking about the connections between your interests is a fruitful activity that has value far beyond pre planning conversations.
One feels that the idea of caching component parts of conversations for use and re-use somewhat misses the point of a conversation in the first place. A conversation is a two-way interaction between real people. It’s not a mechanical process, nor a debate, nor is it simply transfer of information. Human interaction isn’t just about sharing ideas, it’s about making a connection on a personal level.
If human conversation was as it is presented here, autistic people would not have so much trouble understanding normal human interaction. They could simply “follow the script”, as it were.
Having a conversation with someone following this method would, I suspect, feel rather unnatural and stilted—almost like a charade.
Sure. You are having to cache each thought with certain assumptions in mind (e.g. group of people that like the singularity, people that tolerate talking about the possibility of computers, people that take fantasy seriously, a person that doesn’t seem interested in any of the things that the aforementioned might). If we try to think about these assumptions as variables, attempting to cache for a future conversations quickly leads to combinatoric explosion leaving you with an impossible number of things to think about before. This forces you to consider a small number of cases that may well do more harm then good.
I also don’t like cache here because of how static in implies the ideas are. Conversation, and quality thinking, are dynamic and deserve to be let evolve on their own.
I think you are thinking about this the wrong way. Coming into a social situation with a prepared set of ideas to cover is something a preacher does. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its place for certain situations, but it is not the way to approach having a conversation.
Good conversations are a complicated interaction between people. If you want to have a good one with someone, you need to hold their interest as well as your own. To extend a ridiculous metaphor a little further, cache misses in this context with cost you a bit more than a few hundred cycles, it could blow a chance at a quality interaction with another person.
I find the best technique for conversation is to try to find something that they are interested in. You never know where it might lead, and that is interesting.
I think you’re misinterpreting my post somehow. I’m not saying you should have a ready list of ideas to convince other people of. I’m saying you should be prepared to have something to say about a lot of things, and be able to shift topics until you find a subject the other person also has an interest in.
Of course, if the other person is capable and willing to do that, that’s fine as well, but not everyone is. You’ll miss out on a lot of interesting discussions if you’re not capable of doing your own part.
Don’t know if I did, but I think this caching notion is a bad way to look at it. However, to inject a positive note, thinking about the connections between your interests is a fruitful activity that has value far beyond pre planning conversations.
Could you elaborate a bit more on why you think so?
To insert myself into your conversation:
One feels that the idea of caching component parts of conversations for use and re-use somewhat misses the point of a conversation in the first place. A conversation is a two-way interaction between real people. It’s not a mechanical process, nor a debate, nor is it simply transfer of information. Human interaction isn’t just about sharing ideas, it’s about making a connection on a personal level.
If human conversation was as it is presented here, autistic people would not have so much trouble understanding normal human interaction. They could simply “follow the script”, as it were.
Having a conversation with someone following this method would, I suspect, feel rather unnatural and stilted—almost like a charade.
Sure. You are having to cache each thought with certain assumptions in mind (e.g. group of people that like the singularity, people that tolerate talking about the possibility of computers, people that take fantasy seriously, a person that doesn’t seem interested in any of the things that the aforementioned might). If we try to think about these assumptions as variables, attempting to cache for a future conversations quickly leads to combinatoric explosion leaving you with an impossible number of things to think about before. This forces you to consider a small number of cases that may well do more harm then good.
I also don’t like cache here because of how static in implies the ideas are. Conversation, and quality thinking, are dynamic and deserve to be let evolve on their own.
Not to be humourless, but I wonder if this could be rephrased to something a little more neutral.
Done. I didn’t mean to imply that none of the others mentioned were attractive, but I understand the concern. Thanks for the heads up.