I agree. My main point is not that we’re rational yet we disagree. But even as we strive to be rational in the future, we can still disagree due to imperfections in language. Perfect communication doesn’t entail complete revelation of brain states, as with perfect communication humans can still be selective as to what to communicate, so self interest wouldn’t be a major problem.
I have no clue how to determine which of the following contribute how much to any given disagreement:
human irrationality and inability to update correctly on new information.
(related to #1) human cognitive and attention limits—just can’t remember and process enough to really understand the content of very complicated attempts at communication.
misalignment (adversarial/competitive motives for (mis)communication).
many other obstacles.
imperfections in language .
My intuition is that #5 is pretty far down the list, ESPECIALLY if you separate “imperfect understanding of context of the speaker and their reasons for communication choices” as a new bullet point.
This leads me to believe that language does evolve, but it won’t make much of a dent in the conflict and disagreement we see among people.
I agree. My main point is not that we’re rational yet we disagree. But even as we strive to be rational in the future, we can still disagree due to imperfections in language. Perfect communication doesn’t entail complete revelation of brain states, as with perfect communication humans can still be selective as to what to communicate, so self interest wouldn’t be a major problem.
I have no clue how to determine which of the following contribute how much to any given disagreement:
human irrationality and inability to update correctly on new information.
(related to #1) human cognitive and attention limits—just can’t remember and process enough to really understand the content of very complicated attempts at communication.
misalignment (adversarial/competitive motives for (mis)communication).
many other obstacles.
imperfections in language .
My intuition is that #5 is pretty far down the list, ESPECIALLY if you separate “imperfect understanding of context of the speaker and their reasons for communication choices” as a new bullet point.
This leads me to believe that language does evolve, but it won’t make much of a dent in the conflict and disagreement we see among people.