268 réponses à ce sujet

[Mr Fixit]

Of course body language matters. Eye contact is part of it. One can glean a lot about a person observing his or her body language.

That you can't has no bearing on it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

If I'm somehow using the wrong body language, and it makes no difference, then body language doesn't matter. Mr. Fixit suggests that people do notice my body language, but I never seem to experience any consequences as a result. So it doesn't matter.

EntropicAngel is suggesting that my efforts to disguise my body language suggests that I think body language does matter. This is untrue. I think body language might matter; I'm hedging my bets.

[Mr Fixit]

Sorry Sylvius, but that's just untrue. Since you're not able to experience alternate realities, you simply can't say you don't experience consequences. You most certainly do. People will react differently to you based on your entire appearance, body language included.

Seriously, why are we even debating this? I feel like i'm explaining basic concepts to a three yearl old child, no offense

[Sylvius the Mad]

If the differences are not detectable, do they matter?

[Mr Fixit]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

If the differences are not detectable, do they matter?

I don't understand. EVERYTHING you do has a consequence. It doesn't matter whether you detect it or not. My appraisal of your body language will inform my opinion of you and my behavior towards you and regarding you.
I don't know about you, but I very well know about me and pretty much everyone else I know.

Again, why are we even debating this? Are you Commander Data in need of some quick lessons on humanity?

Modifié par Mr Fixit, 31 janvier 2013 - 12:57 .

[mesmerizedish]

Mr Fixit wrote...

Again, why are we even debating this? Are you Commander Data in need of some quick lessons on humanity?

Wow, rude.

[Mr Fixit]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

Mr Fixit wrote...

Again, why are we even debating this? Are you Commander Data in need of some quick lessons on humanity?

Wow, rude.

Not my intention to be rude. I am just completely and utterly unable to comprehend how we can debate whether communication exists.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mr Fixit wrote...

I don't understand. EVERYTHING you do has a consequence. It doesn't matter whether you detect it or not.

Whether I can detect it informs whether I care
about it at all.  If something makes no material difference (and an
undetectable difference is immaterial), then there's no reason for that
difference to concern anyone.

EntropicAngel wrote...

This is a different argument than  your previous one, Sylvius.

Yes, it is.  And if either one works, my perspective wins the day.

You previously argued that body language has no meaning, not that the meaning "doesn't matter." In my previous post I went off of your previous assertion, incorrectly.

A lack of meaning would be meaning that doesn't matter (as it wouldn't even exist).  The two positions are not incompatible.

My assertion that body language has no meaning is based mostly on the lack of formal definitions of what that meaning might be.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I maintain that only formal definitions are definitions. Formal definitions are unambiguous. If there are defined meanings for body language, then someone well-versed in those meanings should be able to interpret body language without error, and I don't see that happening. People routinely misinterpret body language.

[LinksOcarina]

I would like to point out that the wanton murder of various mooks and demons is a game conceit used in pretty much every game known to man, unless the game is actively making the combat disheartening and reactive to the player character, which would in turn, actually take away role-playing since its giving fixed emotions that can't be changed to the hybrid characters BioWare tends to create.

The only way to curtail that is to limit actual encounters in-game and make combat, and death, less visible in-game to achieve that affect. And I know that is not going to happen.

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 31 janvier 2013 - 07:09 .

[Mr Fixit]

Everything is open to interpretation. Every word, every sentence.

I still don't understand why you're singling out body language in your crusade. It's just one of many forms of communication. What did it do to offend you?

Modifié par Mr Fixit, 31 janvier 2013 - 09:46 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mr Fixit wrote...

I still don't understand why you're singling out body language in your crusade. It's just one of many forms of communication. What did it do to offend you?

It's imprecise.

[Allan Schumacher]

As is language and communication in general.

[XX-Pyro]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

As is language and communication in general.

This exactly. Verbal communication is just as much up to interpretation as body language.

EDIT: If not more, since it takes a lot more practice to be able to convincingly lie using body language.

Modifié par XX-Pyro, 31 janvier 2013 - 10:32 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

As is language and communication in general.

I don't think communication exists, and language is only imprecise if you use it imprecisely.

It is possible to use language unambiguously.  It is not possible, I argue, to use body language unambigiously.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

As is language and communication in general.

I don't think communication exists, and language is only imprecise if you use it imprecisely.

It is possible to use language unambiguously.  It is not possible, I argue, to use body language unambigiously.

Tears? Fear versus excitement? Ambivalence versus apathy?

[Dean_the_Young]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I maintain that only formal definitions are definitions.

That's a pretty informal definition there, Sylivius.

[Todd23]

... What has my forum come too?

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't think communication exists

Bollocks. You're communicating right now.

Since you're a fan of formal definitions, you can find some here: http://en.wikipedia....i/Communication and http://www.merriam-w...y/communication

Those even use only words, so I am comfortable in trusting that you should have a reasonably high degree of confidence that they are less ambiguous and an accurate definition of the word, communication.


What you've done is created a model of what you think communication is. What I think I see, however, is a belief that your model is accurate because it's what you created, and you demonstrate the typical human quality of assuming that because you logically deduced it, it must be true (since otherwise there's cognitive dissonance, something the brain isn't too fond of and tries to reconcile by either excluding perspectives that do not align as being somehow incorrect or not applicable, or shifting one's own perspectives to be in alignment with the new set of information).

Communication, which as defined is an expression of information, messages, or thoughts by means of speech, visuals, writing, signals, or behaviour, is a function of each of those elements. One could even argue that it is gestalt; it's greater than the sum of its parts.

When communicating, it's the sum of all the speech, visuals, writing, signals, and behaviour that are present. Using only words means that the other aspects of communication have been omitted, but not that they are irrelevant. They provide additional information and context which may be essential to understanding the message being expressed. Depending on the message being expressed, they may not.

Using only words does not remove ambiguity. As with all communication, ambiguity only exists since the speaker and the listener are two different people. With full understanding of myself, I never find the things that I write ambiguous. Especially not as I write them. That doesn't mean that everyone else will understand the message I am expressing.

There's the obvious barriers: language. If I don't understand the language, the words expressed to me are meaningless. However, based just on experience, I have successfully communicated to people despite not understanding the language (I have a funny story about being in a hospital in Punta Cana). Clearly communication doesn't require words. Therefore, it must be possible to communicate without words.

There's also cultural nomenclatures. Colloquialisms that exist in one part of the world, but not the other, despite the same use of the language. These may even evolve within the same culture. Say "humbug" now in the UK, and you get a different reaction than you did a couple centuries ago. Sometimes the same word can mean different things depending on time and location. There's one famous curse word that has a plethora of applications.


When people try to be as unambiguous as possible with their words, it rarely comes across as natural. You'll tend to see this sort of stuff in legalese in binding contracts and so forth. The attempt to remove ambiguity is essential to making sure the terms of the contract are clear for all parties, and perhaps more importantly, in the court of law. This ambiguity is not guaranteed, however, and often requires more than a single person to contribute to it in order for it to be done so.

Even if one has an infallible trust in the ability for men to communicate in unambiguous ways using only words, reality doesn't reflect that. In this point, it simply becomes a logic experiment that contemplates a model that is not an accurate representation of reality. This can be useful sometimes (physical sciences always create models to help simplify situations for ease of understanding - friction was rarely something considered in my Physics classes, but it always exists in reality).


Words in communication have always been imprecise. For example: "I think the movie Pearl Harbour was fantastic" If I give you only one chance to describe what I am trying to express with that sentence, can you be absolutely certain that you'll be correct and that there isn't some other message I am trying to express?

[LPPrince]

Damn, now I want to hear/read that Punta Cana story.