{"id":31,"date":"2016-10-15T19:19:16","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T19:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/?p=31"},"modified":"2017-02-02T14:21:02","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T14:21:02","slug":"the-rationality-of-intimacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/10\/15\/the-rationality-of-intimacy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rationality of Intimacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can imagine many people might think the title of this post means it will be all about love, sex and such. Well, not exactly<\/em>. It’s about relationships \u2013 but not merely limited to the exclusive kind of relationship two lovers who might be married might have.<\/h3>\n

It also isn’t about cheating husbands or wives. So what is this post about? (is there anything left? \ud83d\udc7f )<\/h3>\n

Well, I almost hate to break it to you: It’s about how relationships interact with language. \ud83d\ude10 I know: It’s just what you were afraid of. Abstract and dry, when you were thinking you might finally get hot and steamy. Sorry, Charlie. \ud83d\ude41<\/h3>\n

The rest of you, however, might still find this post somewhat amusing and entertaining \u2013 so please: Do read on! \ud83d\ude00<\/h3>\n

Most of what I have been writing about above is expressed in a plain and simple language \u2013 the kind of talk you might expect to exchange with someone while walking around town. But there are many other people on earth than the folks you might meet while out and about socializing. You are probably more intimate<\/em> with some people, and less intimate<\/em> with other people. Another way of saying this is that your close friends<\/em> are close relationships<\/em>, and that your more distant friends<\/em> are distant relationships<\/em> (and in this sense closeness doesn’t really refer to geographical distance, but rather to the level of intimacy in the relationship).<\/h3>\n

Although few people would actually be surprised to hear me say so, most people don’t seem to think much about how intimacy plays a role in language and communication. However, I do think we talk significantly differently with close friends than we do with distant friends. Indeed, this is almost blatantly obvious when people consider the way they talk with their most<\/strong> \u201esignificant other<\/strong>\u201c. At this degree of intimacy, the language we use almost becomes a private matter, and the meanings of expressions are like intimate secrets among utmost<\/em> \u201einsiders\u201c.<\/h3>\n

The other extreme is more complicated linguistically. There is really no exact point at which someone is an extreme foreigner<\/em>. If they do not understand our language at all \u2013 well, that would be close… but they might still smile or understand us in some similar intuitive manner. Even a dog or a cat could recognize if someone is happy, sad, hurt or maybe something else. Maybe other life forms \u2013 other animals or even plants \u2013 can understand something<\/em>. Perhaps only a rock would be totally unperturbed if we tried to communicate something to it.<\/h3>\n

But let’s leave such extreme cases aside, and focus on cases where we might be able to assume we \u201espeak the same language\u201c. You might be aware that speaking the same language is not a simple and straightforward matter. Some people might only know a few words (and might be able to answer a question like \u201eDo you speak English?\u201c with \u201eYes\u201c or \u201eNo\u201c \u2013 indeed: answering \u201eno\u201c seems to be a little ironic, because the question was apparently correctly understood and appropriately answered).<\/h3>\n

Let’s consider the case in which someone might answer \u201eYes \u2013 a little<\/em>\u201c to be the most distant relationship possible. This is the least intimate<\/em> case \u2013 the \u201eworld-wide\u201c friend. We think of these acquaintances \u2013 or even faceless<\/em> people \u2013 essentially as stick-figures with a pocket-dictionary of maybe one or two hundred words. If we could, we would gesticulate to try to make ourselves clear. As it is, we reduce our sentences to short, simple expressions.<\/h3>\n

Between these two extremes, a vast plethora of social relationships exist for each of us. In order to manage the complexity, we also maintain a repertoire of languages \u2013 or sub<\/em>-languages, if you will: jargons (one jargon for each community, each type<\/em> of kind<\/em> of social relationship). Let me illustrate this with an example that should be familiar to most people familiar with popular sports. Let’s take soccer \u2013 or football, as it’s called in most of the English-speaking world outside of the United States. When football fans are watching a game on TV or listening to a match on the radio, and they hear the announcer scream \u201eGOAL!\u201c then they are normally quite certain about what that means. Note that it is a keepers objective to keep a ball out<\/em> of the goal \u2013 in other words: his (or her) goal<\/em><\/strong> is to keep the ball from crossing the line. Likewise: in other contexts<\/em>, people might use the word \u201egoal\u201c in a different sense than the very specific meaning given to the term in this context<\/em>.<\/h3>\n

This is by no means an exceptional case. We speak differently with our children than we speak with our neighbors. We speak differently with our colleagues at work than we speak with government officials. Through role-playing scripts we understand that the number the person at the checkout just said means the amount we have to pay for our groceries. Such limits on language in particular situations makes communication more efficient.<\/h3>\n

Whereas humans can easily recognize a vast variety of contexts, this is not so \u2013 or at least not yet<\/em> so \u2013 for the vast majority of \u201eartificial intelligence\u201c \u2013 machines, computers, smartphones, robots, etc. For these mounds of metal and silicon chips, sweitches are either on or off \u2013 independent of context<\/em>. Explaining context in a string of true-or-false bits is probably no easy matter, either. Machines require<\/em> all minutiae explicated in complete detail. Everything must be formally expressed<\/strong>.<\/h3>\n

Perhaps artificial intellegence is the antithesis \u2013 the diametrical opposite \u2013 of intimacy?<\/h3>\n

Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. In any case it’s not a human<\/em> thing. It can very useful to have such machines to tally up numbers \u2013 because they can be completely cool-headed<\/em> and disengaged<\/em>. My point here is not to argue for or against man or machine. My focus is 100% human \u2013 and the point is this: humans behave, engage and communicate differently in different contexts.<\/h3>\n

A one-size fits-all algorithm that is applied equally in all contexts will quite probably miss the mark completely in many contexts.<\/h3>\n

We should not try to mold humans into forms made for robots. If computers cannot understand humans, then that is a shortcoming of computers \u2013 not the other way around. We can still celebrate machines for their ability to perform some tasks, but we should not be so foolish to think that their abilities in some<\/em> contexts makes them a suitable technology for all<\/em> contexts.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can imagine many people might think the title of this post means it will be all about love, sex and such. Well, not exactly. It’s about relationships \u2013 but not merely limited to the exclusive kind of relationship two … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[313],"tags":[14,16,15,164,181,182,168,189,171,172,174,184,183,185,186,187,188,165,167,166,190,191,180,179,173,21,175,176,169,170,192,177,178],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w79D-v","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":248,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2021\/10\/04\/the-relationship-between-the-validity-of-natural-language-expressions-and-the-statistical-concepts-of-accuracy-and-precision\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":0},"title":"The relationship between the Validity of Natural Language Expressions and the Statistical Concepts of Accuracy and Precision","author":"nmw","date":"October 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"As you may be aware, I recently started reading a book that was quite the bestseller a few years ago (see e.g. my initial reaction to the quote: \"The problem is that the pervasiveness of technology and mass marketing is screwing up a lot of people\u2019s expectations for themselves: the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":54,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/12\/18\/the-rationality-of-literacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":1},"title":"The Rationality of Literacy","author":"nmw","date":"December 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the past couple months, I have worked on developing a mission statement for one of my overarching goals \u2013 something like a \u201elife goal\u201c. Initial attempts were quite abstract, and I was greatly helped by the very considerate feedback of friends. In the intervening weeks since those first trials,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":158,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2019\/07\/09\/re-on-bullshit\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":2},"title":"RE: On Bullshit","author":"nmw","date":"July 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A friend of mine recently mentioned he has back-ordered \u201cOn Bullshit\u201d (by Harry Frankfurt) and I thought \u201coh neat \u2013 maybe I can borrow it sometime for a day or two\u201d... but then I realized something. Bullshit is not rare or special or in any way particular. It is widespread.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/07\/21\/the-rationality-of-algorithms-facebook-algorithm-google-algorithms-or-no-algorithm-at-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":3},"title":"The Rationality of Algorithms: Facebook Algorithm, Google Algorithms or No Algorithm at All?","author":"nmw","date":"July 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"If you could choose any of the following three options, which one would you pick? Facebook Algorithm Google Algorithms No Algorithm whatsoever Granted: You probably have more choices than that \u2013 I'm just trying to keep it simple (stupid ;) ). Let's review the steps involved. First, you publish something.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/07\/23\/anti-dis-establishment-arian-ism-antidisintermediation\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":4},"title":"Anti-Dis-Establishment-Arian-Ism + AntiDisInterMediaTion","author":"nmw","date":"July 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In this post, I plan to give you a small insight into some of the marketing \/ branding ideas I developed for this blog. One of the BIG IDEA moments behind \u201eremediary\u201c is simply that antidisintermediation is nothing other than remediation (and as that is in a rather oblique way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":234,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2021\/02\/11\/in-what-we-trust\/","url_meta":{"origin":31,"position":5},"title":"In What We Trust","author":"nmw","date":"February 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"You may recall a post I made a few months ago .. in which I mentioned that \u201cI am not at all proud of the species I apparently belong to\u201d (\u201cI understand that this is very important to you\u201d). Another way of putting this idea is that I have little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}