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Comment by gkya | Hacker News Reader

Language is a tool that humans use to interact with each other, if you can't use it for this very purpose, then you're the problematic one. In written language the product can be revised and rephrased many times to arrive at a mostly unambiguous result, but with the spoken language, the product is produced and consumed contemporaneously and spontaneously. Ambiguity is in the nature of it: nobody has the mental capability to construct non-context-dependent, logically-completely-unambiguous sentences in the context of a casual conversation. You have to learn to differentiate among various linguistic contexts and registers.

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Why are you calling someone "problematic" for not being neurotypical? Do you really think that's helpful?

As far as I can tell, the person you're responding to hasn't said anything offensive nor criticized anyone, so I can't understand why you're responding with insults and criticism.

And further, it sounds like they understand the situation pretty well, and I doubt your "explanation" is going to help anyone negotiate social interactions more easily by "getting with the program" or whatever.

I think you're overreacting quite substantially here. They used the word "problematic" once, and you're calling that "responding with insults and criticism".

Also no one mentioned anything about anyone being non-neurotypical before you.

Well, I may have used that word mistakenly. I meant "source of the problem". If that's an insult, then there are no other in my comments, I do actively refrain from insulting both online and in person. As for criticism, yes, my comment is a criticism, and tries to be a constructive one. I spot the problem, I suggest a solution, I may well be mistaken, but there are no insults. And I comment on the situation, not ad hominem.

>Why are you calling someone "problematic" for not being neurotypical? Do you really think that's helpful?

I'm sorry but this is a huge overreaction. The op clearly stated he had a problem with talking to people because of their vagueness implying that the other person was "problematic". By stating the op is problematic instead of the "normal" person he is just stating that he is the source of the problem, not the normal person.

Anyway, there's a slight irony considering we are talking about people taking words to literally.

@moistgorilla: nothing I said came anywhere close to implying that I think other people are problematic. Read the words. Especially the ones where I specifically indicated that I come from many backgrounds that value specificity so highly.

I said that communication is a problem between me and people who have different backgrounds. Not one single thing about that statement implies that I think it's other people who are problematic. In fact, a two-sided situation can be problematic without either individual side actually being problematic. And in realistic terms, sometimes situations arise that are completely okay, even though both sides are equally problematic.

@aninhumer, it was an insulting use of the word, and I took it as both a misreading of my words and and intentions as well as a personal attack. So I don't think cname was overreacting.

@gkya, I think you are putting some very severe and artificial constraints on the purpose and definition of language. In my opinion language is quite a lot more than a tool for communication. It is, for some examples, a means of mis-communication (sarcasm), a way to communicate nothing (some types of modern abstract poetry), or even a way to talk about itself in ways that no one can possibly understand, i.e. anti-communication (literary criticism comes to minds here.)

But in all seriousness, language can be a lot of different things at different time, just the same way that sometimes paint is just a tool to protect your house from the weather but other times paint is used to creat a work of art.

Music works the same way. Sometimes music is just there as a tool the department store is using to psychologically induce you to buy more things and get out faster. Sometimes music is used to create some of the greatest and most meaningful works of art mankind has ever seen.

Any medium that can be used as "a tool for communication" can be used as something else entirely. And it doesn't necessarily involve communication.

In my opinion, your comment was the least likely interpretation of what I said about my ability to interact with other people. You might want to try reading what I wrote again because, as I mention in my post, I tend to be quite specific about what I say. In case I need to clarify that, when either speaking or writing, I do my best to make sure that no one needs to try to infer anything from what I say.

This is the last I will say on this thread. I didn't mean for it to be about me. I meant to affirm the thoughts and fears of the original article and to add my own thoughts and perspective because the article resonated with me.

That's all.

On your responses to @moistgorilla and @aninhumer: You refer o a problem between you and some others, and I say in my comment that you are the source of such problem. I did not have an intent of insult or personal attack, I'm sorry.

Follows a refutation of your response to me.

Firstly, you drew a profile, publically, of someone who is so pedantic that they couldn't interact with other people, and I commented on such profile, which incidentally happened to be yours. If you do not want comments on your character, why write about it on HN? And by answering you, I answered you and other people like you, thus commented on the situation itself, rather than your personal phenomenon. I don't know you, I wouldn't bother to attack your personality. You opened it to discussion, and I stated my ideas about it.

Now, on language, the purpose of the language is to communicate some meaning. Sarcasm is used to communicate some meaning to, but the meaning happens to be the opposite of the literal meaning of the words. Even abstract poetry does communicate something. Whether the message is coherent and comprehensible is another discussion. But language _cannot_ be used in a non-communicating manner.

You stated that you avoid social interaction because of others' ambiguous use of language. And I answered you mistake contexts and registers of language. I may have used the word problematic mistakenly--and I'm sorry if I did. English is my L2. But I do support my stance on the situation that you share with many others. I had severe social interaction problems, including those like yours, and one needs to admit them and understand that he is the source of the problem to be able to fix oneself. You may want to continue to be asocial, in which case it's your decision, I have no say, I'm not your psychiatrist. I comment on the situation that you described, that's all.

Okay, I can't not respond to this because this makes you seem a bit more sincere than your previous posts.

I appreciate that English is your L2, and I will try to keep that in mind.

But you are still blindly asserting that Language has one and only one purpose, and that it cannot be used for any other. I disagree with that, and I think that you will find that many other artists and philosophers of language disagree.

But let's back off from such a highly charged subject for a moment. Let's consider the case of the lowly hammer.

A hammer has one purpose, right? To drive nails by hitting them. That's all it is supposed to do. Unless it has a claw, in which case, it has a purpose for removing a nail. Or perhaps you can generalize that a hammer has only one purpose: to communicate force to a nail, in some way or another. Possibly in a positive way (to drive the nail into something), possibly in a negative way (to remove a nail from something).

What do you call a hammer that's used in a hammer throwing contest? Something that has nothing to do with nails? It's just people completely outside the context of the normal use of a hammer throwing it as far as they can. Is the hammer being used to communicate force to a nail? No.

What about a hammer being used to destroy the video screen of an authoritarian figure? Again, not the normal communication of force to nail that you would expect.

What you are basically saying is that you can't use a hammer to do anything but hit or pry a nail. And that's simply not true.

Language plays a huge role in communication, but it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient tool for communication to happen. And it is absolutely possible to use language in ways that are non-communicative.

Let's say I speak only German, and I visit Inuits in the tundra. When I meet them, I quote Rilke on Snow. I am speaking to people who have no knowledge of this language and no hope of understanding it, and I don't care. I am saying the words because the words themselves are beautiful in and of themselves.

There is no communication there. Information has not been transmitted. These are just noises to the Inuit that have no meaning, yet language still preserves a function. We're sort of getting into a tree falling/no one around/sound of one hand clapping/sort of situation, but my point stands, and your baseless assertions do not.

You are claiming, with a lot of arrogance and no evidence, that language can only do one thing: communicate. I don't agree. I think that language can be used for lots of different things, much like a hammer can. If you disagree with this, that's fine, we will have to agree to disagree.

I do not think I drew a profile of someone who is "so pedantic that I can't interact with other people."

I think there's a difference between me and a pedant, and the difference is what you get out of it. In my opinion, a pedant gets off on showing other people that they are wrong.

In my case, I am just trying to understand what the person said. Much like the author of the original article, I constantly wonder, "What does this question really mean? What does this statement really mean?"

Because my ultimate goal in any social situation is to understand the people I'm interacting with. A pedant is someone who doesn't care what the other person thinks and just wants to go around showing off how smart he or she is.

But a pedant and a thoughtful person can often appear very much alike. Which is a shame.

As far as your last paragraph goes, there's nothing in my original post or in this one that implies anything other than that I am the one with the problem. So your point about me admitting that I have a problem is either moot or, dare I say it, pedantic.

Regardless of how much I disagree with you, I appreciate your willingness to clarify and am giving you an upvote.

Sure, spoken language is fairly raw unprocessed output, but what I have a problem with, speaking with the general population, is that when they're asked to confirm/rephrase/clarify their imprecise output, they don't think of it as such. That I find unbearable. I say a lot of illogical/emotional things too, but I'm the first to notice it and correct it.

People have similar, but different mental capabilities, and different attitude. I have a superficial knowledge of linguistics and philosophy of language, and am also interested in philosophy, history and literature, so I'll be more able at forming rather more coherent, more logical and lenghtier sentences, but not everybody is like me, and they won't be able to phrase complex and/or ambiguous concepts as clearly as I do. What I do is that I adjust myself to my interlocutor(s), I try to be comprehensible and relevant to him, from whatever background he shall be. Because however much I know a language, and however much I be good at speaking it, if I cannot use it for its very fundamental purpose of communication, then all my knowledge and all my quality is useless: better knowledge of a language should expand the amount of people I can communicate to, not decrease.

> better knowledge of a language should expand the amount of people I can communicate to, not decrease

I actually think the opposite: the more knowledgeable you are in any area, the higher your standards and your interest in details, things that people with lower level of knowledge are not appreciative of and hence not interested in.

As for case of language, I wasn't referring to everyday casual chit chat at lunch or at a party but half serious discussion with people about a mutual area of interest.

Discussions with people with lower level of knowledge is an educating thing: you have to communicate your knowledge in a simpler, more open way. It gives you the ability to better understand what you know, for one can know things without understanding them.

I think feel I the same way sometimes. I tend to "think out loud" and say something when I've given it <5 seconds thought. I think some people feel I'm fully behind my idea, just because I've voiced it, using less-than thoughtfull wording. It seems to throw them off when I immediately switch sides, saying why my idea is good, and also bad.

The problem isn't necessarily that they haven't learned any disambiguating language cues.

The problem is more that they've learned a different set of language cues to most people, because of the social group they frequent.

What's awful is being interviewed and taped, and then reading a transcript of the tape. You think you're saying witty and clever things, but the reality of the transcript can be shocking.

Edit: There's a reason why top politicians never say unscripted comments.

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