You seem to have an oddly narrow view of human communication. Have you considered the following facts?
In many sorts of cooperative efforts, live conversation (possibly aided by manual writing and drawing) enables rapid exchange of ideas that will converge onto the correct conclusion more quickly than written communication. Think e.g. solving a math problem together with someone.
In many cases, human conversations have the goal of resolving some sort of conflict, in the broad Schellingian sense of the term. Face-to-face communication, with all the clues it provides to people’s inner thoughts and intentions, can greatly facilitate the process of finding and agreeing upon a solution acceptable to all parties.
A good bullshit detector heuristic is usually more than enough to identify claims that can’t be taken at face value, and even when red flags are raised, often it’s enough to ask your interlocutor to provide support for them and see if the answer is satisfactory. You’ll rarely be in a situation where your interlocutors are so hostile and deceptive that they would be lying to your face about the evidence they claim to have seen. (Even in internet discussions, it’s not often that I have to consult references to verify other people’s claims. Most of my googling consists of searching for references to support my own claims that I expect others could find suspicious or unclear, so I could link to the supporting material preemptively.)
Various signaling elements of live communication are highly entertaining, especially when coupled with eating, drinking, and other fun activities that go pleasantly with a conversation. This aspect is impossible to reproduce in writing. Of course, this can be distracting when topics are discussed that require a great level of concentration and logical rigor, though even then the fun elements can make it easier to pull off the hard mental effort. But when it comes to less mentally demanding topics, it’s clearly a great plus.
Finally, when the conversation isn’t about solving some predetermined problem, the environment around you can provide interesting topics for discussion, which is clearly impossible if you’re just sitting and staring at the monitor.
Yes, I agree there are some situations where live conversation is helpful, such as the first two bullet points in your list. I was mainly talking about conversations like the ones described in Kaj’s post, where the participants are just “making conversation” and do not have any specific goals in mind.
A good bullshit detector heuristic is usually more than enough to identify claims that can’t be taken at face value
I typically find myself wanting to verify every single fact or idea that I hadn’t heard of before, and say either “hold on, I need to think about that for a few minutes” or “let me check that on Google/Wikipedia”. In actual conversation I’d suppress this because I suspect the other person will quickly find it extremely annoying. I just think to myself “I’ll try to remember what he’s saying and check it out later”, but of course I don’t have such a good memory.
You’ll rarely be in a situation where your interlocutors are so hostile and deceptive that they would be lying to your face about the evidence they claim to have seen.
It’s not that I think people are deceptive but I don’t trust their memory and/or judgment. Asking for evidence isn’t that helpful because (1) they may have misremembered or misheard from someone else and (2) there may be a lot more evidence in the other direction that they’re not aware of and never thought of looking up.
Various signaling elements of live communication are highly entertaining
I think we covered that in an earlier discussion. :)
the environment around you can provide interesting topics for discussion
But why do people find random elements in the environment interesting?
I typically find myself wanting to verify every single fact or idea that I hadn’t heard of before, and say either “hold on, I need to think about that for a few minutes” or “let me check that on Google/Wikipedia”.
But this seems to me, at the very least, irrationally inefficient. You have a finite amount of time, and it can surely be put to use much more efficiently than verifying every single new fact and idea. (Also, why stop there? Even after you’ve checked the first few references that come up on Google, there is always some non-zero chance that more time invested in research could unearth relevant contrary evidence. So clearly there’s a time-saving trade-off involved.)
It’s not that I think people are deceptive but I don’t trust their memory and/or judgment. Asking for evidence isn’t that helpful because (1) they may have misremembered or misheard from someone else and (2) there may be a lot more evidence in the other direction that they’re not aware of and never thought of looking up.
Sometimes, yes. But often it’s not the case. There are good heuristics to determine if someone really knows what he’s talking about. If they give a positive result, what you’ve been told in a live conversation is only marginally less reliable than what a reasonable time spent googling will tell you. This is an immensely useful and efficient way of saving time.
Also, many claims are very hard to verify by googling. For example, if someone gives you general claims about the state of the art in some area, based on generalizations from his own broad knowledge and experience, you must judge the reliability of these claims heuristically, unless you’re willing to take a lot of time and effort to educate yourself about the field in question so you can make similar conclusions yourself. Google cannot (yet?) be asked to give such judgments from the indexed evidence.
I think we covered that [signaling elements of live communication] in an earlier discussion. :)
Yes, but you’ve asked about the motivations of typical people. For everyone except a very small number of outliers, this is a highly relevant factor.
But why do people find random elements in the environment interesting?
Are you asking for an answer in everyday human terms, or an evolutionary explanation?
In this particular context, it should be noted that human conversations whose purpose is fun, rather than achieving a predetermined goal, typically have a natural and seemingly disorganized flow, jumping from one topic to another in a loose sequence. Comments on various observations from the environment can guide this flow in interesting fun-enhancing ways, which is not possible when people are just exchanging written messages at a distance.
I typically find myself wanting to verify every single fact or idea that I hadn’t heard of before, and say either “hold on, I need to think about that for a few minutes” or “let me check that on Google/Wikipedia”.
But this seems to me, at the very least, irrationally inefficient. You have a finite amount of time, and it can surely be put to use much more efficiently than verifying every single new fact and idea.
My solution is to try to not have any opinion on most subjects, other than background ignorance, despite having heard various specific claims. (And I sometimes argue with people that they, too, should have no opinion, given the evidence they are aware of!)
But this seems to me, at the very least, irrationally inefficient. You have a finite amount of time, and it can surely be put to use much more efficiently than verifying every single new fact and idea.
You’re right, that would be highly inefficient. Now that you mention this, I realize part of what is attractive about reading blogs is that popular posts will tend to have lots of comments, and many of those will point out possible errors in the post, so I can get a higher certainty of correctness with much less work on my part.
Are you asking for an answer in everyday human terms, or an evolutionary explanation?
I guess what I’m really interested in is whether I’m missing out on something really great by not participating in more live conversations (that aren’t about solving specific problems).
I was mainly talking about conversations like the ones described in Kaj’s post, where the participants are just “making conversation” and do not have any specific goals in mind.
Always have a goal. “Just making conversation” doesn’t count. That’s a high-level description of the activity that leaves out the goal, not a description of something that actually has no goal. Your goal might be “learn from this person”, “let this person learn from me”, “get to know this person”, “get an introduction to this person’s friends”, “get into bed with this person”, or many other things, or even at the meta-level, “find out if this is an interesting person to know”. Unless your efforts are about something, the whole activity will seem pointless, because it is.
I typically find myself wanting to verify every single fact or idea that I hadn’t heard of before, and say either “hold on, I need to think about that for a few minutes” or “let me check that on Google/Wikipedia”.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who had the same urge?
In actual conversation I’d suppress this because I suspect the other person will quickly find it extremely annoying.
One of the nicest things anyone’s done in conversation with me is say “hold on, I need a few minutes to think about that,” actually go off and think for several minutes, and then come back to the conversation with an integrated perspective. I felt deeply respected as a mind.
People who don’t appreciate this sort of thing aren’t trying to make themselves understood about something surprising, so I expect that by your values you should care less about making them happy to talk with you, except as a way of getting something else from them.
I seriously wouldn’t mind the verification effort if done by a fast googler, and quietly thinking for a few minutes regularly is Awesome for conversation.
You seem to have an oddly narrow view of human communication. Have you considered the following facts?
In many sorts of cooperative efforts, live conversation (possibly aided by manual writing and drawing) enables rapid exchange of ideas that will converge onto the correct conclusion more quickly than written communication. Think e.g. solving a math problem together with someone.
In many cases, human conversations have the goal of resolving some sort of conflict, in the broad Schellingian sense of the term. Face-to-face communication, with all the clues it provides to people’s inner thoughts and intentions, can greatly facilitate the process of finding and agreeing upon a solution acceptable to all parties.
A good bullshit detector heuristic is usually more than enough to identify claims that can’t be taken at face value, and even when red flags are raised, often it’s enough to ask your interlocutor to provide support for them and see if the answer is satisfactory. You’ll rarely be in a situation where your interlocutors are so hostile and deceptive that they would be lying to your face about the evidence they claim to have seen. (Even in internet discussions, it’s not often that I have to consult references to verify other people’s claims. Most of my googling consists of searching for references to support my own claims that I expect others could find suspicious or unclear, so I could link to the supporting material preemptively.)
Various signaling elements of live communication are highly entertaining, especially when coupled with eating, drinking, and other fun activities that go pleasantly with a conversation. This aspect is impossible to reproduce in writing. Of course, this can be distracting when topics are discussed that require a great level of concentration and logical rigor, though even then the fun elements can make it easier to pull off the hard mental effort. But when it comes to less mentally demanding topics, it’s clearly a great plus.
Finally, when the conversation isn’t about solving some predetermined problem, the environment around you can provide interesting topics for discussion, which is clearly impossible if you’re just sitting and staring at the monitor.
Yes, I agree there are some situations where live conversation is helpful, such as the first two bullet points in your list. I was mainly talking about conversations like the ones described in Kaj’s post, where the participants are just “making conversation” and do not have any specific goals in mind.
I typically find myself wanting to verify every single fact or idea that I hadn’t heard of before, and say either “hold on, I need to think about that for a few minutes” or “let me check that on Google/Wikipedia”. In actual conversation I’d suppress this because I suspect the other person will quickly find it extremely annoying. I just think to myself “I’ll try to remember what he’s saying and check it out later”, but of course I don’t have such a good memory.
It’s not that I think people are deceptive but I don’t trust their memory and/or judgment. Asking for evidence isn’t that helpful because (1) they may have misremembered or misheard from someone else and (2) there may be a lot more evidence in the other direction that they’re not aware of and never thought of looking up.
I think we covered that in an earlier discussion. :)
But why do people find random elements in the environment interesting?
Wei_Dai:
But this seems to me, at the very least, irrationally inefficient. You have a finite amount of time, and it can surely be put to use much more efficiently than verifying every single new fact and idea. (Also, why stop there? Even after you’ve checked the first few references that come up on Google, there is always some non-zero chance that more time invested in research could unearth relevant contrary evidence. So clearly there’s a time-saving trade-off involved.)
Sometimes, yes. But often it’s not the case. There are good heuristics to determine if someone really knows what he’s talking about. If they give a positive result, what you’ve been told in a live conversation is only marginally less reliable than what a reasonable time spent googling will tell you. This is an immensely useful and efficient way of saving time.
Also, many claims are very hard to verify by googling. For example, if someone gives you general claims about the state of the art in some area, based on generalizations from his own broad knowledge and experience, you must judge the reliability of these claims heuristically, unless you’re willing to take a lot of time and effort to educate yourself about the field in question so you can make similar conclusions yourself. Google cannot (yet?) be asked to give such judgments from the indexed evidence.
Yes, but you’ve asked about the motivations of typical people. For everyone except a very small number of outliers, this is a highly relevant factor.
Are you asking for an answer in everyday human terms, or an evolutionary explanation?
In this particular context, it should be noted that human conversations whose purpose is fun, rather than achieving a predetermined goal, typically have a natural and seemingly disorganized flow, jumping from one topic to another in a loose sequence. Comments on various observations from the environment can guide this flow in interesting fun-enhancing ways, which is not possible when people are just exchanging written messages at a distance.
My solution is to try to not have any opinion on most subjects, other than background ignorance, despite having heard various specific claims. (And I sometimes argue with people that they, too, should have no opinion, given the evidence they are aware of!)
You’re right, that would be highly inefficient. Now that you mention this, I realize part of what is attractive about reading blogs is that popular posts will tend to have lots of comments, and many of those will point out possible errors in the post, so I can get a higher certainty of correctness with much less work on my part.
I guess what I’m really interested in is whether I’m missing out on something really great by not participating in more live conversations (that aren’t about solving specific problems).
Always have a goal. “Just making conversation” doesn’t count. That’s a high-level description of the activity that leaves out the goal, not a description of something that actually has no goal. Your goal might be “learn from this person”, “let this person learn from me”, “get to know this person”, “get an introduction to this person’s friends”, “get into bed with this person”, or many other things, or even at the meta-level, “find out if this is an interesting person to know”. Unless your efforts are about something, the whole activity will seem pointless, because it is.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who had the same urge?
One of the nicest things anyone’s done in conversation with me is say “hold on, I need a few minutes to think about that,” actually go off and think for several minutes, and then come back to the conversation with an integrated perspective. I felt deeply respected as a mind.
People who don’t appreciate this sort of thing aren’t trying to make themselves understood about something surprising, so I expect that by your values you should care less about making them happy to talk with you, except as a way of getting something else from them.
I seriously wouldn’t mind the verification effort if done by a fast googler, and quietly thinking for a few minutes regularly is Awesome for conversation.