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But the hubbub is not like that. It can’t be reduced to prime factors. There is not a common signal. SETI is a bad [[metaphor]]: it tries to detect a single bilateral signal from a spectrum of other kinds of radiation that are not a signal, but are broadcast on the same frequency. With the human hubbub ''all there is is signal''. It is just that all the signals conflict, or miss each other, or bear no relation to each other at all. There are a spectrum of unconnected communications and ''no'' real “signal”. We are not trying to isolate a single conversation out of all the other ones — that is the direct analogy — but trying to extract a an aggregated message that is not actually there, and to treat is as an [[Emergence|emergent]] property of all those conversations. This is a different thing entirely. | But the hubbub is not like that. It can’t be reduced to prime factors. There is not a common signal. SETI is a bad [[metaphor]]: it tries to detect a single bilateral signal from a spectrum of other kinds of radiation that are not a signal, but are broadcast on the same frequency. With the human hubbub ''all there is is signal''. It is just that all the signals conflict, or miss each other, or bear no relation to each other at all. There are a spectrum of unconnected communications and ''no'' real “signal”. We are not trying to isolate a single conversation out of all the other ones — that is the direct analogy — but trying to extract a an aggregated message that is not actually there, and to treat is as an [[Emergence|emergent]] property of all those conversations. This is a different thing entirely. | ||
''There is no 2 from millions of | ''There is no 2 from millions of unrelated conversations''. The result is brown, warm and even: maximum ''entropy''. | ||
To make something out of nothing is to ''deliberately'' bias. It is to carve David out of a marble block. Bias ''creates'' meaning. There may be ''local'' meanings — maybe — based on local interactions and echo chambers but these are informal, incomplete, and impossible to delimit. | To make something out of nothing is to ''deliberately'' bias. It is to carve David out of a marble block. Bias ''creates'' meaning. There may be ''local'' meanings — maybe — based on local interactions and echo chambers but these are informal, incomplete, and impossible to delimit. | ||
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We say “we have unconscious biases and they inform our reactions”. Well, no ''shit''. | We say “we have unconscious biases and they inform our reactions”. Well, no ''shit''. | ||
===“[[Onworld]]” v “[[offworld]]” in business communications === | |||
[[File:Onworld and Offworld Comms.png|450px|thumb|right|A quadrant, yesterday]] | |||
The same dynamic exists in a [[negotiation]]. The JC snookered himself into using a [[quadrant|four box quadrant]] to illustrate this, because there are two perpendicular axes at play here: ''How many'' people are you speaking to, and ''in what medium''. | |||
In terms of our Onworld/Offwolrd distinction let me make some value judgments here: whether we like it or not, we inhabit a complex, non-linear world. In such a world, personal, immediate, and substantive communications beat impersonal, delayed, and formalistic ones. These best suit constructive, pragmatic, expert participants. | |||
Now your “medium of communication” can take a more or less ''personal'', and ''immediate'' form. The ''least'' personal and immediate communications are ''written'' ones (here the message is, literally, removed from the sender’s personality, and even where transmitted immediately, does not have to be answered in real time). The ''most'' personal and immediate ones are in actual, analogue person — and failing that a video call where you can see and hear nuance, then an audio call. But any of these is vastly superior to written communication. | |||
How ''many'' people are in your audience is just as important. The more there are, the more formal you must be, the more generalised, the less opportunity for there is for nuance, humour, the lubricating milk of human frailty, the less common interest, and plainly the cultural, social barriers to unguarded communication rise the more people there are will there be, | |||
and ''one-to-many'' is worse than ''one-to-one'' communications. | |||
''Most'' analogue/immediate is in-person, followed by a video call, then an audio call, then in writing (and there may be a spectrum of formality in that writing too: Instant messages at one end; couriered paper at the other). | |||
With how many people you are communicating is obvious: one is best; after that it gets worse | |||
So we tend to “extrapolate” central figures from random noise: economic growth. The intention behind expressed electoral preference. Average wages. The wage gap. Why the stock market went up. ''That'' the stock market went up: these are spectral figures. They are ghosts, gods, monsters and devils. They are no more real than religions, just because they are the product of “science” and “techne”. | So we tend to “extrapolate” central figures from random noise: economic growth. The intention behind expressed electoral preference. Average wages. The wage gap. Why the stock market went up. ''That'' the stock market went up: these are spectral figures. They are ghosts, gods, monsters and devils. They are no more real than religions, just because they are the product of “science” and “techne”. | ||
We have, on occasion, some convenient proxies, but they are just proxies: for example, in an election, a manifesto. Without a manifesto, a binary vote for a single candidate in a local electorate (I am assuming FPP, but in honesty it isn’t wildly different for proportional represerntation) tells us nothing whatever about the individual motivation to vote as she did. A manifesto helps, by a process of [[Deemery|deem]] | We have, on occasion, some convenient proxies, but they are just proxies: for example, in an election, a manifesto. Without a manifesto, a binary vote for a single candidate in a local electorate (I am assuming FPP, but in honesty it isn’t wildly different for proportional represerntation) tells us nothing whatever about the individual motivation to vote as she did. A manifesto helps, by a process of [[Deemery|deem]]ery. | ||
Did every Conservative voter read the party’s manifesto? Almost certainly, no. Did every Conservative voter who did read it subscribe to every line? Again, almost certainly no. Did ''anyone'' subscribe to every line in it? Perhaps, but by no means certainly. So, can we legitimately infer uniform support for the Conservatives’ manifesto from all who voted Conservative? ''No''. We only do by dint of the political convention that those who vote for a party are deemed to support a manifesto (if one is published). But even that convention is a spectre. And where your vote is an issue-based referendum, there is not even a manifesto. Who knows why 33 million people voted for Brexit? Who could possibly presume to aggregate all those individual value judgments into a single guiding principle? There were 33 million reasons for voting leave. They tell us nothing except... ''leave''. | Did every Conservative voter read the party’s manifesto? Almost certainly, no. Did every Conservative voter who did read it subscribe to every line? Again, almost certainly no. Did ''anyone'' subscribe to every line in it? Perhaps, but by no means certainly. So, can we legitimately infer uniform support for the Conservatives’ manifesto from all who voted Conservative? ''No''. We only do by dint of the political convention that those who vote for a party are deemed to support a manifesto (if one is published). But even that convention is a spectre. And where your vote is an issue-based referendum, there is not even a manifesto. Who knows why 33 million people voted for Brexit? Who could possibly presume to aggregate all those individual value judgments into a single guiding principle? There were 33 million reasons for voting leave. They tell us nothing except... ''leave''. | ||