Levels of communication

This post is a decent first approximation. But it is important to remember that even successful communication is almost always occurring on more than just one of these levels at once.

Personally I find it useful to think of communication as having spontaneous layers of information which may include things like asserting social context, acquiring knowledge, reinforcing beliefs, practicing skills, indicating and detecting levels of sexual interest, and even play. And by spontaneous layers, I mean that we each contribute to the scope of a conversation, and then those contributions become discerned as patterns (whether intended or not).

Then iterate this process a few times, with my attempting to perceive and affect your patterns and you attempting to perceive and affect mine. Add some habitual or built-in (it's extremely hard to tell the difference) models in the mind to start from and it seems simple (to me) how something as complex and variable as human communication can arise.

I think there's a higher level than the level of facts: the meta-conversation. You know, the stuff we do here. I can now basically win almost all philosophical or political debates (at least with people in their early 20's, I could use a bigger sample set of people to debate) by taking the conversation meta. I get us to settle on definitions, find out what we disagree on, analyze the thought patterns that lead us to that disagreement, dissolve the question as necessary, and usually find out that we don't disagree as much as we thought we did. For example, I find that most political debates can be reunderstood in terms of pragmatism vs. idealism. If you do it right, it doesn't even feel like an argument -- you shouldn't be triggering an emotional reaction from the other side.

I haven't won that style of conversation yet with a real live anti-reductionist though. My one encounter with an anti-reductionist in the last several months ended with him contradicting himself and then changing the subject.

I suspect that many people with rationalist tendencies tend to operate primarily on the fact level and assume others to be doing so as well, which might lead to plenty of frustration.

Also, it took me a while to realize that there have been occasions on which I was consciously trying to act on the level of facts, but my subconscious was operating on the level of status and got very defensive whenever my facts were challenged.

Usually what rationalists would want to do is to move the conversation to the level of facts.

Oh boy am I guilty of this. I've been trying to mend my ways after some frustration-inducing incidents, and this taxonomy brings some welcome clarity to my thoughts on the matter. Thanks.

I suspect that many people with rationalist tendencies tend to operate primarily on the fact level and assume others to be doing so as well, which might lead to plenty of frustration.

Even when rationalists realize they aren't talking about facts they often try to apply their rules and methods for dealing with facts to these other levels (for about the 12th time in the past week I reiterate my objection to calling any value system more rational than another).

In status level, there is a classic trap rationalists (in status level communication is the right term "nerd"?) fall into. In response to a status challenge they respond by explicitly defending themselves with evidence ("I'm not gay, I have a girlfriend." "I have too kissed a boy." ) or denial ("I have lots of friends! Ask anyone!"). Maybe people in such cases really do think they are talking about facts, but I suspect it's more that they're not used to the strategies at such levels and so revert to the successful strategies they already know. If it isn't obvious these replies almost always result in losing the status challenge.

Edit: Also, we should probably avoid using "rationalist" when we really mean something like "on the autism spectrum".

Conversation differs from argument in more ways than just being about "socialization" rather than being about facts.

For instance, you can think of conversation as a process of sending out "probes" that are echoed in modified form by your interlocutors; the distortions reveal something about the mind that did the echoing.

Okay, so can you operationalize the distinction between the levels? Or offer an idea as to why the other levels would masquerade as fact-level exchanges? Plausible deniability?

And is 'rationalist' a good term for the behavioral pattern you're writing about, seeing how it tends to get associated with the contrasting notion of empiricism (at least in my mind)?

I think this post underestimates the possibility for mis-communication on the "fact" level.

First, facts are hard to figure out. This is a fact (heh) worth repeating again and again in a community like this one. When one claims to search for objective truth, one must be held to a very high standard.

Second, two people operating at the 'fact' level might misunderstand each other if they are making observations on different conceptual levels. Russel never accepted Godel's incompleteness work because he was unwilling to engage with Godel's meta-level interpretation of certain Principia Mathematica expressions. Both were looking at the same expression, but each saw different true facts about it.

Third, many discussions here and in the real world are about facts about values.

When everyone is operating on the level of facts, they are detachedly trying to discover the truth about a certain subject.

I'm not saying that we can't rationally discuss values, but the idea that we can do so detachedly is less obvious. We should have values, and we should be attached to them (I value values!). If you disagree with me about that, are we disagreeing about facts or about values?

The level of socialization is centrally about more than just enjoying the other's company. Usually it's about forming and strengthening a friendship i.e. alliance. Normal people don't care much about the interests of random people, but they do care about their friends i.e. allies. The level of socialization is about acquiring and keeping allies.

(There are, however, probably large differences between different cultures how strongly smalltalk is about what I described above. In some cultures one smalltalks with random people all the time, without expecting to meet them again, whereas in others it's mostly done with just friends and potential friends.)

Usually what rationalists would want to do is to move the conversation to the level of facts. Unfortunately, if a person is operating on the level of values, they might perceive this as an underhanded attempt to undermine their values.

Why not switch to talk on the level of values, if that's what they want to talk about? After all, there are facts about their values which might be very interesting once you've taken time to examine them, their sources, etc.

I can see now that's what I should have done yesterday when I tried arguing politics with someone from work. Politics is the mind killer because it rarely operates on the level of facts.

blinks

So thats why I always end up in arguments over trivial things with my girlfriend.

So, uh, if you didn't know already, don't worry about 100% accurately identifying what happened that made your girlfriend angry. Even if you did absolutely nothing wrong. She doesn't care about the facts, she's operating on another level...

Interesting to say that having an unusual medical problem raises someone's status. It sounds intuitively right, but I don't think any theory of status discussed here so far quite covers it.

For rationalists to succeed in spreading our ideas, we need to learn to recognize which level of conversation the discussion is operating on.

For rationalists to improve their skill at persuading others of their complex opinions, perhaps we should study the experts: politicians. I would find it surprising if the average politician was not disturbingly good at switching between the levels of communication outlined in this post.

Obligatory xkcd link.

Nice post. I don't think people ever really step out of the status level. Maybe when thinking alone or among trusted friends...

The level of facts only works right when the topic is status neutral. This is my guess from numerous anecdotal evidence.

I guess I question the accuracy of breaking up communication into separate levels, and/or these levels in particular. This isn't a taxonomy we're talking about (or is it??) Also, I don't like the example of "status conversation" given here. What if I disagree with your analysis? Well, you can't say much, because it's not an objective subject, which is exactly why you divorce that category from the category of facts. But if you're divorcing it from facts, don't inject it full of meaning that may not be correct. Instead, let's say it's non-factual oriented, and then figure out an assessment that's guided by that definition.