 Communication is a lot messier than most people think. It's tempting to think that language works like this, that there are a bunch of words out there. Those words have objective definitions. And all communication is, is assembling the correct words in place with the objective definitions and everybody knows exactly what you mean. Unfortunately, language doesn't work this way because there's a massive amount of imprecision and vagueness and confusion when talking about the definitions of words. People mean different things when they use the same word. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there is no objective truth. We cannot communicate effectively. What I'm saying is there may be clarity in terms of how one conceives of the world. But how one conceives of the world is going to be different than how somebody else conceives of the world. And we have this very sloppy medium of communication called language. So effective communication is not about perfect precision. It's not about, it's not a science, it's more of an art. It's about trying to paint a picture in the mind of somebody else that somewhat mimics the picture in your own mind. This is pretty easy to see when we're talking about very abstract ideas like justice. What is the definition of justice? Well, there's people who have been philosophers who have been talking about that for thousands of years. It's not been resolved. And that's because people mean different things by the term justice. There's not an objectively correct definition of justice or an objectively incorrect one. You can use the word justice in whatever way that you like insofar as you satisfactorily and effectively communicate what you mean. An excellent example of my own work is logic. Logic is something I focus a great deal on. I wrote my first book on philosophy on the topic of logic. And I mean something very precise. People mean different things by logic. That's fine. They're not necessarily right or wrong. But what I mean by that word is the rules of existence. And what do I mean by the rules of existence? Well, you have to pick up a copy of my book to find out. This comes up all the time when talking with people about philosophy or really any given topic when they get stuck in their own definitions for words. If I use words differently than you, which definitely is the case, then the other person can't recognize okay, like this is how he's using that word. It's not how I use that word. But that's fine as long as we clearly communicate what we mean by the words we use, we can still have effective communication. If you're stuck in this idea that there are objectively incorrect and correct ways to use words, I'm not going to make a lot of progress. I'll give you an example. Take the word hamablot. Does that mean anything? Well, it would be very silly for somebody to say hamablot isn't a word. Now it may not be a commonly accepted word, but I can just make up a word. I can use syllables in the way that I use any other set of syllables. Let's say that hamablot means a blue house on a beach. I can use hamablot in a sentence. Someday I would like to purchase a hamablot. It would be very silly to say, oh, well, that's not the objective definitions. Like, you can't use that? Well, of course I can. I can use hamablot like I can any other. This is the way that words work. You have the syllables. I have a concept that I mean by the syllables. I try to clearly communicate that concept by virtue of the syllables that I choose. And if I've effectively communicated, you understand what I mean by hamablot. Now, unfortunately, people get tripped up on both sides of this argument because then some people conclude, oh my gosh, truth is indiscoverable. There's no way to effectively communicate because people mean different things by the same word. Well, that's not the case either. Word choosing is all about effective communication. And I can effectively paint a picture in your mind based on the words that I choose. So the concepts or the pictures that are sparked in your mind resemble those that are in my mind. There's another example. Let's say that you and I are in Grand Central Station, which is a train station in New York City. Got a bajillion people running through there every day. And I turn to you and I say, look out for the man. Now, in that particular context, it sounds like I'm trying to effectively communicate something for you. Look out for the man. But I've not been very precise. There's, at any given time, a thousand men walking around. Maybe somebody's got a gun or a knife. But I haven't effectively communicated because of my word choice. It's not because of objective definitions or whatever. It's just I'm painting a picture and I've done a bad job and you're going to get stuck. Now imagine I say, look out for the six foot form and wearing the trench coat with a big purple hair on the gun pointing at you. And then you look around and you go, oh, yes, that does look like a rather intimidating figure. Thanks for the effective communication. And of course you karate chop him and then the threat is resolved. That would be a circumstance of effective communication. I had a concept that I wanted to communicate to you. And if I said, look out for the man, I've not effectively communicated the concept. If I say, look out for the man and here's some particular descriptions of the man you should like out for, well then I have effectively communicated. This is one example of what happens with every single case of linguistic communication. Whether it's reading a book on philosophy, that's what the authors are trying to do. They're trying to paint a picture in your mind to effectively communicate those parts of their conception that they think are important. And the last point on this topic, extremely, extremely important. Like I said, people take this idea and they run with it and they go, oh, nihilism. We can't know anything about anything. No. In one respect there are objective definitions or objective meanings in the following way. Whatever the speaker or the communicator intends to communicate is the meaning of the word. It's a hamablet that in a sense has an objective meaning insofar as what I mean to communicate is a green house or a blue house on the beach. So if I were to say to you, I am going to go to the store today to pick up a hamburger and you were to say, oh, language is imprecise. What I think you mean is you're going to be jumping on a pogo stick at three o'clock in the afternoon. Well, that's on your end. That's not a measure of ineffective communication on my end. That's because you don't understand. You don't speak the English language, but that is objectively imprecise communication. So when reading texts or when listening to somebody speak, don't think about, is this the objective definition for this word? Is he using this word the exact way that I use the word? What you should do is say, OK, what does he intend? What is he intending to say with that word choice? When you do that and you try to look at the picture that the person is painting rather than focus on the paint that they're painting with, you will find this whole world of imprecise communication, which is absolutely essential if you want to try to learn from people and communicate your ideas to somebody else and have them effectively communicate to you. Intellectuals who are genuinely pursuing the truth have two responsibilities. One, we need to recognize that other people don't use words and don't have concepts the way that we have them. And therefore, we need to try to understand what they intend, not what they say. And two, we have to recognize that when we're communicating with other people, the crystal clarity with which you write something and think it's absolutely clear nobody can misunderstand you, well, other people use words in different ways. And you have to be able to rephrase things in different ways to be able to paint that picture in somebody else's mind. If you write something that you think is very clear and somebody misinterprets it, well, that's just a function of the imprecision of communication. It's not something necessarily to get upset about. Maybe it's because they have poor reading skills or maybe it's because you have poor writing skills or what's more likely is either the communicator or the communiquee gets frustrated because they think, oh, this other person isn't using words the correct way. Words have this meaning and they have those things. It's just imprecise and they get frustrated never realizing that they don't understand the nature of language. It doesn't work that way. Communication isn't art. It ain't a science.