Language, Rhetoric, Nonverbal Communication Tactics And Other Distractions

Note: All the ideas presented in this post are not ideas I strongly believe in or endorse, because I am currently not knowledgeable enough to say anything with confidence, nor have I consulted anyone who is an expert on these topics, so please do not adopt any of these ideas as your own, because they are almost certainly incorrect. Read them just as a starting point for further enquiry, perhaps as an introduction that could make you more curious or interested in it, and always keep in mind the principles of Rationality, Scientific Skepticism, Critical Thinking and Open-Mindedness. Or just read it for fun, because I'm just playing with ideas here, everyone is most welcome to correct me wherever they think I'm wrong, and I'd be more than happy to change my mind in light of convincing logical reasons or empirical evidence.

This blog post describes something I recently thought of, involving how we usually fall for superficial and irrelevant stuff like rhetoric, expressions and other nonverbal communication tactics associated with cognitive biases, and how we could create a better and more understanding society if we could teach everyone to rely on logic and reasoning independent of all the noise and confusing distractions.

This is a post with important and valuable ideas I wish everyone to understand and either adopt or critique, because as always I'm open to a productive debate and changing my mind in light of convincing logical reasons or empirical evidence, but unlike some of my other posts, (as I indicate in the beginning of every post) this one is comparatively lengthy and dense but also more important with some insights and ideas that I notice most people not being aware and hence falling for irrational behaviour inconsistent with their belief system that usually includes values such as open-mindedness, empathy and humility.

If that's not what you believe in, feel free to skip this post to save valuable time and send me a message explaining why you think so, not necessarily because I disagree, I probably don't, but it could be a fruitful discussion if you are open to a productive debate. Same goes for everyone who reads it till the end; I'd like to know your comments.

I had a discussion about this with our English professor a few days ago when she was teaching persuasive speech. I asked her- I do understand that all these things - micro-expressions, body language, tone, direction of gaze, eye contact, gestures, appearance etc. - influence how effectively we are able to communicate our point to the audience, but shouldn't it ideally be that none of this matters and they only focus on the logic and reason of what I'm saying? Even when people think they are not, they are still influenced by their cognitive biases all the time. And ma'am told me that you just can not say what you want to say without the appropriate tone and even that differs from culture to culture; certain gestures and words have completely opposite meanings in different cultures. So she said you have to be understanding of their culture and adapt yourself according to the context.

I said that's fine, but won't it be more efficient, more productive and less confusing to just be clear and direct, like also convey what you intend with your gestures and tone so there's no scope of any misunderstanding. Just convey everything through your words, no language games or hidden agendas. Why can't we do that? Won't that also be more accommodating for the people on the spectrum?

So I just ended the conversation with ma'am there, but later I came up with my own idea of what an ideal system should be like. Just be direct and use language in as clear and concise way as possible. Don't expect others to pick up any confusing cues or expect them to read your alien sign language.

And don't do it yourself, because you're under no obligation to make yourself understood to others in such confusing ways; you're going to try your best with language, and it that doesn't work then it's on them. Also about the expressions and tone thing, just stay calm and as I said don't bother too much about what others think, because it is too inefficient and you have much more important things for your scarce and valuable cognitive resources and time. After trying your best, you can't change how other behave, so control what you can and at least don't let their problems affect yourself in any significant way.

The only exception is when the stakes are high, like if not using all the non verbal communication techniques would result in consequences much larger and worth the time and effort you can spend on employing them. In this case you would be completely justified in using the best methods and techniques at your disposal and considering your audience and goals.

Examples could be when you're trying to convince the general public about how science is important and must be trusted. You may think that ideally they should focus on the substance of the argument, but you may overlook a crucial point and fail to understand that even if the people try to be perfectly objective, logical and rational about it, you can't just make all the cognitive biases and flaws of thinking associated with the human brain go away by just wishing. You might fall for such traps and biases even if you are aware of them and think that they are going to have no influence on you.

That's why it might be important to use such tactics to influence, persuade and convince, using tools such as pathos, logos and ethos as Aristotle put it. And this way you won't be doing anything wrong by trying to influence the public in a way that would allow them to make more informed and overall better decisions for themselves and the society and make them see the truth, or at least something that's closer to truth and more in line with reality and helps them decide for themselves what's best for them.

Same goes for similar situations in politics, to raise awareness for important issues such as those that are the most pressing, something that the Effective Altruism community tries to do all the time, and other debates and issues where influencing the masses is important and employing such tactics is unavoidable and crucial, as the opportunity costs associated with not doing so are too high, or in other words the potential disadvantages or the worst case scenario of not doing so are too large to take such a risk.

This is also kind of related to my point about teaching kids programming languages like Wolfram, mathematics and formal or philosophical logic using Lego or puzzle games or fantasy fiction and real world activities and experimentally testing if in this way they're better able to see thorough all the inconsistencies of language and how it makes us act irrationally later in life, be more proficient in mathematics as there is this critical period when getting brief exposure to languages makes it easier to acquire them later in life, and I realized that mathematics and wolfram are also languages, so if we could make them fun and teach them to kids it would be an interesting experiment.

Then there's the culture shock thing, and people engaging in motivated debates without trying to understand the logic, falling prey to logical fallacies- all this could be greatly reduced if we could for example spread awareness about these tools and figure out how different points of view diverge from some common values, also define values and other abstract concepts logically if possible, and in different cultures make it clear what different gestures, proxemics, expressions and amounts of eye contact mean objectively and logically, because it would avoid lot of confusion and misunderstanding.

People who are first time exposed to a different culture may feel uncomfortable, and even if they're not uncomfortable they may have different acceptable gestures with different meanings in their own cultures, acceptable jokes and taboos, different distance that the people maintain and that's considered respectable to the other person's personal space (proxemics), different length of eye contact, ways of speaking, tone, inflection etc. you get the point. So putting it all objectively and logically when they first meet could help avoid all confusions that could turn into misunderstandings that might present significant hurdles in cultural assimilation or relationship building with members of another culture later on. Plus I have found that thinking about everything objectively and logically helps me gain a clearer perspective on things, even if I fail to be perfectly logical or objective about something, which I do realize is impossible to do at all times, but it greatly helps me avoid acting irrationally or making irrational decisions, be more rational in my daily life, and see everything for what it is- a continuous chain of cause and effect connected by scientific principles and causes rooted in our brain or fundamental physical laws, and it helps me separate subjective value judgments about events from what is actually there, and compel me to question everything including how and why everything is the way it is and so also make me more curious about the world and how everything works while at the same time being empathetic towards my fellow humans.

It's just like my blog post that questions why people are seem to so happily celebrate the Earth completing a revolution around the sun, or a human having completing another year of existence and being one more year closer to death. It's helpful to adopt this perspective in the everyday world, and also makes it easier for me to question anything that's not completely objective or unclear, and such things frequently involve philosophical discussions and debates, and if not then allow me to understand the complete chain of cause and effect and all the external factors involved in the event or phenomena and cultivate a greater appreciation for the beauty of nature and the scientific principles governing the universe.

It's like Feynman's quote about explaining to his artist friend how science complements are and adds to it's beauty instead of taking it away, as many people seem to mistakenly believe.

Coming up with such principles and laws involves a great deal of scientific and artistic creativity, and the laws themselves pieces of art, just a different kind that happen to be related to how the universe works, and takes a greater time to understand, but nonetheless gives levels of satisfaction that makes the effort involved in understanding it worth it.

It also relates to my idea of the universe being like a game we were happen to be born in, and our traits a result of chance, and possibly the deterministic universe implying that we are just here to spectate and enjoy the experience while it lasts, adopt a carefree absurdist attitude because it's a game, and uncovering all the rules, mechanisms and the meaning of the game being the objectives, which is a simplified picture of how science works, if I'm not wrong. I'll develop this idea further in another blog post.

Personal confession- Being a grammar Nazi in the past, I'm guilty of harboring thoughts of hate crimes against those who have butchered English or used it incorrectly while conversing with me, even if unintentionally. I obsessed over very small details, though I've recently realized that in everyday communication and with the majority of people the purpose of language is just to make yourself understood, so I just try to stay silent and accept whatever mistakes everyone makes and silence my brain revolting at the gross injustice they're doing to language. Still do it sometimes.

But even more recently, I have realized that even though simple language is enough for everyday usage, it's impossible or at least insanely hard to express thoughts that would be easier to express with a more developed and expansive vocabulary, and even if the average person is not able to get it, I don't think that should hold me or anyone back and discourage them from using more advanced vocabulary to express their thoughts that may not be convenient to express in simpler language.

Now, this is very different from using difficult words just to sound words or act condescendingly towards those whose linguistic intelligence may not be at the same level as yours, and I'm against that, I strongly dislike such behaviour. And using complex words when expressing something in simpler words is a better option and very possible is also something that must be avoided at all costs, in my honest opinion.

But using language to be able to think better, and describe your thoughts better, and hold an intelligent conversation with like-minded people who may be interested in your ideas and have similar ideas of their own.

This is something that's also done in scientific community and really any academic community- they have specialized language and vocabulary so they don't have to repeat lengthy concepts that would need to be explained again and again or described using many words if attempted using simple language. Instead, and this is also what many students do, especially medicine students, they memorize what all the terms mean, so they can be more efficient and describe concepts they've already memorized in few words and spend the time and effort saved in more important tasks, or have ideas that go beyond just understanding the concepts and find connections between them, if that makes sense.

If you wish to go a level further, maybe try thinking and speaking in the language of mathematics and formal logic, because then you'd be aware of the ambiguities of language and it'd be impossible for you to use poorly defined words, or fall prey to the irrational biases and fallacies that the flaws of language make us so susceptible to and our errors hard to detect, and it might even help at least enable people with opposing belief to agree to disagree, if not clear out their confusion by being free of all the irrational beliefs that they may have had while engaging in debates.

And that's not even the tip of the iceberg, the metaphorical iceberg being all the advantages of using more concise and accurate natural language, if not logic.

When I first came across rhetoric, persuasion and influence tactics in my study of language and philosophy, I used to think it's just manipulation, but then I realized that you need to be aware of manipulation tactics to detect them when it's being used against you and to know how to avoid them in such a case, else the bad people will always get their way and the good people being ignorant of the tactics would never be able to defend themselves.

Rhetoric is also good, even if as a means of manipulation, when stakes are high- say a person who is spreading pseudoscience is very persuasive and good at manipulation, then should you not also use rhetoric and persuasion tactics to ensure that they are not successful in manipulating the masses to achieve their own selfish ends at the expense of the general public? Is it really manipulation if your true intentions are to help people be more aware and able to defend themselves against the bad guys?

It is, even if not as bad as the people with more evil intentions, but I believe that having a sort of language and way of talking that could make it more easier to communicate clearly and spot fallacies, irrational thoughts and subjective values judgments could be beneficial for the whole society, and create a safer society. I'm not saying that we completely do away with the ambiguity of language; that'd be a very bad mistake, to say the least, because being a writer myself I like exploring these ambiguities and finding beauty in it, trying different ways of expressing something and extracting the subjective qualities and aspects of any event or phenomena that's currently hard to capture with mathematics and logic.

That's purely for it's aesthetic value, and I respect the poets, writers and artists who think the same, but I think in situations when the stakes are high- in certain social situations, political speeches, chief executives of multinationals and government officials discussing some important project- we could do much better with a more clear and concise way of communicating, and it'd also be more accommodating for neurodivergent individuals and those from a culture different from ours to promote greater understanding and empathy among everyone and encourage a more global mindset and compassionate worldview by making it easier for everyone to cultivate values such as empathy and kindness.

I think that's a great improvement over my old mindset and way of thinking, and it could be beneficial for others too. Of course it's just my current point of view and I'm open to changing my mind in light of convincing logical arguments or contradictory empirical evidence in favour of some other alternative. Would like to know what you think.