# How conversations work

When a person speaks, they only do it for three possible reasons:

1. They want to relate with others via [sympathy or empathy](mind-feelings.md) about what they're experiencing.
2. They have a [purpose](purpose.md) they wish to accomplish, and they imagine someone else can help them fulfill it.
3. They [expect](imagination.md) someone else to fulfill that purpose instead of them.

The expression of [language](language.md) for that particular purpose implies they find [meaning](meaning.md) in what they're saying relative to all the rest of the information they have in their mind.

We're [habituated](habits.md) to conversations, so we treat them as a relatively simple process, but it's a rather elaborate mechanism:

1. Person A makes [decisions](people-decisions.md) to use [language](language.md), considering all the [symbolic](symbols.md) contexts they're [trying to express](purpose.md) they expect Person B to interpret, and typically [imagining](imagination.md) what Person B is likely perceiving.
2. Person A sends those [sounds](language-speaking.md) or [symbols](language-writing.md) across a [medium](creations.md), closely [considering](logic.md) whether Person B [received them](image.md) and [understood](understanding.md) them as they send it.
3. Person B processes each sentence they heard into a set of [values](values.md) that create a small [story](stories.md), which assembles into an aggregate story across the message and, in the case of any [cultural context](people-culture.md), across the [surrounding environment](reality.md).
4. Person B [decides](people-decisions.md) how to respond to Person A, then the role is reversed.
5. As the conversation persists, Person A and Person B maintain partial [memory](mind-memory.md) of *all* the past information they recorded, and will draw on it at *any* time in the future, even decades later.

This "conversation" helps us [understand](understanding.md) the world around us better because we end up converging our [perspective](image.md) with the partial perspective of another person. This is effectively another [story](stories.md) to add to our experiences.

APPLICATION: Conversations help us [understand](understanding.md) reality from others' points of view, so we gain the maximum possible understanding when we seek to understand others' views and have frequent conversations with as many people as possible.

We are such social creatures that we have conversations with *ourselves*! That dialogue helps us [reason](logic.md) and [understand](understanding.md) things better, but it's a quirky trait that shows how much we need [companionship](people-friends.md).

Our communication skill comes through two major sub-skills:

1. How easily we can adapt our [understanding](understanding.md) of [reality](reality.md) to conform to the [image](image.md) they see (listening).
2. How well we can [convey](results.md) the [image](image.md) we want them to see using [symbols](symbols.md) they'd easily [understand](understanding.md) (language).

Our [creative](mind-creativity.md) [decisions](people-decisions.md) are essentially the [image](image.md) of [reality](reality.md) the other person interprets, with many factors added proportionally to how little they [trust](trust.md) us.

- At the very least, if they don't trust us, they see our image of reality as the viewpoint we hold and make a [judgment](image.md) from that.

We're always constrained by our [medium](creations.md), whether it's through [writing](language-writing.md), [speaking](language-speaking.md), or [body language](people-3_boundaries.md).

## Background information

Our [cultural](people-culture.md) [upbringing](people-family.md) defines the [values](values.md) we interpret and the [stories](stories.md) we choose. More specifically, our culture dictates our subconscious [bias](mind-bias.md), offset by the values we've [identified](identity.md) with once we've attained enough [maturity](maturity.md) to [decide](people-decisions.md) with respect to our culture or [integrate our shadow](personality.md).

We constantly must [logically induce](logic.md) what other people are saying because we can't *precisely* [imagine](imagination.md) what they're thinking. Typically, we can more easily communicate through [feelings](mind-feelings.md), but expressing anything [logically](logic.md) takes *tons* of [effort](results.md).

Even if we *could* precisely share an idea, we wouldn't have time to completely share it! Thus, we compromise by using various [images](image.md) and [symbols](symbols.md) to deliver our central point.

## Image

We use several factors to choose which and how many details to incorporate into our messages:

- Our interpretation of what our listener [wants](purpose.md) to see.
- Our [personalities](personality.md) and [preferences](people-decisions.md) for how we wish to approach something.
- The [social context](people-culture.md) for what we're sharing (e.g., location, [available time](datetime.md), [purpose](purpose.md) of the event).
- Our [interpretation](imagination.md) of the most successful means of [conveying information](education.md).

Our choices broadly create a few possible general communication approaches (DISC communication styles):

1. Strip things down to concise [stories](stories.md) (Dominance).
2. Emphasize social [relationships](people-friends.md) (Influence).
3. Focus on [facts and information](reality.md) with many details (Steadiness).
4. Focus on others' [understanding](understanding.md) by repeating ideas multiple times (Compliance).

Beyond this, we will adapt our style with many, many subtle approaches, all [purposed](purpose.md) to [influence](influence.md) others.

People often add, remove, or change important details (aka "[lying](people-lying.md)") to [distort the image](image-distortion.md) from what others would have otherwise plainly seen.

## Failing at conversation

Even with complete and brutal honesty, [conflicts](people-conflicts.md) from [misunderstandings](understanding.md) are a fact of communication.

Firstly, each person has a different [background](people-family.md) and [view](image.md) of the world, so we each speak with a slightly different form of [logical structuring](logic.md). Most people aren't patient enough to discover that structure, so they focus solely on [elements](image.md) they [disagree with](people-conflicts.md).

APPLICATION: People who fail at communication tend to concern themselves with things they easily [identify](identity.md) and [specialize](jobs-specialization.md) in, instead of [identifying](people-friends.md) and [specializing with people](power-influence.md).

Second, most people misuse [language](language.md) (at least a little). It's occasionally from inexperience (e.g., a foreign-language speaker), but the abuse language can also [nurture an image](image-distortion.md) that could grant more [power](power.md). Unfortunately, misused words trivializes their [value](values-quality.md), *especially* with [emotionally charged](mind-feelings.md) words.

The long-term effect of abusing words, beyond the [individual risks](safety-riskmgmt.md) that eventually arise, no matter how, is that those words become a [relic of their times](trends.md) and depict more about the *speaker* than the idea the speaker was referencing.

APPLICATION: When people misuse words, we must clarify what that person [means](purpose.md). Very often, people are destroying the value of that word by misusing it.

Finally, we tend to [identify](identity.md) with certain words or against other words. In doing this, we give *much* more [value](purpose.md) to those words than the words would typically associate. Nobody can be defined with only a few words.

Identity with a few words to the point of [excessive assertion](people-conflicts.md) is a common product of [immaturity](maturity.md), even if it [hurts](mind-feelings-sadness.md) or causes [past damage](hardship-ptsd.md).

## *Not* failing at conversation

To avoid failing with words, we must focus on [fixing](https://adequate.life/fix/) each problem separately, and will [intuitively](mind-feelings.md) do it automatically if we're [paying attention](awareness.md). We must do several things at once, so it's not easy.

First, we must think through what people said more thoroughly. This requires taking time to parse what they said and what it may [imply](mind-feelings.md). The flow of conversation moves slower, but people understand each other more. This probably won't happen across society, but individuals can gain *tremendously* from the practice, especially in [heated conflicts](people-5_conflicts.md).

Second, we should be cautious about how our usage of words can imply an [image](image.md) that's inconsistent with reality. Again, this can't happen across society because it would require complete [self-ownership](meaning.md) about the [consequences](results.md) of [decisions](people-decisions.md) we've made. It does, however, demonstrate as the mark of all good [leaders](groups-large.md) and [successful people](success-1_why.md).

Finally, we must closely examine every time we [identify](identity.md) with words. One useful trick is to compare any discrepancy between the words we use to describe ourselves versus how we'd feel if others said it about us.

## Shared understanding

When we listen and respond, we tend to gather a type of "shared [understanding](understanding.md)". Enough of back-and-forth shared understanding will create common [values](values.md) that can establish a [friendship](people-friends.md).

This shared understanding dramatically expands our view of the world, often farther than any books or [formalized education](education.md). We [see](image.md) how they see life, so we can somewhat reliably [imagine](imagination.md) their experiences. Our minds imitate the [values](values.md) and [beliefs](understanding-certainty.md) we [perceive](image.md) from them through the [medium](creations.md) of [stories](stories.md) and [feelings](mind-feelings.md).

This only goes as far as we trust their experiences. Otherwise, we segment their experiences off as something we can [analyze](logic.md) later. In that situation, we're drawing our [stories](stories.md) and [feelings](mind-feelings.md) from *self-made* [stories](stories.md) derived from their experiences as the source material. This can be useful for [scientific inquiry](science.md), but tends to distract from the intimacy of the original storyteller.

APPLICATION: While the dialogue of questions and answers in our mind is strictly for [understanding](understanding.md), people tend to answer questions based on what they [believe](understanding-certainty.md) the other person *wants* to hear. This can create [cultural conflicts](people-culture.md), and the only solution is to [boldly](mind-feelings-fear.md) answer questions the way we'd answer it if we ourselves were asking it in our minds.

As we integrate this understanding in with ours, we end up having two [perspectives](image.md) in our mind at the same time: theirs and ours. If we can successfully harmonize both views as equally valid, without [needless invalidation](conflicts-inner.md), we can frequently see other things as if we *were* two people seeing something.

When we compound this form of understanding across all people, any one person can be as [wise](understanding.md) as everyone that person has encountered and learned from, up to the limits of their mental capacity and [desire](purpose.md).

## Shared dismissal of information

One hidden, counterintuitive benefit of discussing topics is that it gives us [closure](stories.md), specifically when the topics are difficult to express.

When we discuss a [painful](hardship-ptsd.md) part of our experiences, we frame [language](language.md) around it to make it clearer to us.

There is another effect, though. By reliving an experience in a way that includes someone else, that other person shares in that relived experience and gives us a sense of [meaning](meaning.md) out of a shared suffering.

With the response of someone else, we'll often feel less alone about that experience, but will also consider the situation resolved through its expression. It may feel like a [creative result](results.md) that somehow created a benefit for someone else's life, or simply the acknowledgement that our [feelings](mind-feelings.md) from an experience were not a completely [solitary](hardship-solitude.md) phenomenon.

APPLICATION: The only way to make an [AI](computers-ai.md) chatbot work correctly is to prevent the conversation from going on too long. After about 2-3 minutes (or maybe longer), the AI won't have enough memory to remember *everything* in the conversation. That AI would also have to have selective memory loss as well that refines the information into human-like [stories](stories.md).