The tree of talking
In his book, The User Illusion, Tor Nørretranders describes the “tree of talking.” When you turn a thought into language, you must “pack” the concept into a short word or phrase. For example, the simple word “horse” contains a rich set of meanings that are specifically tied to your personal experiences. If you had wonderful childhood experience with horses and the person you are talking to had negative experiences, you will assign different meanings to the word.
Every conversation is a complex interaction where many experiences are continuously packed into tightly condensed phrases and unpacked into experiences.
[...] asks “What can visuals do that text can’t?”, and Dave Gray just presented such a visual about text that answers the [...]
The lefthand side of the drawing is how I envision Flaubert’s famous dictum: “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” The richness of our thought and emotion have to be conveyed by such indirect mechanisms as language.
Yes — it’s amazing how much we are able to communicate with relatively simple signs and symbols. And yet, we often become so attached to words that we forget that they are signs and confuse them with reality.
[...] Siemens asks “What can visuals do that text can’t?”, and Dave Gray just presented such a visual about text that answers the question. The verbal description of the communication process has to [...]