Thinking about thinking…

As much as I love to talk and write, I must confess, I think that language can actually be a pretty imprecise way to communicate.

For example, if I tell you about “a computer on a desk”, what do you see in your mind? Is it a laptop? A huge desktop CPU? Strange and unearthly putty color, or a subdued and inoffensive dark grey? Flat screen monitor, or old-school monitor the size of my first apartment?

You could argue that people can use descriptive adjectives be more precise, but quite frankly, who speaks like that? Who even writes like that most of the time? If people don’t ask you to clarify your idea, two people could think they are talking about the same thing, but the pictures in their minds are probably quite different.

This is only using the example of something as simplistic as a computer on a desk. Complex ideas and communications are even freakier to think about :-P