On Communication

Fundamentally, human communication includes: (a) encoding, (b) storage, (c) transportation, and (d) decoding. Responding to the limits of human communication that result when we rely exclusively on our bodies and motivated by the necessity of communication for our social species, humans have developed a long series of both hard technologies and soft technologies for extending communication beyond a specific time and place, for storing knowledge indefinitely and outside the human brain. Any of the technologies that allow knowledge to exist outside the human brain and even some that rely on the human brain all require encoding, thus decoding. This introduces interpretation (which is inconsistent between individuals). In-person human communication gets even more complicated and there are many more potential difficulties for humans who rely on the human capacities for speech, hearing, and remembering for communication. If the message is long, it is unlikely to be even spoken in the same way again, and parts of it are likely to be lost between when it is utter and when it is heard.