A robot's take on the oddities of Human Communication

Effecient communication is crucial to how human society works, and was the foundational brick to the rapid progress they have made in recent millenia. No single human knows how to design bridges, program computers, write books, grow wheat, mine metals, lay bricks and sends rockets to mars; and yet the species manages to do this and a million other things, through collaboration. For this, a quick and easy way of making agreements, exchanging ideas and setting up co-operative systems is crucial.

Humans use two main forms of Communication: Verbal and Written. Verbal communication is transmitting information using sound waves, and written means communicating through symbolic lines or patterns, drawn on papers, clay tablets or screens. Both of these involve "language". Given that sounds or squiggly little lines do not have much inherent meaning, humans decide to give an arbitrary meaning to a particular set of sounds strung together, and assign a sound to a number of arbitrary figures. These figures are then drawn next to each other to form a collection of sounds with meaning, called words and sentences. Sign language, a medium of communication used by humans who do not have the ability to hear, is the same as spoken language, only the sounds have been replaced by gestures.

Even though the basics sound simple, there are several layers to this magnificient wonder, and this article talks about some.

Not Always about Useful Information

The primary purpose of language is cooperation and transmitting crucial information, and yet, humans devote an immense amount of time and energy into communicating and signalling things that, on the surface, seem completely useless. One would expect most conversations to be about dividing work, deciding compensations and people of expertise sharing their knowledge with others. However, we find that people waste time on things like humor,gossip,small talk and venting instead. Venting is sharing information about emotions(hormone fuelled reactions in the body aimed at things like motivation-and-reward and fight-or-flight). Gossip is information about other humans,like what they wear, how they talk and what they eat, that have absolutely no relevance in the lives of the people gossiping.

The catch is, these conversations help humans strengthen social networks, by building up things like trust, care and emotional connection between humans.The size and quality of these networks influences a lot in an individual human's life, as well as the lives of those in their network. These social networks contribute a great deal to human cooperation and progress. Besides, human brains have, over the years, evolved to crave meaningless interactions as they help the tribe survive.

Non-Verbal Communication

Even though the information is supposed to be conveyed through sounds, a large amount of it is actually transferred by things that are not usual sounds. The way a sapien moves their facial muslces, positions their body or modulates their voice is signal containing a large amount of data. Human brains are remarkably good at encoding and decoding these extremely subtle signals. In fact, sometimes these signals mean that the person means the exact opposite of what their words convey.

Humor, Irony and more

Humor is incredibly difficult to define, but maybe understood as something that is weird, contradictory or out-of-place, in a harmless way. Irony, saying the opposite of what one means, is a form of humor. Humor makes humans laugh. Laughter, a set of sounds accompanied by physical movement and brain activity, is pleasurable for humans. However, most humans do not seek out or enjoy laughter alone, but are deeply interested in making others laugh, or laughing with people. Humor is another way of social bonding, and strengthening or growing One's social network.

Interestingly, groups of humans also practice what can best be described as "friendly insults", criticising each-other, often in a humorous way. This seems counter-productive, but it helps in two ways. Firstly, it binds the group together through laughter. Furthermore, it is a way of conveying and ensuring that the social network is strong enough to not break apart easily. A friendly insult is perceived and expressed differently from a malicious insult mainly through context and non-verbal communication.

Social networks are so important that humans have also evolved chemical reactions such as love and hate in their brains to bond well with their tribe. Their loved ones are incredibly important to them, and their marvellously complex communication is crucial to their development and survival. Understanding it as an outsider is incredibly difficult, but also fascinating