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Offline bloodline

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Re: Why do you converse?
« on: March 28, 2008, 02:13:47 PM »
Social bonding... or perhaps comforting neotenous behaviour, as in children I expect small talk is part of "play" which develops the linguistic skills...

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2008, 05:09:51 PM »
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motorollin wrote:
I agree, but what purpose does it serve for *you*? Why do you choose to do it rather than doing something else?

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Last Tuesday I went out for a drink with my old friend Lucy... we spoke of nothing important (well maybe some stuff, but mostly not), but the interaction was immensely pleasurable, since it serves to reinforce the bonding. As social animals, we would naturally enjoy social bonding... If it neotonous behavior then it would also provide pleasure, though of a different (comforting) kind.

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2008, 05:42:36 PM »
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whabang wrote:
I don't small-talk, unless it's with friends or family.
When strangers try to start a pointless conversation with me, they usually only manage to annoy me (yes, I'm single ;-)).


What if they spoke of Amiga?

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2008, 06:01:51 PM »
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motorollin wrote:
@bloodline
Sounds like what you're saying is that the act of conversing is intrinsically reinforcing,


Yes, I would say so. I would say people enjoy most forms of intercourse. If you didn't, then you'd probably live in a cave making interesting sculptures with your own faeces.

I enjoy talking with someone, it helps me feel closer to them... which staves off the intrinsic loneliness of life! It's is quite possible to enjoy someone's company without speaking, but then there are plenty of other interactions that people can do.

I am suggesting that small talk is what big brained apes do... where the smaller brained ones pick fleas off each other. It's just intellectual "social grooming".

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probably due to layers of social conditioning on top of childhood behaviours. Would that be about right?

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Hmmm... it's hard to talk about conditioning here... since you would have to examine a child that has never had any human interaction. But yes, it's another possibility to suggest that it is just childish behaviour that is carried over into adulthood... since it causes no ill and may even be beneficial, there is no selective pressure to eliminate it

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2008, 07:43:41 PM »
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motorollin wrote:
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bloodline wrote:
Yes, I would say so. I would say people enjoy most forms of intercourse.

Pffft... sorry... must maintain some semblance if intellectualism...


It was a carefully chosen word!
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bloodline wrote:
If you didn't, then you'd probably live in a cave making interesting sculptures with your own faeces.

I agree. I really believe that language is the only thing which separates us from apes. Never mind opposable thumbs. With language, we can work out how to do without them.


But it is hard to know if language might be dependent upon the evolution of opposable thumbs, for some reason  :-)

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bloodline wrote:
I enjoy talking with someone, it helps me feel closer to them... which staves off the intrinsic loneliness of life! It's is quite possible to enjoy someone's company without speaking, but then there are plenty of other interactions that people can do.

So you converse merely for the pleasure of it? What if there were some other behaviour available to you which was more rewarding? Would you do that instead?


I can think of many behaviours more rewarding, but none are socially acceptable in many cases.
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bloodline wrote:
I am suggesting that small talk is what big brained apes do... where the smaller brained ones pick fleas off each other. It's just intellectual "social grooming".

Hmm, as a tool to select a suitable mate perhaps?


Maybe that would go some way to explain my single status.
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bloodline wrote:
Hmmm... it's hard to talk about conditioning here... since you would have to examine a child that has never had any human interaction.

Genie.
Would be interesting to see how she reacts to attempts at conversation now (she is still alive AFAIK).

--
moto


I think you may find answers if you wiki "pit of dispair" :-(

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2008, 11:15:41 PM »
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motorollin wrote:
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bloodline wrote:
But it is hard to know if language might be dependent upon the evolution of opposable thumbs, for some reason  :-)

Hmmm true. Thinking about that should keep me occupied for a while!


The problem with something as complex as human evolution, it's hard to know the sequence of everything... language doesn't fossilise so well....

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bloodline wrote:
I can think of many behaviours more rewarding, but none are socially acceptable in many cases.

So we converse at the expense of more pleasurable activities because we are constrained by society to do so...


I sit in a coffee shop and a girl opens a conversation... not really saying much just talking... I think she's rather attractive, and engage her in conversation... in reality I'd rather be pleasuring her in a far more intimate way... We may never get that far, but the small chat we did have would be much more fun than not engaging her at all.

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bloodline wrote:
Maybe that would go some way to explain my single status.

I don't know - you seem quite articulate to me, so either you're an exception to the rule, or your theory doesn't work :-)


Well, perhaps it only helps to find a mate... I may not be physically attractive, have undesirable personality traits and the timing could be wrong. But without the small talk I might never have got as far as I did :-)

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bloodline wrote:
I think you may find answers if you wiki "pit of dispair" :-(

I'm utterly speechless after reading that. Harlow should be posthumously discredited. Absolutely disgusting.


Fortunately experiments like that are not allowed any more. All I can hope is that we can learn from the study, so the animals did not suffer in vain...

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2008, 11:18:02 PM »
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whabang wrote:
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bloodline wrote:
What if they spoke of Amiga?

That would be a completely different matter, of course.


And without the small talk, you may never know if the person had an Amiga interest.

Again this is a social bonding issue. The more we discuss it, the more I am convinced that is it's main role in society!

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2008, 03:25:55 PM »
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motorollin wrote:
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bloodline wrote:
The problem with something as complex as human evolution, it's hard to know the sequence of everything... language doesn't fossilise so well....

Well the creation of cave paintings would require symbolic thought and thus constitutes a form of language, and IIRC the hominids which created them were pre-speech.


They might have been pre-speech... I don't know enough about early human evolution to really speak with any authority.

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Grasping some tool to draw on the cave wall would probably require an opposable thumb, so my guess would be that the opposable thumb allowed drawing which cultivated symbolic thought, which then became the predominant form of language. Speech developed subsequently as a more efficient and flexible means of communication.


I certainly like that idea! :-) A seemingly unrealted topic, that is very related is the "World Simualtion" model of thought... Wiki "False Awakening"  for more info.

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bloodline wrote:
I sit in a coffee shop and a girl opens a conversation... not really saying much just talking... I think she's rather attractive, and engage her in conversation... in reality I'd rather be pleasuring her in a far more intimate way... We may never get that far, but the small chat we did have would be much more fun than not engaging her at all.

Sounds like you're using language to coerce women in to some kind of seedy rendezvous. Not a bad use of skill of language if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective ;-)


That was just one example. Imagine I was with a friend/person I was not sexually attracted to, but still wanted to maintain a relationship with... Then I can't really think of a better way to keep the bonding than talking :-)

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bloodline wrote:
Well, perhaps it only helps to find a mate... I may not be physically attractive, have undesirable personality traits and the timing could be wrong.

Who says?


The potential mate who has decided that I am not suitable.

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bloodline wrote:
But without the small talk I might never have got as far as I did :-)

Well I agree it would be pretty unusual to pull without even talking to your intended partner.


Not that unusual if you are in a band... but that is the an unusual situation I guess :lol:

Yeah, seriously... I think though this is a side track of the topic... Small talk is probably just a social activity that maintains bonds.

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Not that I have much experience in that area :roll:


The implication of this line, is that you often pull without talking to your target :-)

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bloodline wrote:
Fortunately experiments like that are not allowed any more. All I can hope is that we can learn from the study, so the animals did not suffer in vain...

Yeah, like how to totally screw up monkey :madashell:


Well... yeah that too...

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2008, 04:11:41 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
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motorollin wrote:
I have become interested in the reasons why people engage in superfluous conversation. I don't mean communicating with others with some intent, such as sharing or requesting information, rather "small-talk".


I don't know. What I do know is that I do a lot less of it at the moment and I think it's certainly contributory in part to my current moodiness.


Which is the symptom, which is the cause?

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2008, 04:25:45 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
Daft as it may sound, I'm actually making myself take some time to post here in order to counter this very problem...


A.org therapy? Wayne should charge...

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #10 on: March 29, 2008, 04:40:35 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
*sigh*

Pity Fluffy, Kenny, Meerschaum etc aren't here these days. Fun banter was guarenteed :-)

Still, it's good to see that some old faces remain :-)


Just a look down the top posters list brings back some memories!

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2008, 04:47:35 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
I wonder what Kenny's extrapolated post count would be if he were still around :roflmao:


Should be quite easy to work out! But I'm not going to... I spent enough time figuring out that stupid Paula calibration file :-)

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2008, 05:02:06 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
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bloodline wrote:

Should be quite easy to work out! But I'm not going to... I spent enough time figuring out that stupid Paula calibration file :-)


Come on, that must have been easier to do than what you originally proposed ;-)


Infinitely... But less fun... I had no choice but to do it, to prove you wrong... Only to prove you right... real life sucks! If this had been a John Hughes movies, I would have been right, you would have been humiliated in front of the whole school... and for some unaccountable reason the pretty girl would sleep with me... sigh...

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #13 on: March 29, 2008, 05:20:53 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
I didn't say your method wouldn't work. It just might have been more difficult to do and could be more error prone...

Did you do anything with the result yet?


I tried to build a "Paula Accurate Bitcrusher" Audio Unit for use in MacOS audio applications... while Apple's SDK and IDE are brilliant and I managed to compile it... I can't get MacOS to recognise the AU :-)

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Re: Why do you converse?
« Reply #14 on: March 29, 2008, 05:35:36 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
Is it basically a compander-like curve applied to the input then?


Err... I simply shifted the orignal 16bit sample right by 8places (actually it is more complicated than that since MacOSX Core Audio is 32bit floats)... then used a lookup table to see what the 8bit value would map to at 16bits... and built a new sample using that data... :-)

For example:

The original 16bit sample:  27900 (input)
The 8bit Bit crushed sample : 109
The Paula non-linear output output: 27933 (output)

(The Paula perfectly linear output: 27904 - for reference)

I can send you my lookup tables if you like :-)