According to Richard Feynman, knowing the name of a bird in many languages does not mean that one knew anything at all about the bird. Instead, one should look at the bird and observe its behaviour to know anything about it. According to Tom Peters, if you have friends, you can do anything (Peters, 1987). However, this paper is not just for “friends” and so the definitions will be provided first, and it will be the barest minimum required to ensure that there is minimum miscommunication with reference to terms.
To define “Human Communication”, we shall take it apart and define its components, and to be inclusive and avoid any controversy, “human” here will be defined as any living thing of the species Homo sapiens. “Communications” will be defined as the sending and receiving of information. Putting the parts together, we shall define “human communications” as the transfer of information between Homo sapiens through the channels available to them.
Having defined the terms thus, it is only natural that humans can transfer information through senses of taste, smell, touch, sound, and sight. The permutations for possible participants in human communications can only logically be one-to-self, one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many, and many-to-one.
Now that we have determined what human communications is, we will move on to discuss why human communication occurs. The quick and simple answer would be “to transfer information”, but why transfer information? “Knowledge is power” has become cliché, but being cliché does not have bearing on a statement’s validity. In fact, validity is a main reason why clichés become clichés in the first place. It is true; it gets repeated; it is still true, but now it is cliché.
Money, also, is power. However, when money is spent, it is gone. Sure, the government can print more, but that will only decrease the real value of money in circulation. However, when information is communicated, it is not lost by the sender. Therefore, while the circulation of money is a zero sum game, the circulation of knowledge is not.
Another difference between knowledge and other commodities is that while fortunes can be inherited, knowledge dies with its owner unless communicated. Therefore, human communication occurs because it is advantageous to the species and sets it apart, on top of the food web in the course of Darwinist natural selection. As Srikant said, “human communication is unavoidable” (Devaraj).
As mentioned earlier, humans communicate through five different channels of taste, smell, touch, sound, sight, and a combination of these. For example, at a wedding or birthday, joy is communicated through good food. Good food appeals to the senses of taste, smell, and sight. Each sense reinforces the others. Another example could be a beggar asking for money. He/she would probably not be as successful if he/she did not look and smell bad but merely asked for money through the sound channel. As Littlejohn said “words have a function beyond mere transfer of information” (Littlejohn, 2004). That is where the other senses come in and play their part.
Since communication is vital to survival, humans naturally pick the most efficient channels through which to communicate. Taste being the slowest and shortest range is rarely used. Of course, on the rare occasions when it is used, it is often used to great effect.
Smell and touch have a longer range but are still rather slow in propagating. They are also very difficult to mast in situations that require it. For example, a scout doing recce can keep very quit and move in the shadows, but it is almost impossible for him/her to prevent communication of his/her position through his/her body odor and heat to the enemy.
Sight and sound are the fastest and longest ranged mediums of communication. Thus, they are the most often used. For a long time, the only medium through which one could communicate with the future was through drawing and writing. More recently, audio recording has made it possible to also communicate with the future through sound.
Even so, sight is still far more effective and frequently used than sound. Scientifically, light travels faster than sound, but practically, sound also provides the picture that paints a thousand words. Of course, a picture that paints a thousand words is outdated today when we have the television and internet that are capable of thousands of frame per second.
This brings us to the point of departure that truly makes human communication different from other living things. Humans are the only living things that are able to use technology to enhance the senses; hence increasing their information throughput.
While bats can hear much better than humans, they cannot beat a human with a stethoscope or an electric amplifier. While birds can see further, they cannot see around the earth like a human can with a monitor and a webcam on the other side of the earth. Whales transmit sound over long distances under water, but humans lay undersea optical cables that can transmit at the speed of light that far surpasses the speed of sound.
According to Griff, communication is so common that most people do not realize that they are communicating (Goas). In a way, human communication is like God. Everybody wants to use it but nobody wants to understand it.
The simplest form of human communication is one to oneself. The next simplest is one to one. This is explained by the Shannon-Weaver Model as encoding, sending over a medium where some noise might occur, and decoding. However, moving beyond two, chaos theory kicks in as three body systems are inherently non-deterministic. Thus management, especially techniques that thrive on chaos, according to Tom Peters, are required (Peters, 1987).
Besides the problem of chaotic systems, there is also the problem of information integrity. As Brian Jones pointed out in the Mensa Bulletin, “an informed citizenry is the cornerstone of democratic government. Without information, even a nation of hyper-logical Vulcans would be unable to make sound decisions,” or as any artillery person might say in short, “no comms [communications], no fire.” Misinformation is increasingly rampant in a knowledge economy as knowledge is not just power but money as well. Therefore, the ability to discern, not just decode and filter noise is highly important.
In summary, human communication is the transmitting and receiving of information by Homo sapiens. This very important skill is the one that allowed humans to progress thus far in a Darwinist world of natural selection. Humans communicate through their five senses. Although other living things are also able to do so, humans do much better because of the application of technology. However, human communication is not perfect as there are noise, inherent chaos, and misinformation.
EVEN SO, WE MUST STILL COMMUNICATE!
In conclusion, this paper is an example of human communication. It has an introduction, some motivation, the main points, a summary of the main points, and a conclusion. Most importantly, before concluding, it has a call to action because knowledge without action is pointless.
Works Cited
Devaraj, S. Personal correspondence.
Goas, G. Personal correspondence.
Littlejohn, S. (2004). Theories of Human Communication. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.
Peters, T. (1987). Thriving on Chaos. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.