debatable what we would have been) without
communication. My dictionary defines "communication"
as an act or instance of transmitting
information. According to another explanation,
communication is a process by which information is
exchanged between individuals through a common system
of symbols, signs, or behavior.
All life forms communicate: from single-celled life
forms to complex biological beings such as us. We
(including animals) emit signals varying from
sounds to electric currents to visual expressions.
Sometimes it seems as if even the non-living objects
try to communicate their existence by simply being
visible or by emitting things that help us perceive
them -- for instance, fire makes us acknowledge its
presence by emitting heat. Heat is very important for
both animals and humans. It not only sustains life on
earth, it also tells us when we, or something around
us is on fire. Our body and our brain communicate with
each other every microsecond. Even dimensionless
entities such as dreams try to communicate.
Before we had languages we used signs and expressions.
They sufficed for simple communications such as
communicating hostility, animalistic affection, mating
desire and fear. Whereas we have moved from grunts to
screams to drum beats to smoke signals to cubism and
binary topologies, animals still, as far as our
current understanding of them goes, use the intrinsic
and elementary modes of communication. Our style of
communication has grown (developed? I need to think
more on that owing to some personal experiences)
in correspondence with our intellectual growth. Our
thoughts and ideas are complex now, and so is
communication. We can no longer evince our information
within spoken or written words; we need machines with
gargantuan capabilities -- super computers, for
example. We know that even a difference at the
hundredth decimal point can change the complexion of
our universe.
Communication has played a great part in human
evolution. Without an ability to communicate, we would
have been soulless zombies. It took thousands of years
to become a branch in itself. To aid it we developed
words and symbols. To represent and save the
communication content we learned how to draw and
write. This freed our mind to delve more into thoughts
and hence more things to communicate. This further
necessitated advancement in writing and drawing. Today
we can communicate virtually through any medium. We
know that there are innumerable ways of communicating.
We are equally at ease with gestures and abstract
arts.
The way we communicate also defines our society and
culture. Our perceptions, memories, experiences,
feelings, interpretations, inferences, evaluations,
attitudes, opinions, ideas, strategies, images, and
states of consciousness decide how and when we
communicate. Same actions communicate different
meanings in different cultures. In some cultures you
communicate affability by kissing on the lips and in
others it is an outright sexual assault. Sometimes
when you leave food in the plate it indicates that you
are not a glutton and sometimes it is interpreted as
an insult of the host. That is why a new language
called Esperanto is being developed. Its
href="http://www.esperanto.org.nz/sarah.html">website
says, "Esperanto allows communication between nations
of separate languages, between which communication may
have been very difficult. Communication between
nations would also be on equal footing, where all
parties could speak and understand each other with
ease. The use of Esperanto as an international
language means that communication holds no advantages
for native speakers of the language of communication.
This improved depth of communication would serve as a
bridge between the countries of the world and it's
occupants, which would in turn reunite the world as we
move into our third millennium together."
With communication being so important, we can easily
make out how dangerous wrong communication can be. A
communication gap can trigger off a war or a nuclear
holocaust in today's perilous times and communication
gap between husband and wife can bring about a
divorce.
Communication is all about sending and receiving
messages. Sometimes the message received and
interpreted by the receiver is not the same as the
message sent. This inconsistency can be due to random
but continuous disturbances that infiltrate the
process, thus obscuring the clarity or quality of the
communication, causing mis-communication.
Middle-managers do that in corporations, bureaucrats
do that in governments and faulty code does that is
software. For an effective flow of communication the
channels have to be free of obstacles and aberrations.
The digital technology is revolutionizing the basis of
human communication. The advent of the Internet has
democratized communication to the point where the
tools of publishing and distribution are now passing
into the hands of the individual who originates the
cultural objects that were previously mediated, and
hence controlled by a few. We are trying to
communicate with people from other worlds and this
shows how we crave for communication. The ball set
rolling by our distance ancestors will some day enable
us to communicate our thoughts to living beings living
millions of light years away.
== Article ends ==
Copyright ®2004 Amrit Hallan
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Amrit Hallan is a freelance copywriter, and a website
content writer. He also writes optimized content for
better Search Engine Ranking. To know more about his
services, visit his Copywriting site at
http://www.amrithallan.com and to get an idea of his
other writings you can visit
http://www.quality-writing.com.
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