Verbal sclerosis

Here is Bill Leach in 2019:

… one needs to think about the purpose of one of Bill’s writings before drawing too many conclusions. Especially when answering questions, Bill’s discussion could be using a very narrow (or very broad) meaning for a term depending upon which is more useful for the listener/reader to understand what he was trying to convey. By that I mean that when taken out of context it is also easy to misunderstand what he meant.

This is what the Buddhists call ‘expedient teaching’, which is only possible while perceiving matters from the recipient’s point of view. Effective communication is closely allied to the Test for Controlled Variables. Identifying their controlled variables is a prerequisite first step in effective communication. It is necessary to perceive matters concurrently from their point of view and from one’s own (grounded in PCT). Perceptions can emerge analogous to depth perception with binocular vision. In that weak analogy, banishing what is incorrect is like putting a patch on one eye. (The analogy is weak because we can get along quite well with a patch on one eye, but effective communication cannot.)

See also Bill’s post ‘Gems from Bill Leach’.

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