Re: Baby
Posted by cougar on Dec 27, 2002 at 19:06
(63.228.205.145)Re: Baby (Paul)
Paul, when you say "The baby....", this implies that everyone reading the postings on this board already knows what baby you're talking about. Of course you know what baby you're talking about, but your assumption that everyone else will is rather presumptuous.
Conversation actually involves a social contract, and certain rules apply if the conversation is to be coherent. I'm sure you (and many others) would benefit from reading Goodbye Descartes by Keith Devlin, professor of mathematics, Dean of the School of Science at St. Mary's College, and senior researcher at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Communication. Devlin says, among many other things....
"One way to think of the background to a conversation is by comparing a conversation to two people building a wall. The building skills and experience the two individuals bring to the task are part of the background. So too is the supply company that delivers the bricks, sand, and cement. All of these contribute to the building of the wall, and some of them are essential to the task. But none are part of the actual building work. The one part of the background that can be regarded as part of the actual building process is the preparation of the foundations for the wall, since the foundations are, in a sense, part of the wall. The construction of the wall then proceeds in a step-by-step fashion, as the two persons add one brick after another in a coordinated and cooperative fashion... each new brick builds upon those that have been laid previously. The attention of the two people building the wall is focused entirely on the wall and its foundations, not on anything in the background."
But you can't take the "background" completely for granted. At the start of a conversation, not everyone will understand that you're talking about "the story of the cloned baby" unless you clarify that it's this subject matter you are addressing.