Definitions

Communication is vital for succeeding in any activity that requires the participation of more than one individual.

Everyone has to be on the same page, they have to coordinate their actions.

All forms of communication, including verbal and written, are essentially compressed data. That is, we use higher-level terminology to quickly discuss complex topics. Underneath, those terms rely on everyone expanding their own definitions.

Definitions have a denotation or connotation, essentially a meaning with a specific set of boundaries. But they also have colloquial meanings, which is a further set of attached understandings than can depend on context, territory, or culture.

Most definitions are victims of history. They’ve been banged up by past events. Once they have been bent out of shape, they start detracting from the communication. Because of this, most professional fields use their own strict definitions, which can be quite different from the common ones. It ensures that any communication is precise.

So for coordination, in the very best case, an entire group of people already know and understand the definitions of the terms that they are using to communicate. Then the information is passed around correctly.

Often at the heart of many conflicts is a misunderstanding of one or more of the underlying definitions. Two people will argue with each other because their definitions are not aligned. Clearing up those definitions will usually dissipate the issues.

Besides accidental disagreements, we also see people purposely mess with definitions. They stretch them in order to twist out their “logic” to press some personal agenda. It is a popular tactic in politics. It is fueled by intentionally vague definitions that are constantly in motion. By now many of these definitions are entirely nonsensical.

A leading indicator of any questionable argument is someone initially starting it by changing some of the known definitions. They may do this to clarify the terminology, which can be good, but they also may be trying to make it even cloudier, which is definitely not. It is difficult to discern between those two situations.

Usually, the difference is that people who want clarity things will tighten their definitions, so they’ll reduce the scope or boundaries. People who are attempting to misuse definitions will shift them around or weaken the definitions to include more stuff. They get less precise.

With a set of broken definitions, you can reconnect them together in any way you want to pretend to prove basically anything. If people don’t pick up the deception, they can be left believing that some falsehood is true. So, it’s a powerful weapon wielded by unsavory people.

This is why it is so important to be tight and consistent with definitions and to fully understand them. It’s why most introductory subject courses are basically just endless definitions. Definitions are the weak link in our ability to communicate. Bad ones can masquerade as primitives in “logic” but given they are broken, any derived conclusions are meaningless. To communicate or even extend our knowledge we need a strong base of definitions. It’s not pedantic, it is precise; there is a difference.