h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm only thinking

Posted Sep 5, 2002

I tend to think vaguely, in generalities. I mean what I say, but I often don't mean exactly what I say. I have had many philosophical arguments where I have made a statement, and within the first minute or two have refined that statement down to a more specific one. "Well, I didn't mean that. What I really meant was..."

This is perhaps not the best quality for a writer. I tend to spend an excrutiatingly long time on my work, because I want to make sure that every word is right.

Likewise, then, I tend to try to interpret what other people say, to divine any motivations or meanings which might not be apparently obvious.

My girlfriend (er, ex-girlfriend) Marcella tends to speak very literally and precisely; or, as she puts it, "to speak the English language as I was taught it". I think it has less to do with how she was taught the language as how she thinks. She thinks very literally. Very few statements she makes have any meaning beyond the literal meaning of what she says, and she often gets upset when I try to interpret what she says as having a deeper meaning.

I would say that since she talks about her ex-boyfriends she must therefore think about her ex-boyfriends, and would say that this is a reasonable assumption, but she insists that this is not the case (both on the thinking about her exes and on the reasonable assumption).

Recently we had a philosophical argument, in which I basically made the case that the human body operates in the same manner as a machine, and she got on me for what I originally said (which is "human bodies are machines"), and then criticised me for saying that human bodies are like machines, when in fact I should have said that machines are like human bodies, since the humans made them.

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Latest reply: Sep 5, 2002