The secrets of body laungauge, on the history channel.

Post Reply New Topic

Being aware that people are crazy and that they imagine stuff is useful to a point. But the whole focus is wrong. In the end, the point should not be "this is true," but "this is what crazy people believe, so be careful."

We have language. We have words that really mean something. If you have something to say, you can put it into words. We have rules and laws that have been consciously formed and agreed upon, by concensus or by force. If you missed that memo, there's always someone who will be happy to give you a reminder or an update, in terms that are clear and unambiguous. We have other signs that have been assigned a formal meaning that you can put into real words and talk about so that everyone agrees and understands. A uniform means something that is easy to explain and is not a matter of opinion. A locked door is not a clue, it is a statement. If you're not sure what it means, you can ask. A job description is what it is. If you are not sure about any detail, you can ask. If you are dealing with reasonable people, you will get a reasonable answer.

In an on-going relationship, you develop understandings over time. With reasonable people, it gets better. With psychotic people, they play around, change the rules and assign insane meanings to things because they intend to create problems. It's an excuse. It's a lie.

The whole idea behind making body language into a science is self-contradictory. It is an attempt to codify psychotic hallucinations and claim that "everyone knows" something that everyone certainly, obviously does not know. It's all primal and undefined, and imagining that communication has occurred is simply psychotic.

It's just a sophistocated way of saying, "I hit him because he was ugly."

Language is really awkward, feeling, word, inappropriate as a form of expression for some things and for some people and just all the wrong shape for true expression and authenticity.

I can't make myself understood in anything besides basic needs and all, because people keep saying 'I didn't understand that' or just misinterpreting me and thinking I wanted to say something different. Talking is an effort, because people have thoughts about what every word means, because it actually is a physical and mental effort for me to do it according to grammatical rules and according to what (sometimes limited) knowledge I have of what people think words should mean (which is often contrary to how I understand words).

If we left away that cultural code of langauge, I think it would help some already. At least I wouldn't get in trouble so much, people not being mad all the time because in their opinion by my mere choice of words or word arrangement I sound rude, annoying, insulting, nonsensical, whatever.

And then there's the whole mess with speaking, finding words, my mouth and vocal chords working whenever I want them too.

In essence, language to me feels like trying to put a cuboid kids' building block through a round hole.

And like a big bad lie and joke on me by whatever person thought it was cool to invent language. (Edit: I am aware of that whoever did invent it didn't mean to humour me.)



Same as with language from my perspective though.

I watched it last night, and thought it was very interesting. It's amazing what you call tell by one's facial expressions, no matter how slight they may be.

I watched a little of it last night... If I need to know all that just to communicate with someone, I'll just stay solitary

It did seem to me as though they were taking alot more out of the situation then I saw. They showed people who said like 10 words then pulled paragraphs worth of meaning out of it.

Do normal people really pull that much information out of 10 words? Because when I say words I just mean those words, I dont try to synchronize my body language with it. I wonder what meaning people pull out of my words that I dont mean...

Man alive! That "Secrets of Body Language" told McCain how Obama was being successful. McCain changed his tactics accordingly and won the debate. The History channel cancelled the Saturday showing. I guess they realized it would wreck Obama to show it again!

You can buy this terrific video on DVD but you can't have it until after the election. Liberals do stick together.

I just watched this last night. Found some of the information to be useful. However, when it comes to real life situations I am in, this does nothing to help me out.

On a side note, when I "watch" John McCain, I see some of Johnny Carson's mannerisms. That's just weird.

As a 60-year old, I can tell you that studying body language has been important for figuring out people and figuring out how to get my ideas across. Now we can't do the empathy thing so we can't act Normal perfectly. But even if people will cut us slack for having Aspergers, they still would want us to think & act like them as much as we can.

A good book on it is: "The Power of Body Language" by Tonya Reiman

Haven't got the channel here, but it's an interesting topic.

Facial expressions seem real enough to me, I've taken to making a little more eye contact with people recently, when it feels right, though I don't see a lot consciously yet, too busy making sure I'm not staring. But it's supposed to happen unconsciously, isn't it?

I've noticed the turning away of heads, and whether or not somebody's facing me, I remember seeing loads of photos of human signals, a long time ago, but I haven't consciously noticed many of them in real life. I'm in a very multicultural environment for a lot of the time, which helps to make me look a little more ordinary, but also increases my uncertainty over interpreting any incoming signals. It's a vague area for me.