From: LouisFors <LouisFors@aol.com>
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Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 15:14:12 EST
To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
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Subject: Re: Is it possible to know fully the *intent* of an author?
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In the context of exploring what one can know about intent, Jinpeng wrote:

> Language is used in two-way communication and
>  one-way communication. In the former, the speaker's intention can be
>  verified while in the latter it cannot.

I suspect we could agree on a modification of the above in the following
fashion.
Even in face-to-face human communication, full knowledge of intent is
difficult to know unless we give a very narrow definition to the word
*intent*.  If I make a comment to you, I am not necessarily aware of all of
the meta signals that I throw off. Counselors of various kinds perform useful
services in helping one "hear" oneself, and thus approach a better
understanding of intent-behind-intent-behind-intent, etc.  And we never reach
a perfect understanding of our intentions, whatever that mean.  I sometimes
don't even know what *intent* means.

Cheers,

Louis Forsdale