Warming Up - Exercise 16

Context is Everything

       What we see, hear, and understand is shaped by contest.  To illustrate, here’s a story of how what we understand serves as context.

       Many years ago, before cell phones, Google earth, and GPS, I was at an event in Berkeley, California, with my friend Doug who introduced me to one of his high school friends, Paul. After the introduction, Doug asked if anything interesting had happened recently. Paul said yeah, something very interesting had happened the other day. Because Paul had to go to San Francisco, he called his sister to ask for her help to find a parking spot. His sister said she would try.  After a minute – just enough time for his sister to go to the window and look out – she told Paul she thought she had found a spot for him three spaces up from the corner of California and Van Ness. She said the spot was in front of a car that was either red or white, she couldn’t be sure about the color. So Paul drove from Berkeley to San Francisco where he found a spot just where his sister had told him to look. Behind it was a small white car with enormous red tail lights.  My friend Doug then looked over at Paul and said “Wow! That IS interesting.”

       I, on the other hand, sat there, wondering what my friend Doug has been smoking. The two of them kept on talking until I just couldn’t stand it. I finally blurted out, “What was so interesting about that story?” Doug replied, “Paul’s sister lives in San Jose. She has ESP.”

       Context is everything. What we see is shaped by context. Consider the Ebbinghaus Illusion to the right where the size of the circles around the central circles disguise the fact that both central circles are exactly the same size.

       Context is everything.  What we hear depends on context.

       A few years ago in Germany, my downstairs neighbor Tim had an African grey parrot. These birds live to be very old, and they are also very smart. They are particularly good at mimicking sounds. Tim’s bird, Francis, was no exception.  Francis was particularly adept at mimicking sounds that resulted in all eyes turning to face him. Such as at a dinner party when Francis would be left on his perch in the living room while Tim and his guests sat in the adjoining dining room – close enough for Francis to see us, but far enough away that all conversation was contained among the humans. Francis could imitate the conversation – using nonsense sounds to mimic the rising and falling intonation patterns of sentences. So we would occasionally hear him vocalizing in this way, as though he thought he could join into our conversation. But when the guests didn’t turn his way, Francis would mimic language in a manner more likely to get everyone’s attention: he spoke a string of foul-mouthed words that caused even the most sophisticated among us to look up.

       One time, Tim he had had enough of Francis’ bad language. Leaving his guests at the table, Tim took Francis into the kitchen. We heard Tim say “Bad bird” a couple of times, after which Tim returned, put Francis back onto his perch and rejoined us at the table.  Surprisingly, Francis remained quiet the rest of the evening.

       I finally had to ask Tim what he had done and why it had resulted in Francis’s change in behavior. Tim said it was simple. One day when he was putting groceries away, Francis was in the kitchen with him and to get Tim’s attention, Francis began chewing packages on the counter. Tim happened to have a frozen turkey in his hands at the time. He turned to Francis and said “Bad bird,” while he opened the freezer to put the turkey away.  Tim noticed that Francis stopped picking at the carton and became very quiet. Since then, Tim could silence Francis by bringing him into the kitchen, opening the freezer door, and say “Bad bird” first to the turkey, and then to Francis. Francis got the message.

     Context is Everything. What we see, hear, understand, and therefore know, is shaped by context. Now, when I think I see, hear, or understand something worth condemning, I make sure I understand the context before acting on that conclusion.