Rule of Communication
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Index Entry
Rule of Communication:
"At this time I developed a thought which has been very powerful in my theory of communication ever since. I said, 'I don't care if I am not understood as long as I am not misunderstood. For if I am misunderstood the captain of a ship may do the wrong thing with fatal consequences, but if he does not understand me, he queries the message and you give it to him again until he gets it right.' This principle became absolutely fundamental in my life from then on."
Citations
- RBF to Alden Hatch in "RBF: At Home in the Universe," p.65. From Hatch's 1972 tape recapitualting RBF formulation of 1918.
