ThirstyFish

What is his body language is saying? Posture, gesture, facial expressions, eye movements and other non-verbal signals are usually sent and interpreted subconsciously, yet researchers claim that somewhere between 60 to 90% of communication is non-verbal. "Reading" body language is the process of interpreting the attitude or the state of mind of a person. How accurately can we "read" someones body language? Although this question has attracted the interest of many; fortune-tellers, poker players, investigators, interrogators and researchers, to date there has been no scientifically meaningful way to measure it.

Once in a while you will see a body-language expert interpret the gestures of a public figure or a politician on television. Sometimes they'll get it right, and at other times they'll end up being way off. It is disturbing to me that these people will even be allowed to be on news programs. Before we attempt to "read" the next politicians body language, we may be better of reading what he has written, listening to what he is saying and fact-checking what he has spoken. Some politician looking more presidential than another is an absurd construct.

Many of the recent posts in these pages deal with the idea that "people are not moved by facts or reason, but by emotions". Although, this in itself is not such a horrible thing, it does make us more vulnerable to exploitation and results in bad judgement. Emotions are lazy; we can "feel" any way we want to feel about something without ever having to put the effort to understand the underlying facts or the circumstances of it.

While babbling on about these ideas a few days ago, a friend of mine suggested that I was actually idealizing a Vulcan; The Mr. Spock of Star Trek. Vulcans after all, although exceptionally emotional, think past emotional influence by living lives of rigid emotional self-control through meditative techniques and training of mental discipline.

Song of the Day: Another Night In - Tindersticks (1997)