by Tamien » Fri Apr 04, 2014 9:36 pm
Probably the simplest way to explain it, for these purposes, would be to say "does the alethiometer communicate like a human would, given the restrictions 'must tell the truth' and 'can only use these symbols'"?
Translating what you said into psycholinguistics jargon:
* the alethiometer always obeys the maxim of quality, because it always says what it believes to be true and it always has perfect evidence for what it believes.
* the alethiometer does audience design; it takes into account what knowledge it (perfectly) knows its collocutor has
* the alethiometer can use humor, but only does so when it (justifiedly) believes that its collocutor will be able to 'get the joke'
* the alethiometer (due to its limited lexicon) cannot easily convey meaning its collocutor doesn't already have a lemma for - it would have a hard time teaching someone a new word or idea
* the alethiometer will do its best to make itself understood
* the alethiometer has trouble with number (probably because the symbols it's allowed don't contain numbers or even a plural morpheme?)
You've pretty much answered the question, albeit indirectly, by saying "it's not a perfect communicator...it did the best it could". However, for the sake of completeness:
* Maxim of Quality - the alethiometer always says true things, so this is a given
* Maxim of Quantity - does the alethiometer always give precisely the amount of information it thinks will be most useful, or does it sometimes prevaricate, or withhold information?
* Maxim of Relation - does the alethiometer give an answer that is relevant to the question it's asked?
* Maxim of Manner - the alethiometer is inherently limited in terms of how unambiguous its answers can be, but does it always give information in an orderly fashion, or does it jumble symbols sometimes?
* Cooperative Principle - does the alethiometer take into account its collocutor's ideas of what communication is (which for humans typically includes the above maxims), and accommodate their expectations as best it can? does it only break those rules in predictable, informative ways?
Basically, the alethiometer COULD just be an uncommunicative font of truth that produces a true output when asked a question, but doesn't always answer the question it was asked, doesn't give its symbols in any sensible order, is likely to be overly specific or overly vague or to take forever to get to the point, takes no care to use its symbols in a way the person interacting with it is likely to be able to understand, etc. But it's not. The alethiometer is a much more cooperative communicator than it strictly needs to be - it seems to actively try to be understood. So what I was trying to ask is whether that is the case, and if it is the case, does it try like a human would try, or is it weird in some way?