Not exactly a new though, pretty sure Olato covered this 1000 years ago
this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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I’m assuming that when you say “though” you mean “thought”, and when you say “Olato” you mean “Plato”, and when you say “1000” you mean “2400”, and when you say “covered this” you mean “proposed that we all subconsciously share knowledge of a realm of pure, unmediated ideas which we learned in a previous life”... but of course you might mean something else entirely, and I’d be none the wiser.
Yea, thank you, neither my memory nor my fingers were working.
I'll leave it as-is so people will know what you're talking about.
I wasn’t trying to correct you — just demonstrating OP’s point about the assumptions we have to make before we can pretend to understand each other.
Oh, but your corrections were perfect, and a great example!
What?
Ah yes, the days of IRC chat.
Zhuangzhi wrote about it well over 2000 years ago.
What do you suppose it implies?
All language is a fundamentally incomprehensible illusion of communication, and people have thought that for a while.
Makes for some banger songs though.
All language is not created equal. There is language with vast context (irl, face to face, between acquaintances, in a shared ultrarich physical environment) and language with minimal context (social media). That's a big important difference.
For the record, I do agree. It's worth occasionally thinking about the limits of communication, but it is the foundational technology of civilization.
What do you suppose it implies? What signs might we expect?
You should read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, it's basically this but with cool cyberpunk shit and more mindfuckery.
Alright thanks
Meaning is not carried by the words, it’s carried by your mind.
I disagree. Meaning is carried by words. That's what words are for. And you can use them to clarify their meaning in fine detail.
Misunderstandings happen quite frequently. Especially between neurodivergent people and neurotypical people. Now imagine how many misunderstandings we don't know about
Yeah, words have meaning to the person saying them, but aren't guaranteed to have the same for the receiver.
Its why we try so hard to share a reality and define things.
And we have faith that we are on the same side of understanding.
Its also why the world is fucked up right now, no faith, we need to know, and we quiz and push to narrow our world to just those we can be sure of.
Do you really think its worth it to only talk to yourself? Or do you figure out how to share how you feel and what you see in the world with others?
No, we are communicating. People can coordinate their actions to achieve things that are impossible for an individual. We obviously don't have perfect shared understanding, and miscommunications are not uncommon (as others have already pointed out) but we can exchange enough information to do useful things.
Also, we can make jokes. The fact that it's possible to craft a joke and make someone laugh by setting up and intentionally subverting expectations through language is pretty good evidence that we have shared understanding and similar processing.
Yeah, without telepathy we're all just guessing 😂
With a bit of careful effort we can improve the process.
In fields where communication matters more we have several methods for that.
Very true!