Blurry meaning

The meaning of the vast majority of statements is apparent through context, body language, word choice and intonation. However, when all these cues fail (or are unavailable) we have to rely on our ability to interpret. Normally we do not do this, but rather read over the words without thinking about their meaning. Interpretation requires effort, patience and re-reading (or re-listening). Effort is necessary to work backwards through the thoughts that produced the statement. Patience is required for the slow collection of the various ideas the comprise the statement. And re-reading is essential because it enables us to hold the statement in consciousness long enough to decipher it. Meaning, as the result of interpretation, feels similar to viewing an image as it moves slowly from blurry to clear.

Name change

The only thing that gives us the sense that we are the same person over our lifetime is language - our names. We look different over time, we think differently, we act differently, we have different tastes. If we were to change our names over our lives, let's say upon major life events, then our ever-changing identity could be more consistent with our ever-changing experience.

Information density

The conventional idea in nonfiction writing, I think, is that a word should have one referent, a sentence should have one idea and a paragraph should have one topic. A collection of paragraphs, i.e. an essay, article or chapter, should have one theme, and a collection of chapters, i.e. a book, should have one subject. The problem with this conventional notion is the varying density of the ideas. A paragraph-sized idea to one writer is a book-length idea to a different one. Because there is no accepted standard of information density, it varies greatly from author to author. This comes at a steep cost to readers who have to determine what information is valuable and what is not.