When you speak to a person, it's a low bandwidth transfer. It doesn't really tell you how they feel or all the detail of what they mean. As you interact with people over time, you build up a model of them. That model runs in YOUR brain. Part of *them* is actually running in *you*. As they speak that fires the model and its the model that lets you understand them from all the context, not the few words they speak. As they grow old, they tire, they speak less, and your model of them fills in more of the detail. They fade, the model of them in you grows. Until they pass, and then it's all model and no dad. He's still there, just not running on its main core. I'm sure many people notice that as they grow older, they sound like their dads, but its also part that the model of their dad becomes more like them. It's a living model, not a static snapshot. You see, you are your dad. The best model you can make is to remember him, run that model, it's far more than words, it's smiles and confusion, and microcues and anger, and pride, etc etc.. the words to someone else do not trigger those memory. They're just words. I had a daughter recently, I showed her to my dad, he said "it has a face only a mother could love" with a big smile on his face. But he's just an ashes in an urn, that's just the bit of him that runs in me. https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10885031&cid=54844001