"This procedure occurs in the decoding of known linguistic terms as well, when one is uncertain about what language they belong to. When someone tells me /cane!/ in an excited voice, in order to understand whether it is a Latin imperative («sing!») or an Italian holophrastic indexical proposition («dog!»), I must hypothesize a language as a frame of reference." page 40, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, Umberto Eco, Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1984.
(it should be noted that blogger does not like the symbols for absolute value. it thinks i'm trying to 'tell' it something. i find this beautiful. and fitting.)
Abduction - very quickly explained is the process of observing a Result and determining, finding or guessing the Rule that leads to the Result. In order to get to something like a Rule, Cases in which the Result can be verified must be thought of or studied. Well, that's not entirely true - Copernicus couldn't actually study the truth of the heliocentric universe outside of theory and "admirable symmetry (p 42)."
There is a huge amount for me to be excited about here, not least of which is that this is the first thing he's talked about in the whole book that has managed to make sense in the long term (i.e. after I closed the book).
Because it relates to how people learn each other, not specifically and I am sure that I'm taking this fashion for interdisciplinary studies far too far with this amateurish thought play, but isn't that part of learning too? If I have always been a professional then when have ever learned? I can't even imagine how dull a life lived without learning could be. It's better than drugs, kids. And the high lasts. And, yes, it is a high. Intellectuals: stoners without pot.
I feel less presumptuous than I could given that Eco uses examples of nonlinguistic signs to discuss an activity that he seems to regard as important to the understanding of language as method of communication. Friendship falls under the category of nonlinguistic, I believe.
I believe that friendship is a kind of relationship that is strongest when people pay attention to each other in reasonable moderation. No Stalky McStalkington. Also, none of that I Define Me As You nonsense. Neither of those approaches expresses affection, respect or love. I would even argue that those tendencies, along with other really extraordinarily bad relationship habits (many of which I've had) are not about the loved one but about the lover. There are at least two people in every relationship - if both are not involved, then there is no relationship.
I've been extremely fortunate in friendship to know people who are fully involved in their own lives, and so all of the learning of each other and the paying attention has happened over a long period of time. I can't think of a friendship in my recent past that has involved more than the most fundamental and basic explanation of personal codes and motivations. In other words: the work of putting a Rule to a Result has been slow and easy and occasionally even conversational and allowed conversants to learn as much about each other as we did about ourselves. Double Win Fudge, baby!
What always throws me for a loop is the dating version of that process: the assumptions that people make (informed or delusional (which are really the same thing (but anyway))) in order to define the person sitting across from or next to them. (What the hell is it about romance that makes assholes out of people? I'm not comfortable with the roses & rainbows version of romance and that was problematic for me for about, oh, a month this summer. Only, I'm really good at ice cream and long walks and sitting on the porch and wandering living conversations and if that isn't what connects your life to someone else's in the best possible ways, I pick no.)
When you say something about a decision you've made in the past, and someone then asks you what you would do in a totally different but somehow related situation and files that answer away in the third layer of Things Known About You? That's abduction - trying to find a Rule that fits your Result.
It's completely natural, and not a bad way to learn people. Unless. There are Rules that govern the behavior of people who fall into different categories, and all of those categories are associated with a specific set of personality traits. Recognizing what category defines a person most closely is part of how we as people, as humans, decide with whom to make friends, or who to pick up at the bar. Until you are outside of that bar or you meet someone whose life does not run according to familiar routines and suddenly those Rules and categories are meaningless and, in some cases demeaning. They become stereotypes and labels rather than heuristic devices.
Raise your hand if you have ever decided to just stop explaining yourself because it never sinks in anyway. Because it is impossible to avoid breaking someone's carefully constructed model of the world when you have to explain that much. And that's not usually fun to be around.
I'm over it by now, and have discovered a willingness to leave a conversation without rancor when necessary. I'm also lazy and prefer to use my energy according to my designs.
The people I feel the most for are the ones who are the poster children for Category, the ones whose behavior always fits the Rules. According to the 2 dice square thing that we were taught in school - those people are much rarer than the anomalies like us. (think about it - how unique is everyone that you know? how 'crazy' is your family? how many people do you know who are the only people you know who would say that thing or make that cake or put that spin on a thing? - we are not so unique, we individuals) What about someone who is entirely determined is going to elicit specific love and appreciation? Really - it's easier to love a weirdo than you might think.
There is something kind of lovely about not testing people's personalities in order to verify what I think of them. It is even lovelier to have befriended people who think of me what they will without having to test me (or each other) to validate their opinions.
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