Hi all,
Just come up for air after a week in the bureaucratic equivalent of Heart of Darkness, or was it The Castle? Anyway, a couple of thoughts on abduction and closure:
1. Another useful way of thinking about the origins of abduction might be as an intellectualised and consciously articulated version of what behaviourists call operant conditioning. If this were so, then relatively simple organisms might be regarded as practicing abduction.
2. Back in an earlier work (1986) in which I focused on the nature of meaning, I wrote the following:
> [A]llow me to caution you about the nature of understanding. Understanding is achieved when, for a moment, there are no more questions to ask. Understanding is the dead spot in our struggle for meaning; it is the momentary pause, the stillness before incomprehension continues; it is the brief relief from doubt that is the norm. Thus understanding is a temporary state of closure. When we understand something we are effectively saying there is no more to ask, no more to question, all is revealed. But of course 'all' is never revealed and the sensation of certainty always passes. (Sless 1986 p i)*
I dont have the time to spend elaborating or discussing these ideas at the moment, but I thought the might be useful to these unfolding (or entangled) threads
* Sless D (1986)
In Search of Semiotics,
Barnes & Noble Books
Best wishes to all from a hot and steamy Melbourne, where bureaucracy never sleeps.
David
--
blog: http://communication.org.au/blog/
web: http://communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO Communication Research Institute
helping people communicate with people
Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
Phone: +61 (0)3 9005 5903
Skype: davidsless
60 Park Street Fitzroy North Melbourne Australia 3068
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