Replying to LO27617 --
Dear Organlearners,
Hanching Chung <demingtw@ms17.hinet.net> writes:
>What is the difference between Synectics
>and 'abduction'?
Greetings dear Hanching,
Thank you very much for this is a important question which concerns
creativity and learning in an encompassing sense.
The word "abduction" comes from Latin "ab-"=from and "duco"=to_lead. It
has two meanings: common and technical. Its common meaning is "to take
away wrongfully", i.e., kidnap. But its technical meaning is due to
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Here it is an extension of the
concepts of deduction and induction in logic.
Deduction is a very old concept stemming from the days of the Greeks. The
central idea in deduction is how to infer a specific truth from a general
truth. The French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
considered deduction to be the holy grail of truthful thinking. But
already Francis Bacon (1661-1626) had some reservations on deductive
thinking. How do we come in the first place to general truths? Surely, we
cannot rely on antiquity to supply us with all general truths. Thus he
proposed the idea of induction, namely how to infer from a sequence of
specific truths a general truth.
Soon afterwards, based on Keppler's observations and deductions in
astronomy, Newton (1642-1727) formulated the general law of gravitation.
>From this general law accurate predictions on the motions of celestial
bodies could be made. This seemed to vindicate Descartes' idea of
deduction.
Sadly, few people were aware of a whole course of thinking which began
with Copernicus' paradign shift from geocentric to heliocentric thinking.
This enabled Keppler to infer from his astronomical observations certain
geometrical patterns in the motion of celestial bodies. It is these
geometrical patterns from which Newton deduced his general law of
gravitation.
This whole course of thinking involves more than Keppler's induction and
Newton's deduction. It begins with Copernicus' novel idea that the sun and
not the earth is the centre of our solar system. How can we extend this
induction and deduction to include also Copernicus' novel idea which
sparked it all? Thus began the complex elucidation of what became known as
the Scientific Method (SM).
One of the main models for the SM was the
Hypothetico-Deductive Model (HDM). It gets stated in many
ways. The follwing is typical:
. Scientific knowledge comes from testing theories
. by logically deducing hypotheses from them, using
. experiment and careful observation to test the
. hypotheses, and revising theories that lead to
. incorrect predictions.
But should we question the HDM, the weakness in it is that it does not
tell us where theories come from in the first place. Goethe was deeply
aware of this weakness. Furthermore, he was extremely aware that the ideas
which emerge within the scientist as well as their weaving into a theory
is no different to the emergence of ideas within the artist as well as
their weaving into a work of art. For Goethe experiences with the sensory
organs gave rise to these ideas in the first place.
Few were willing to explore Goethe's insights. The reason is that they
were not willing to abandon disciplinary thinking caused by reductionism.
One exception is Peirce who was competent in logic, mathematics and
different branches of science such as astronomy, physics, chemistry,
geology and meteorology. Because of exploring more than one discipline
like Goethe, Peirce also made a distinction between truth and reality.
Whereas truth for Goethe is the relationship between the "world-within"
and the "world-without" for any individual person, truth for Peirce is the
understanding of reality through a self-corrective inquiry process by the
whole intellectual community across time.
For Peirce abduction is the firstness (existence, actuality); deduction,
the secondness (possibility, potentiality); and induction, the thirdness
(generality, continuity). Abduction generates new ideas or hypotheses,
deduction evaluates the hypotheses and induction justifies the hypothesis
with additional empirical data. Thus Peirce has contributed much the
modern conception of the Scientific Method with its three phases:-
Observation, Speculation and Falsification. The zeroth/fourth phase
Introspection binds these three phases into an endless cycle.
For Peirce abduction is not hasty judgment on data, but a proper
categorization of the semiotic values of data. After exploring hundreds of
creatively emerging ideas or hypotheses which emerged from data, he
proposed ten categories which had been made use of. They are: 1) Open
Iconic Tone; 2) Open Iconic Token; 3) Open Iconic Type; 4) Open Indexical
Token; 5) Open Indexical Type; 6) Open Symbolic Type; 7) Singular
Indexical Token; 8) Singular Indexical Type; 9) Singular Symbolic Type;
and 10) Formal Symbolic Type.
Now, is there any relationship between these ten categories of Peirce's
abduction and Gordon's creating by searching for analogies? Yes. I suspect
that should Peirce and Gordon compare their understandings, Gordon might
have agreed that there are ten categories of analogies. On the other hand,
Peirce might have agreed that each category is nothing but in general an
anology between the data and a pattern. Should we had Goethe also in this
comparison of insights, both Peirce and Gordon might have agreed that
Goethe's "Urphaenomen" (archetypes) are the same thing as these ten
categories enabling analogies (correspondences) to be made.
Obviously, we cannot get the three of them together to make such
comparisons of their own understandings. Thus we will have to try
understand as best as possible how each thought and then compare it with
our own understandings. I think that through all this work we may then
become aware of a form sensitive "one-to-many-mapping". The "urphaenomen"
of Goethe, the semiotic categories of Peirce and the analogies of Gordon
compel us to think of form="morphe" unfolding in a manifold of patterns.
To complicate matters, we now also have to think of the 7Es (seven
essentialities of creativity) as another way to unfold form in seven
distinctive patterns.
Most interesting is the fact that Goethe, Peirce and Gordon were very
sensitive to also a tension necessary to help these ideas emerge. Goethe,
for example, explained this tension as resulting between two extremes of
the same thing. Peirce explained it as the tension between objectivity
(reality) and subjectivity (truth). Gordon told how this tension can be
obtained by searching for a paradox (a pattern with an conflict in it)
within the data. This paradox causes the tension. By then finding a
correspondence between the paradox and a known anology devoid of a
conflict, this tension is relieved while an idea coming from the analogy
emerges. Barry Mallis can tell us much more through personal aquintance
how Bill Gordon made use of unique activities ("becomings") related to the
structure ("being") of the analogy.
Hanching, for me self there is implicitly no marked difference between
Peirce's abduction and Gordon's synectics or even Goethe's metamorphosis.
Differences comes to light in the way we make the implicit explicit.
Consider, for example a fourth contender, namely Irreversible
Self-Organisation (ISO) of Ilya Prigogine.
Goethe, Peirce and Gordon lived before the era of ISO. ISO involves
"entropy production" which tells us how the ridge of chaos can be reached
by means of increasing entropic force-flux pairs. It is here at the ridge
of chaos where energy as content has to change its form with the
additional entropy expressing the newer form. It is at this ridge where
the bifurcation happens. In the human mind this bifurcation is either the
birth of a noble thought richer in form or the recapitulation once again
of some past fallacy with some deficiency in form.
Whether we use the "Urphaneomen" of Goethe, the semiotic categories of
Peirce, the anologies of Gordon or the 7Es to guide us in giving form to
whatever entropy has been created will depend on which of these systems we
have an affinity to. But one thing we should always try to bear in mind --
evolution is content with form which evolves from the less complex to the
more complex. It is not content which evolve from zero form to some form,
except perhaps once in the beginning at the Big Bang.
The more we become conscious how form changes from past to future, the
more our creativity and learning will benefit from this awareness.
Likewise, the easier will it become for OOs (Ordinary Organisations) to
transform into LOs (Learning Organisations).
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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