Abduction

              ABDUCTIVE MULTILOGUING

    THE SEMIOTIC DYNAMICS OF NAVIGATING THE NET

                     Gary Shank
            Northern Illinois University
                    (P30GDS1@NIU)

                      Abstract

This paper argues that Net communication is neither oral nor
written, but semiotic.  In order to support this claim, the article
seeks to define and apply the ideas of abductive reasoning and the
concept of multiloguing as a way to understand the semiotic
nature of Net communication.  Implications of Net communication
are explored from this perspective.  In addition, the article lists
the most explicitly semiotic discussion lists and describes each
briefly.  Finally, the paper argues that a conscious understanding
of abductive multiloguing will help us both navigate the Net and
evolve a style of scholarship appropriate for the medium.

                    Introduction

One of the challenges of working and dealing with the Net is to
understand it, and to understand how to use it in effective ways.
The Net is many things to many people.  For some, it is a way to
get in touch and chat with other teens or young adults.  For
others, it is a way to talk to experts to determine how and why a
particular damnable computer or program won't run properly.
And for a growing segment of users, it is part of their scholarly
life.  It is the virtual culture of these scholars that interests me in
this paper, and it is this group I hope to serve.  I would like to
further that project by talking with and about some of the key
ideas of  semiotics, and showing how semiotics and the Net are
inextricably linked.  In order to do that, I need to establish a bit of
context.

One of the most important projects of this century has been
the effort to grasp the nature of language.  In the 19th century,
the science of linguistics was concerned with trying to find the
historical roots of all modern languages and dialects.  Saussure
(1959) led the move away from this historical consideration by
looking at language as a system of meanings where those
meanings are arbitrarily coded by words and more systematically
coded by networks of meanings.  Jakobson (1957) and Hjelmslev
(1963) developed systems of phonological and semantic
oppositions that helped chart and codify the networks of
meanings first described by Saussure.  Eco (1984) extended the
project of Hjelmslev to include communication in general (cf.
Fiske, 1982; for a summary and sampling of some of the crucial
trends and directions in the links between linguistics and
communication theory).  Lakoff & Johnson (1980) were able to
bring our understanding of language and our basic modes of
thinking together in their work on metaphor and thinking,
building on the psychological work on communication and
thinking of Vygotsky (1962) and Bakhtin (1981).

At the same time that linguistics was expanding into its new
realms, contemporary philosophers were focused on investigating
the nature of meaning.  Some, like Heidegger (cf.  Guignon, 1992)
and Goodman (1978) explored the relation of language and
meaning.  Others attempted to work out a pragmatic model of
meaning (cf. Rorty, 1982; Trimbur & Holt, 1992; Pepper, 1942;
Murphy, 1990).  Finally, others attempted to work out a
postmodern theory of meaning that would allow us to extend and
push against the models of meaning created by the successors of
Saussure (cf. Johnson, 1992; Feyerabend, 1975 Lyotard, 1979;
Baudrillard, 1988).

These two projects have now pervaded all scholarly fields.
Meaning and language have been the focal concerns of inquiry in
such areas as linguistics, the social sciences, and even the
physical sciences.  In fact, if we look at the trends listed above in
a whimsical fashion, we could even say (with tongue planted firmly
in cheek) that the intellectual preoccupation of  20th century
linguists and philosophers has been to determine exactly how to
"talk ourselves clear".

In the spirit of that project, I would like to try to "talk myself
clear" about the following;  1) the use of semiotic theory to
enhance our understanding of the Net, and  2) documenting
current scholarly activity about semiotics on the Net.

             The Nature of Multiloguing

As we said earlier, this is the century of language.  In line with
that observation, we can further say that the paragon of language-
in-use is the conversation.  Linguists and philosophers, from Plato
to Saussure, have insisted that the conversation, or language-in-
use as speaking, is prior to and privileged when compared to
other modes of communication (cf. Fiske, 1982; Saussure, 1959).
Therefore, we should expect models of conversation to be
incorporated in basic communication models.  And this is what
we indeed do find.

For instance, in Roman Jakobson's version of communication
(Jakobson, 1957), we find that any act of communication consists
of a sender, a receiver, and a message.  The message travels along
some medium, or more precisely, is conveyed by the medium
from the sender to the receiver.

There are three basic types of conversation that can be
described using the Jakobson model.  First of all, there is the
monologue.  This is where there is only one sender, and one or
multiple receivers who listen passively to the message of the
sender.  In academic settings, the lecture is the ideal model of
the monologue.  The lecture has its origins, by the way, in the
medieval scriptorium, where the master read manuscripts to
students who then copied the manuscript for their own use.
Therefore, it was essential that the receivers be passive in this
circumstance, in order that they could hear properly.

The second type of conversation is the dialogue.  In the
dialogue, the sender and receiver take turns.  This is the basic
model of all dyadic oral communication.

The third and final type of conversation is the discussion.  In
the discussion, we have one person who starts as the sender, and
multiple receivers.  While it is important for the receivers to take
turns as senders, in the discussion the initial sender still retains
control of the conversation.  In most academic settings where the
discussion form is used, the teacher serves as the initial sender
and monitor and controller of the discussion.  The initial sender
retains his/her position of control because the conversation, as an
oral form, depends on maintaining dyadic turn-taking, even with
multiple sender-receiver combinations.

In recent times, scholars like Derrida (1976) and his followers
have challenged the idea of the conversation per se as the
privileged unit of communication.  Derrida, like Saussure before
him, argues that sign usage, more than speech, is the basis for
communication.  And, as such scholars as Baudrillard (1988) and
Barthes (1957) have shown, there is no simple translation of sign
usage to any single communication model.  Sign usage is like
speech, in that there is the sender-receiver model in many cases.
But sign usage can be like writing, where it is important to "read"
signs that are already present and not currently being produced
by a sender, and it is important to also "write" signs, by creating
sign patterns that we hope will eventually be picked up by
currently non-present receivers.  Therefore, when we are dealing
with semiotically informed models of communication, we need to
go beyond (while still including) the conversational models of
communication types.

These concerns are particularly important for those of us who
communicate via the Net.  Is Net communication like
conversation?  Quite a bit.  Messages on the Net tend to be
informal, to be phrased in conversational form, and can engender
a great deal of direct and dyadic interchange.  Is Net
communication like writing ?  Absolutely.  Messages are written
instead of spoken.  Nonverbal, gestural and articulatory cues, so
important in speech, are missing (the whole notion of emoticons,
like the famous "smiley"  ":-)"  are ways to try to introduce some
of those oral contextual features into Net communication, but
their success is limited at best).

But the linguistic models of lecture, dialogue, discussion, and
even text (the written model of communication) do not capture
the dynamics of sign usage that characterizes Net communication.
A new linguistic model is needed.  Let me briefly suggest a model
of sign communication that might describe Net communication.  I
call it the multilogue.

In the multilogue, we have a number of players.  We have the
starter, or the initial sender, who starts the "thread" (a well-
established Net term, by the way).  Once a thread has been started
though, it is  no longer under sender control.  This is because the
mechanics of Net response do not require turn taking.  From the
oral side, it is as if everyone who is interested in talking can all
jump in at once, but still their individual voices can be clearly
heard.  From the written side, it is as if someone had started
writing a piece, but before he/she gets too far, people are there
magically in print to add to, correct, challenge, or extend the
piece.  Therefore, what we have is a written quasi-discussion that
has the potential to use the strengths of each form.  Since the
"feel" of Net communication is still oral, I think it is best to call
this form of communication "multiloguing", to retain the link with
its oral heritage.

So far, in my  effort to "talk myself clear", I have addressed
the kind of "talk" that we do on the Net.  Now, what about the
notion of being "clear"?

               Abduction and Meaning

Meaning is the key challenge of any scholarly activity.  If we
cannot determine what we mean, then we are nowhere.  I want to
argue that meaning has evolved in the scholarly world, and that
the virtual community is poised at the brink of another evolution
of meaning, one that is critically informed by semiotic ideas.

For those readers who are semiotically sophisticated, I
apologize in advance for the elementary and somewhat imprecise
discussion of meaning and signs that will follow.  But, given the
broad readership of this journal, I want to be able to get across
some fairly complex ideas to people who are intelligent and can
follow an argument, whether they have a requisite background in
semiotics or not.

The traditional academic community, prior to the scientific
revolution, equated the idea of meaning with necessity.  If
something was necessarily so, then it was by definition
meaningful.  The logical tool for discerning necessity was the
deductive syllogism.

As a brief reminder, and for later comparison purposes, let me
offer the following rather mundane deductive syllogism about my
beloved mongrel dog, Spuffy.   We know for sure and certainly, let
us say for the sake of argument, that all dogs bark.  We also know
that Spuffy is a dog.  Therefore, we can certainly and absolutely
conclude that Spuffy barks.  Deductions such as these allow us to
extend our realm of certainty both systematically and confidently.
As such, deduction is a powerful tool for extending what we
already know into what we might suspect but cannot be sure we
know.

Our traditional scholars believed that deduction was the only
valid form of reasoning.  The scientific revolution, as Peirce
(1956) pointed out, was first a revolution in logic.  Specifically,
modern science was made possible by the work of logicians
working centuries earlier, who argued for the validity of inductive
modes of reasoning.  Unlike deduction, inductive results are
probable rather than certain, but they allow us to build tentative
rules of truth from circumstances of observation.

Let me re-phrase the earlier syllogism to reflect the logic of
inductive inquiry.  Let us suppose we have reason to believe that
Spuffy is a dog.  Furthermore, we observe that Spuffy barks.  Now,
we can claim that it is probable that all dogs bark, since we have
some (limited) empirical evidence to that effect.  This form of
reasoning allows us to build rules for further inference, rather
than depending on those rules to be true by fiat alone.  In other
words, I don't have to just accept that all dogs bark.  I can turn to
the world of experience, so long as I am willing to accept that the
rules I get as a result are probable, rather than certain.

The logic that informs semiotic thinking is related to the
above forms, but nonetheless represents its own departure.
Peirce (1956) called it abduction, and insisted that it represented
the only other possible mode of reasoning that we could add to
deduction and induction.  Abduction allows us to reason from the
experience at hand, to so as to understand that experience not as
a unique phenomenon, but as a meaningful case of some
hypothetical rule or principle.

Let me illustrate abduction with one final syllogism.  Suppose I
mention Spuffy to you in a passing conversation.  You wonder what
sort of "thing" a Spuffy is.  I then tell you that Spuffy barks (or you
hear Spuffy bark from the other room).  The syllogism now looks
like this:  Spuffy barks.  Hmm, I believe that all dogs bark.  Maybe
Spuffy is a dog.  Abduction is the basic logic of reasoning to a
hypothetical meaning.  Therefore, any discipline that has the
issue of meaning as one of its central concerns will also be
concerned vitally with abductive reasoning.

One of the major areas that semiotics addresses is the issue of
meaning.  Semiotics, or the general theory of how things act as
signs, is naturally concerned with meaning (cf.  Peirce, 1956;
Eco, 1976; Deely, 1990; Percy, 1957; Barthes, 1957; Sebeok,
1986; Uexkull, 1982; for a set of definitions and descriptions of
the relation of semiotics to meaning).  This is due to the fact that
signs are generally not interesting in and of themselves, but in
terms of what they stand for.  In other words, signs are not data
to be verified as to whether they are true or not, but are instead
clues about what various things and circumstances could mean.

The logic of signs can be  further characterized as abductive
logic ( cf. Hanson, 1958; Peirce, 1956; Fann, 1970;  Kapitan,
1990; Tursman, 1987; Holland et al. 1986; for discussion on the
general nature of abduction and abductive logic).  When we look at
actual inquiry that is grounded in abductive reasoning ( eg.
Bonfantini & Proni, 1983; Caprettini, 1983; Cunningham, 1989;
Ginzberg, 1989; Sebeok & Umiker-Sebeok, 1983; Shank, 1992;
Shank, 1988; Shank, 1987), we see the emphasis on creating
hypothetical patterns of understanding that allow us to move
inquiry forward, not only theoretically and empirically, but
conceptually as well.

When we look at the task of inquiry at this point in history, it
appears that we have a refined set of methods to determine
whether or not certain claims are empirically true, but very little
guidance in determining how to understand the nature and
implications of those findings.  The value of  an abductively based
semiotic model of inquiry is that issues of meaning and
understanding come to the forefront.

I want to conclude this section by claiming that much of the
discussion that occurs on the Net is abductive in nature.  There
are a great number of postings that are strictly informational, and
other posts that ask explicitly for information.  But more often
than not, discussions tend to be directed toward the implications
of ideas, and toward casting a frame of reference to render
puzzling findings and notions as intelligible.  These activities are
clearly abductive, since they end with meaning claims, and their
purposes are to foster a shared understanding of circumstances
and phenomena.

          Abductive Multilogues on the Net

What happens when we combine the idea of abduction with
that of the multilogue?  I want to briefly argue that "abductive
multiloguing" describes the most effective and unique forms of
communication that occur among the scholarly community on the
Net.  Furthermore, this perspective of abductive multiloguing
helps define and shape the emerging virtual culture of that
community, allowing us to make some predictions about future
growth and trends.

The first thing that an abductive multiloguing perspective
predicts is that scholarship in the virtual community will continue
to be more and more interdisciplinary.

This is the case for several reasons.  First of all, discussions are
inclusive rather than exclusive.  Credentials are not checked at
the door of most discussion lists, and so persons with varying
interests are allowed to listen and participate.  Therefore, rather
than retreating into more and more specialized discussions, we
can reasonably expect a topic to expand into wider and wider
content realms, as people with different areas of primary
expertise bring that expertise and its insights to bear on the
discussion at hand.

We can see this principle in operation via the following
example.  Suppose we eavesdrop on a list devoted to, say, Latin,
(like the new list Latin-l@psuvm) where some of the members are
carrying on a thread about mottos.  In a real example, one person
called in to ask for help of other list members in translating a sub
rosa motto for a college.  The motto, in English, was "creating the
illusion of progress".  The member did not ask for people to
supply their credentials when offering a translation.  Instead, they
accepted the variant translations on their own merits, depending
on expertise where and how they found it.  In retrospect, the case
on many lists is very similar to the creed of the first of the
"hackers" in the early days of computing, when hacking did not
connote illegal activities.  These early hackers were respected for
what they could do, not for who they were or for what degrees or
credentials they could bring to bear.  Some of this feeling lives in
many, though not all, discussion lines.  Furthermore, the very idea
of the multilogue helps preserve this egalitarian atmosphere,
since there is no "teacher" or primary "discussant" to either
lecture or to lead and orchestrate the discussion.  Since everyone
comes into the discussion sequentially, everyone has equal access
to being heard.

Secondly, the multiloguing dimension allows members of the
community to pull together disparate arguments and examples,
file them electronically, archive and examine them, and pull them
up for later reference, all with the perceived immediacy of oral
speech.  This can allow us to create a broader base of potential
abductive "rules" to bring to bear to any relevant discussion. For
example, let us suppose that I am carrying on a discussion about
legends on a medieval list.  I happen to remember about an
interesting new urban legend from a folklore list which I had
archived.  This legend is a variant of the medieval legend under
discussion.  It is a simple matter for me to retrieve the urban
legend from my files, and then re-transmit or paraphrase it in the
medieval list, thereby making a point about legend that I might
not have been able to make without the assistance of the folklore
example.  Again, the multilogue form facilitates this type of
hyridization of information, since we expect and operate within  a
series of simultaneous and parallel sets of discussion in the typical
multilogue setting anyway.

Finally, the virtual community consists of people with wide-
ranging interests and areas of expertise, and all members of the
community have access, in principle, to the expertise of each
other almost instantaneously.  Let me demonstrate this last point
with an actual example.  Last spring, I had a student who was
doing research on the Negro Leagues.  In order to help her get
access to information, I accessed Statlg-l@brownvm, which is a
baseball discussion list.  In a matter of days, I received an
enormous amount of scholarly information from a list that
ostensively is dedicated to informal discussion of baseball matters.
But since the list is linked to the scholarly community, I was able
to take advantage of that link.  I might add that my student was
designing an adult education curriculum unit on multicultural
issues, and under normal scholarly circumstances, would probably
have had a difficult time gaining such immediate access to such
knowledge and expertise.  But the link to the Net made it quite
easy.

The second effect that this perspective predicts is that more
and more scholarly research performed on the Net will deal
directly and centrally with issues of meaning.  The last few
decades have been labelled as the era of the "information
explosion".  We now literally have much more information than we
can understand.  As we continue to pool our knowledge across
discipline boundaries, there is an emerging trend for comparing
systems of understanding across those same boundaries.  So,we
tend not only to share facts, but also ways of looking at the world.
For example, a chemist may send us information that we might be
able to use, but equally importantly, that same chemist might
share with us his/her way of looking at various aspects of the
world.  Since we learn much of what we know by modeling the
behaviors and ideas of others, this promises to be a powerful
system for sharing not only data but worldviews.

Sometimes, the pursuit of meaning takes off on its own merry
abductive way, leading to strange and unusual fruit.  Just recently,
a member of the Erl-l list on educational research accidently sent
a private message, about the need to keep a refrigerator door
shut, to the entire list.  He/she immediately apologized, but
several people failed to see the apology, and took the message as a
cryptic message about the state of educational research today.
Even now, the metaphor continues to expand, where people are
considering the significance of the contents of the refrigerator,
the fact that the door does not seal easily, and the amount of
energy required to keep the food cold.  On one level, this is an
exercise in learned silliness, but at a much deeper level, it is an
exercise in taking apart and examining the basic metaphors that
hold the field together, and examining what happens when those
fundamental metaphors are replaced.  Again, the multilogue form
helped to sustain and foster the abductive musings.

The final prediction of the perspective is that the nature of the
researcher in the virtual community will be drastically different
from the more traditional researcher working in the non-virtual
community.  The abductive researcher is less like an
experimenter and more like a detective (Shank, 1987).  In fact,
the abductive researcher is more of a hunter-gatherer.  He/she
learns to gather information and combine that information in
bricolage fashion.  These unique and interdisciplinary craftings of
ideas and facts allow the researcher to work outside of strict
theoretical boundaries, and to turn to the world of experience
directly for guidance.  Given the wealth of information available to
the hunter-gatherer on the Net (3000+ lists on Bitnet alone), it
should be no surprise that the virtual scholarly community will
evolve individuals who will thrive on being able to juxtapose and
combine seemingly disparate threads of information in order to
yield new and exciting venues of insights.  Furthermore, the
medium allows for multiple and communal approaches to the
juxtaposition of insights.  All one has to do is to toss out a new
insight, and more than likely a new thread will develop.

          Semiotic Scholarship and the Net

The scholarly community on the Net is not just a topic for
semiotics.  In fact, there is a very active and lively set of
discussion groups on semiotic topics.  I would like to offer my
own personal and subjective description of some of these groups.
All addresses for these groups are in Bitnet format.

Semios-l@ulkyvm:  This list is dedicated to discussions of
visual and verbal semiotics.  Steven Skaggs, a professor of visual
design at the University of Louisville, is the listowner of this
group.  This is the most explicitly semiotic of the discussion
groups.  It is a moderate to low volume list, with a fairly serious
and informative tone.  Some of the semioticians who have posted
on this list in recent history include Joseph Ransdell, Peter Salus,
Nathan Houser, Jean Umiker-Sebeok, Alan Harris, Bill Spinks,
and Terry Prewitt.  As you might have noticed, this list does tend
to have a Peircean cast to it.

Derrida@cfrvm: This list is dedicated to the ideas of Jacques
Derrida and the process of deconstruction.  This list can be quite
lively, sometimes playful, and at times frankly annoying.  To
paraphrase Bob Scholes, a noted literary critic who is also on the
list, posts here can be very smart and very silly.  At times this list
has tried to engage in active discussion of works by Evans and
Attali, but these efforts have not coalesced into extensive efforts.
This is a fairly high volume list, although volume is sporadic rather
than constant.  David Erban at Central Florida is the listowner.

Pmc-list@ncsuvm: This is the list that distributes the journal
Postmodern Culture in electronic format.  This journal is
published three times a year, and its quality is quite high.  The
journal comes out of the Comparative Literature Dept at North
Carolina State.  Pmc-talk@ncsuvm is a separate line that engages
in discussion about articles in the journal or, most often, on some
topic that is of interest to someone on the line.  Volume on this
list is fairly low.

There are a number of other lines that might be of interest to
the semiotically informed or interested.  Medtextl@uiucvmd deals
with medieval textuality and codicality, and is one of the most
erudite and pleasant lists on the net.  Qualrs-l@uga deals with all
aspects of qualitative research in the human sciences, and very
often the discussion on this lively and busy list turns to issues that
are of concern to semiotics.  Comserve@rpiecs has several
discussion lists that are of interest, including Philcomm
(philosophy of communication) Rhetoric, and the Electronic
Journal Of Communication.

Let me end this list with the following disclaimer:  as anyone
who navigates the net is aware, this listing is both only partial and
is exceedingly temporal.  The Net continues to expand, grow, and
evolve, and the multilogue continues in its own omnidirectional
manner.  All I can finally recommend is to use one of these lists as
an anchor to link you to the semiotic discussion on the Net.  and
then, like any anchor, it becomes useful when you can pull it in,
and set sail in your own direction.

                     Conclusion

Tom Sebeok (1986), arguably the father of contemporary
American semiotics, likes to compare semiotic interplay to a
spider's web.  The spider does not just use the web to secure
food; it is also a means of communication with other spiders.
When a spider trods upon those few strands that he/she knows
are free from the adhesive that will secure unwary prey, those
steps create vibrations.  And those vibrations can be used to send
signals to other spiders treading the web.  Furthermore, the
spider continues to weave the web, extending not only the range
of sustinence and nutrition, but of communication as well.

The person, according to Sebeok, spins "webs of
interpretations" that extend out and beyond our immediate
sphere of influence or even understanding.  The Net is certainly a
Sebeokean Web, where all of us are seeking the paths upon which
to tread safely, as well as sending out our own vibrations and
weaving our own filaments of understanding.  And it has its traps
for the unwary as well, so that navigating the Net is not just a
simple exercise of discovery.  It is impossible to predict just
exactly what the scholarly virtual community will "morph" into,
but it is reasonable to assume that this community will have a
major and significant impact on the scholarly community at large.
And ideas like the abductive multilogue will be necessary to help
us to understanding not only what we are doing, but also what we
are becoming.

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