What are you writing about now?

Here is an explanation of deduction vs. induction vs. abduction.

Deductive reasoning, or deduction, is making an inference based on widely accepted facts or premises. (This is where our 'training from birth' comes in. We are, by and large, a people 'taught by the machine' what we are to think and believe on most issues and subjects. Therefore, our response to most situations, is deductive based on what we have been TAUGhT or told or conditioned to believe are 'the truth.' Most never question the foundations of their 'knowledge gained' which isn't really knowledge at all, but the flavor of the day and surmise as the machine wants it interpreted.)

If a beverage is defined as "drinkable through a straw," one could use deduction to determine soup to be a beverage since it can (mostly) be drank through a straw.

Inductive reasoning, or induction, is making an inference based on an observation. You can see the soup is pea soup. You like pea soup, so you induce that the soup is going to be tasty, going from the incidence to its larger application - especially if you observe some consuming it.

Abductive reasoning, or abduction, is making a probable conclusion from what you know. If you see an abandoned bowl of hot soup on the table, you can use abduction to conclude the owner of the soup is likely returning soon.

Separating the three, I could perhaps agree most of our thinking is 'abductive' (but not inductive and also not deductive) and I thank you. you see, the problem is with 'what we know.' and how we hold it. (Think The Religion of Opinion.)

I will continue pondering this - it bears significant weight and the chain of thinking needs to be clear.

WatcherWraith said:

If I have overreacted, I apologize.

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p.s. you NEVER need to apologize for thinking about, challenging, or questioning anything I say. And, yes, you did it very palatably.
Without such things none of us grows. And your thoughts and training clearly extend beyond the 'doing' of it to the 'methodoly of handling it' as well. Refreshing - and more and more unusual in our increasingly 'me first' and 'me only' world of today.

Thank you for your explanations, they helped me understand what you said a great deal better now :]

One final p.s. - the more I think about this...
Deductive reasoning, based as it is on 'widely accepted facts or premesis', CAN be flawed - just as flawed as abductive reasoning which is based on 'what we know' which frequently is simply no more than the "widely accepted facts or premesis" we're fed based on a leveraged government run schooling system with intentionally twisted and falsified materials for their teaching, media, political agenda (flavor of the week), science, and the many other arenas used by the machine.

Inductive reasoning, I still see as the 'cure' in a way, for the inherent flaws of the others. From the smaller to the larger we're much more apt to ask questions about 'what it means' than standing on widely accepted things (propaganda), or 'what we already think we know.'

So while I'm very thankful for your expansion of my thinking, I'm still (at the moment) in the same place based on what I've read and seen from most authors and Tolkien's fanbase. (Will explain that more fully later.)

WatcherWraith said:

Thank you for your explanations,

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you're most welcome..!!

Ent said:

Deductive reasoning, based as it is on 'widely accepted facts or premesis', CAN be flawed - just as flawed as abductive reasoning which is based on 'what we know' which frequently is simply no more than the "widely accepted facts or premesis" we're fed based on a leveraged government run schooling system with intentionally twisted and falsified materials for their teaching, media, political agenda (flavor of the week), science, and the many other arenas used by the machine.

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Ah, I didn't mean to imply deductive reasoning was flawless; I probably could have phrased that statement better. You are correct, our use of it can be very flawed, and perhaps I need to expand my understanding of the definition of "deductive" reasoning before I giving out my opinions on it.

A lot of what you said aligns with what I have been taught, so it makes sense to me. I think I understand your viewpoint a bit better on these matters now and I'll try to remember these things going forward.

WatcherWraith said:

perhaps I need to expand my understanding of the definition of "deductive" reasoning before I giving out my opinions on it.

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You see... this is what puts you in a minority group. you do not necessarily stand where you stand, but are willing to step back and question yourself, as much as others. (Or more so, at times.)

If you're not careful, once I get this Preface, Introduction and Chapter 1 all reorganized into a more proper Preface and Introduction only, I'm liable to ask you if you'd mind doing a critical review and analysis of them to see if they fit certain criteria I'm (hopefully) engineering them to achieve.

They really need to set the stage for the launch into the 'new' Section 1: The Silmarillion - Chapter 1: Tolkien's Creation (formerly chapter 2) I'm so desperately itching to get going on now.

Umm...this?

Ent said:

One final p.s. - the more I think about this...
Deductive reasoning, based as it is on 'widely accepted facts or premesis', CAN be flawed - just as flawed as abductive reasoning which is based on 'what we know' which frequently is simply no more than the "widely accepted facts or premesis" we're fed based on a leveraged government run schooling system with intentionally twisted and falsified materials for their teaching, media, political agenda (flavor of the week), science, and the many other arenas used by the machine.

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If you're going to expand your explanation to politics, your statement would be just as true if you replaced "government run" with "religion run", particularly for the politically active religions in the USA. Frankly even more so.

But we would be better off in this thread by just dropping both examples rather than expand upon either one.

Good news on the book production front! My visit to the woodworker was a success. I got a board of lovely sycamore wood thinned down to 1/4" thick for $20. I took along my book and enamel pieces to show them my plans and, as hoped, that got them excited enough to help out. The next board will be pricier, but this one was dirt cheap because "You're just figuring this stuff out."

I delivered my copper and cover designs and got them back today. I prefer to etch outside and it was raining all day, so I'll start etching them tomorrow.

And I picked up a Glowforge laser cutter/engraver to see how well it will cut insets into the book covers to set the enamelled panels in. That will make them look way better than just slapping them on the surface. I'm about to set it up and give it a whirl. Sadly, it's unlikely to work on the copper, but it should do just fine on the wood.

Oh, one other thing! I came up with several more cover designs and a new spine design, too. I think the spine design will work with the exposed threads tying the book together.

I also received a new printing press yesterday and assembled it. I have a good-sized one for my regular work, but this is a small one that's imminently portable. It's very well designed and really inexpensive. It's by Provisional Press. It lets me do letterpress printing, i.e., with type like in the olden days. My existing press really isn't made to do that (or portable, for that matter). Both can do wood block and lino-cut printing, and my bigger press can do etching printing.

It's been a good week so far!

Yesterday, I stumbled upon this little group of teacher and students. It was a writing class.

I was going to participate in their weekly meetings and perhaps, learn something. I'm kinda hesitant now because I didn't really get good vibes from the teacher.

He looked like a man with a very opinionated mind, and honestly? I felt like he'd try to mold my ideas into what he thinks is right or wrong, or worth my time.
I do need someone to help me with writing better in Persian, but I don't think I would really grow under his care. I don't really get along with a person with a singular mindset, and even though he was trying really hard to show he wasn't like this, he was failing miserably.

Tyelkormo the Fair said:

Yesterday, I stumbled upon this little group of teacher and students. It was a writing class.

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Hope you didn't hurt any of them when you stumbled on them.

Tyelkormo the Fair said:

I don't really get along with a person with a singular mindset, and even though he was trying really hard to show he wasn't like this, he was failing miserably.

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It seems as though maybe you might have been given all you need to make a decision about this particular group.
Perhaps the nudge being given you is 'be patient. Wait. There's a different plan in store for you.'

The writing group I've been attending is starting to gel into something useful. (It only formed a few months ago.) We've now got several regulars who have actually written and published books on different topics - as opposed to people who want to **have written** a book but aren't ready to **sit and write** a book.
Feedback is getting better.

I'm still struggling with my one remaining "life transition" chapter. I need two characters to meet. I know how they'll interact with one another once they do, but I'm still uncertain of how they'll meet. I've already tried several approaches and discarded them. They are about to meet at the funeral of a mutual acquaintance's father. I'll see how that works out.

I had an idea for extracting a chapter out of my book as a standalone story - and how to bind it to turn it into a work of art. Honey from Bees is at the heart of the story. I've figured out how to print the text of the story in hexagons and then cut them so they fold into a book cover. Adobe InDesign is remarkably flexible! I have an idea (I have yet to test) on how the mini-book can be unfolded and hung to be displayed as a work of art. I can control the colour of the hexagons to resemble the colour variation in a honeycomb. (Example photo for reference below.) In addition, I can include bees or dripping honey as images that interrupt the text.

Sadly, my artistic skills aren't up to the task of drawing the bees yet, but I'll get there. When my brain is too tired to work on Book #1, and my hands are too tired to work on binding or enamelling more copies of Book #2, this will be my fallback. I think I'll print out a version using the Lorem Ipsum filler text and play with watercolours and gouache paints for the cell colour combinations and layouts. And take some bee photos from off the internet and size and shape them to see how it would all work in practice. That way, when I can actually draw the bees well enough, it will be easy-peasy to finish the job. The story fills up about fifty-five 6" tall hexagons if I only print one-sided. That would take up wall space of about 5 feet wide by 3 1/2 feet tall, not counting any additional space taken up by the images or the front and back cover. I have some ideas on how to mount it so it's visible from both sides (which would be fun because I can have the bees peeking around the edge of the comb to the other side and even an empty honeycomb cell or three that lets you see through to the other side. Obviously, the overall size drops almost in half if I print on both sides with no images, and as I add images it gets larger again.

As you can see, the book-design and book binding process has really engaged my brain!

I finally broke the creative logjam on the life transition chapter I've been stuck on. I needed two characters (one is my main character, the other is an important character) to meet and dance around each other (figuratively, not literally), do some heroic actions together that would build trust and friendship, but then part due to unresolved trust issues due to their different backgrounds. It was the meeting part that had me stymied. For about 30 years...

I tried a number of different meet-cutes. Too hackneyed and/or not true to the characters. I changed from 3rd person omniscient to more of a 1st person immediate point-of-view. Didn't help. That helped with the overall flow of the story, but still didn't solve the meeting problem either. But the first few weeks of writing the lead-in portions of the chapter had given me severa story hooks I never had before.

And then I remembered some advice from a friend many decades ago. Funerals are a great way to bring disparate groups of people together. What's more, funerals tend to show a different side of people than a tavern, for example. So, now I've finally written a scene where these two characters meet that I actually like. It reveals a lot about both characters and also sets the stage for their mutual attraction and mutual distrust. When the chapter is done, they'll part amicably and with regret, but with neither fully trusting the other.

They'll meet years later (in a later chapter) in completely different circumstances. He'll fall in love with my main character's adopted human daughter and the daughter will return that love. (Remember that orphanage I mentioned a few times?) They'll come to depend upon one another, but this time they'll both have a strong bond to keep them trustworthy with one another, because to do otherwise would harm the one they both love. All three will be on the Great Quest together.

The two of them will meet one more time after one of Glaurung's brood strips the main character of several years of her memories (including the Great Quest she is in the middle of) after which she finds herself in caverns in the Withered Heath with that guy she didn't trust and his young bride she doesn't know, plus three other strangers, one of whom is a Gondorian knight claiming to be her champion. Fun times.

@Server Room Gremlin and I are brewing some laughter and tears mushroom potion.

Tyelkormo the Fair said:

@Server Room Gremlin and I are brewing some laughter and tears mushroom potion.

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Yes. 🥲

And new characters, with old names, or are they really new, I wonder?

Server Room Gremlin said:

Yes. 🥲

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I don't understand. ???

david_wendelken said:

I don't understand. ???

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It's angsty but we made it funny.

Tyelkormo the Fair said:

And new characters, with old names, or are they really new, I wonder?

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I don't understand. ???

david_wendelken said:

I don't understand. ???

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You will precioussss! You willlll!