Deduction, Induction, Production, Reduction: my take

This is probably off-topic and might be better in another thread, but I don’t know how to do that yet.

I love this movie, but then I love Clooney (as seen in my bio).

[spoilers ahead for Up in the Air]

In what way? It was super clear to me in that final scene exactly where he sits: he lets go of his suitcase (a radical change from the beginning of the story, where he’s waxing lyrical about how he can fit his whole life into one bag), and the look on his face as he takes in the endless possibilities on that board is definitely not a happy one. It’s like now that he’s experienced a life of ‘baggage’, the idea of living life as a free man just isn’t quite as appealing anymore. Even the voice-over is pretty bleak:

Tonight most people will be welcomed home by jumping dogs and squealing kids. Their spouses will ask about their day, and tonight they’ll sleep. The stars will wheel forth from their daytime hiding places; and one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over.

You could be right – it’s been a while since I saw it. But I specifically remember not knowing whether he was happy about going back to his old life (flying on planes all the time), or not. My wife and I talked about it after and we were both like “that was dumb, why did he act like he was happy about it?” Maybe not the very last scene but one of the final few.

I guess we may have both just misinterpreted something, and reinforced each other’s misinterpretation.

(Jim – feel free to split this into another topic if you want)

also to do with tense right?

Deduction, given a b c then d must have happened (past)

Induction, since a b c are happening, then it’s still possible for d to happen in the future (present perfect leading to future). D hasn’t been eliminated as a possible future.

Reduction, given that a, b and c didn’t happen, or didn’t happen in part, then it is only 50% likely that that d will happen now. (missing piece in the past, resulting in an uncertain future)

Production, given that a b and c are happening then there’s reason to be VERY optimistic that d can happen in the future! college means a ph.d! Or he might end up owning the college. Or he might be President! Failure is NOT an option!

The more I look at these the more I can see all kinds of gradations and ways to play with them…fascinating.

Of course they each have + and - charges.

Responding to your article, I would say actually that generalizing about, say, races (all blacks are stupid, all whites are racist, all asians are good with math, all Italians are gangsters) or genders (all men are violent, all women have wild mood swings), is a common failing in characters that they must learn to correct.

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I will definitely add these to the list, but probably won’t add to the article as it kind of undermines the whole purpose of it :slight_smile: but thanks!

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production() returns drama queen
Reduction() returns narrow-minded
Induction() returns generalizing
deduction() returns specificity

so, like this kind of?

Memory() returns " specific memory that puts you of balance and has disproportionate effect on you, remembering()"
Subconscious() returns " the disturbed self, too weak strong etc, that formed in reaction to the memory feelings() and thoughts() shaped by this"
Preconscious() returns “the out of balance reactions that come from the disturbed self, physicalorVerbalReactions()”
Conscious() returns “the sane part of yourself that sees the crazy in you and watches it, seeing()”

that last moment is the moment you have just after you’ve done something inappropriate and you suddenly see yourself as others see you. of course, that’s never happened to me but I thought some of you could identify with it.

it seems there’s not only a process that’s called in this case but a noun/object that’s returned, that has properties

coming up with a complete chart of these would be helpful, yes? People?

hmm so maybe something like this is going on…

In short, the Understanding object makes four methods available: Instinct() Senses() Interpretation() and Conditioning. Each method returns an object that is a subclass of ConflictProducerType, as shown at the top of the diagram. ThePast object (or perhaps just class) calls each of the four methods and stores each returned Conflict Producer type object. Each subclassed instance of the Conflict Producer type has its own methods: the methods on the Conflict Producer class, inherited by the subclass, then special methods on each subclass such as InstinctConflictProducer, which has conflict methods specific to Instincts (and so on for Senses, Interpretation and Conditioning).

Not shown: the methods on the ConflictProducer class, or on the subclasses.

tried this style …

PSR Learning explored in terms of certainty, proaction, reaction, potentiality.

Physics.Learning() calls Investigation>certainty()
Returns “during an investigation, arriving at a conclusion that something is absolutely true”
Process: arriving at conclusion
Conflict: others fear that certainty will lead him towards their secret, or just the secret is hard to find out, hard to get to

Physics.Learning() calls Investigation>proaction()
Returns “driven by certainty, initiating action to learn something that others don’t want him to learn, to learn something he’s not supposed to know"
Process: initiating action
Conflict: others want to stop him learning

Physics.Learning() calls Investigation>reaction()
Returns “as other try to block, responding with more actions to learn the truth, or he reacts to what he knows with disbelief and hurt feelings, or with anger, or with delight because now he can use that"
Process: responding to their blocking
Conflict: evasion, untruth and failure

Physics.Learning() calls Investigation>potentiality()
Returns “having learned the hidden facts, determining that now something else might be true because of it”
Process: determining
Conflict: their secret is exposed and others attack or retreat and scramble to deal with consequences of reveal, or his feelings are devastated and his worldview changed by what he’s learned and what he now thinks might be true,"

NOTE certainty exists in four quads. impressed once more with how important it is to understand the specific quad the PSR elements are members of.

and that is how you firm up a cause and effect line. Starting to see more how Dramatica method works, you can focus on these little nuggets of conflict/cause and effect, then string them together…but it works best if you REALLY FOCUS on one quad at a time, like a jeweler focusing, that level. don’t worry about the whole story in the first part of the process, just shape your little nugget and get it right.

tried this one this morning…

Universe.Present() calls Learning.prerequisites()
Returns “getting the prerequisites for learning about someone’s strategy”
Process: getting something
Emerging Conflict: you steal something and are almost caught or someone finds something is missing”

Universe.Present() calls Learning.Strategy()
Returns “learning about someone’s strategy” or “you learn the details of someone’s strategy”
Process: learning or discovering or finding
Emerging Conflict: some want to stop strategy, some are afraid to

Universe.Present() calls Learning.Analysis()
Returns “analyzing someone’s strategy”
Process: analyzing
Emerging Conflict: different analysis, and allies disagree which path to take to oppose it or enable it

Universe.Present() calls Learning.preconditions()
Returns “they identify preconditions before the strategy can succeed, and that gives them an attack point and maybe decides which analysis is correct”
Process: identifying
Emerging Conflict: interfering with the preconditions

…I wonder if there’s a more active one …

For those of you still here, I found my Evernote copy of the bullying story. It’s here, if you’d like it.

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“Overgeneralizing” is a cognitive distortion describing something like, say, failing a job interview and coming to a conclusion like “I’ll never get a job!” Is that also Induction, or something like Projection, Expectation or whatever?

Sounds like Induction to me - you’re inferring from your job interview that you have little possibility of finding a new job.

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Then what’s the difference between that and the one about projecting how things have been going into the future?

Since so much of Dramatica relies on context, and examples are necessarily brief and lacking context, any particular example is likely to fit more than one element from the table.

So yes, there is a formal difference between Induction and Projection, but you may not be able to tell from one single example what the underlying story point is (the subtext).

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Would induction be more like guessing and projection more like assuming?

@mlucas is right with this:

The difference between Induction and Projection is the same as the difference between Faith and Trust–they seem almost exactly the same, until you look at them in context of everything else around them.

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I always thought of “production” as “resourceful”; pulling rabbits out of hats and ideas out of thin air.

For reference purpose …deduction vs induction

I had a discussion with a friend today where we couldn’t agree. One side of the argument was narrowing down everything but the other side looked at it with a wider scope.

As reference as well. The topic was also recently discussed here with a nice screenshot for deduction vs induction

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