Monday, 8 April 2024 ------------------------ Hello. All is well. Chapter 11 is about discourse analysis. In the end, it's people that must interpret and infer meaning from language. In fact, we can still infer meaning from poor syntactical or ungrammatical language use. Discourse is about language beyond the sentence. The hidden, implied stuff. What you read between the lines. Why I struggle socially (sad noises). Unrelated, perhaps you could jokingly make an analogy to computers. Intuition experience is assembled to machine code while intellect experience is compiled or interpreted. Experience for intuition is written in assembly and javascript for intellect. Cohesion is achieved by the structure of sentences in message, whereas coherence is how the sentences fit together to make sense for the reader or listener. A message can be cohesive structurally, but not have a coherent message (like my writing, hehe). In Swedish and Danish, we know it as a message having a "red thread". I don't think we say that in English. In conversational analysis we look at how we take turns and how conversations unfold. A completion point is a signal to switch turn, e.g. speaker can ask a question or pause, while listener can make short noises or gestures. When we're not finished, we use connectors and filler words to fill pauses, uh, like, well, you know. I like the idea of adjacency pairs and insertion sequences in conversations. An adjacency pair is stuff like greetings, answer-question pair, farewells. Insertion sequence is like nesting a message within adjacent pair to add detail or depth, for example an adjacency pair is "Would you like milk?" "Yes", where an insertion could be before answering, you ask if it's non-diary milk. This reminds me of conversations where you lose track, following a tangent, forgetting what the initial question or topic was. I think some do it intentionally, avoiding adjacent pairing when it conflicts with their narrative. That's why I prefer to stick with written communication because it's more difficult to manipulate when there's a record you can't gaslight as faulty memory. But even in written text, it can be difficult to know if you're being manipulated if you don't pay attention, especially if they know how to play you. From my work with Minecraft servers, there's one particular person that fooled me. It can be difficult to comprehend the lengths of manipulation some will go as it seems illogical and self-destructive in the long run. It's a bit fascinating how this one person fooled everyone for years. I don't attach to people easily, but I still let down my guard as they had made themselves a useful asset to me, perhaps my weakness. I had a strict rule of no romantic communication which I think saved me from falling further for their spell that I later learned many young men had. But I wasn't invincible myself, I think I was more lenient because it was a woman. I feel guilty and somewhat responsible because I had a suspicion something wasn't right, their story was too good to be true, but I found them excellent at telling to my story. I also couldn't picture a woman as predatory. Ultimately their manipulation lead to my money making story falling apart. I did manage to salvage the story by involving myself more in the community again, but I was tired and unmotivated to continue for much longer. I did not fear financial struggle anymore and I started to find the never ending chase for money soulless, depressing, and antisocial. As I said before, doing the right thing and being moral is simply a practical strategy for long-term survival. Too much comfort or greed will hurt you in the end. Also, I want to make it clear, that just like men, the majority of women I've interacted with are prosocial or simply misguided, not case studies of pathology. I think I had a bias for trusting women, in my childhood I felt more comfortable in their presence. This is to say it's better to judge people as individual characters, instead of overgeneralizing from own experiences or others' stories. If patterns of dysfunction appear, the root cause is probably in the system's structure, not the agents within the system. Also, our brain is inherently biased for categorical thinking as it optimizes energy efficiency. It's important we learn to understand and how to use the tools we have. But in the case of spotting manipulation, try to spot missing details in their story or things not adding up. You must exercise great caution when you notice yourself captivated by someone's story. If you're suspicious, don't confront them too hastily. If you have the capacity, play along unsuspecting to make them feel more comfortable with sloppy story telling. Steer them to make an incoherent story by directing their attention, preferably where they leave a record behind if you must convince others too. With this one person, I was in a tricky situation. This person was loved by everyone in the community, while I was more of a person in the background. In this case, how I managed to make them expose themselves was to put them under pressure, making them think I was concerned of something I wasn't really concerned about, but by trying to cover this concern of mine on the spot, they would inadvertently make a mistake which was my real intention. Once I had trapped them with undeniable proof, their tone switched instantly, deleting every record of their existence, never hearing from them again. It's also interesting how they seem to have no sense of shame as you uncover their charade. As I was getting closer they would provide me things I hadn't even asked for such as their passport and explicit images as perhaps a last attempt to guilt-trip me or frame me. Wicked. I had a lot of records on their personal identity at this point, collected from various sources, that matched with the passport they had unashamedly sent me. Before trapping them, they would relentlessly fire back, trying to preserve the story, which is why if you let them know you're onto them too soon, you may just be buying them more time to cover their plot holes. You can't convince others that are under their spell unless you show them irrefutable proof which in itself is hard to gather and some may be overinvested to a degree where they can't give up the story. Anyhow, returning to the book, background knowledge is the experience people have which they use to infer meaning and details. A schema is what static scene your brain constructs, e.g. school, workplace, home. Script is what dynamic scenes your brain constructs, e.g. going to the dentist, going to school. The book gives an example text that plays with, where our interpretation switches back and forth between a student or teacher going to school.