#learning deduction

ps. hope that you are well

So this question is sent to me so often that i thought i'd make a post about it, and it seems like a simple enough topic to help come out of a hiatus so here we go.

Right out of the gate, the answer to any question in the category of "can you deduce [Insert piece of information here]?" is always: Yes, technically. This question comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how deduction works, one that i can relate to a bit, cause at the end of the day i was a beginner or just someone who was curious and interested on the topic and i had the same fundamental misunderstanding, the idea that deduction is a collection of one to one correlations between observations and facts, that there is one, or maybe a small group of observations that correlate with a specific fact

This is an idea that i think should be nipped in the bud very quickly, especially if you're someone who's considering learning deduction, because it's one of the biggest misconceptions that a beginner can have, and it can lead them to make some big mistakes in their learning process. Mistakes such as attempting to memorize copious amounts of facts about a large amount of topics, hoping that if they just memorize enough, they'll eventually have one or more fatcs to use in any situation and relate to any observation. This is something that i've seen a few times in real life, and is kind of the deduction equivalent of being thirsty and building a machine to combine each individual atom of oxygen in the air with two of hydrogen to make yourself a glass of water, it's a ridiculous amount of effort for what at the end of the day is gonna be nothing more than a single glass of water

So how does deduction work then? If the answer to the question at hand is always yes, then how does it work if it's not by knowing every single piece of information one could observe that could lead you to that knowledge? Well that's where the "technically" part of the answer comes in.

Let's look at what makes deduction work in theory vs in practice. Imagine a person, any person, just make them up in your head for a moment, this person has hopes, dreams, hobbies, pet peeves, things they love, things they hate, people they love, things that make them bored, or insecure, or horny, or happy, etc. They have a style, and foods they like, and music that makes them cry, and some that makes them cringe. Now imagine this person lives in a small studio apartment, and they spend their day there, go about their hobbies, their work, they store or display their items however they see fit, they make it their own little home based on what they're comfortable with, this place could be a minimalistic area, could be cluttered, could be highly stilized, or anything in between

Now, theoretically speaking, everything this person does will leave a mark on them and/or their environment, could be a small one or a very obvious and big one, from everything they touch having fingerprints on it, to big circles on the table left by coffee mugs they forgot to clean. Theoretically speaking, everything they do is also connected to things they think, their likes, their dislikes, their values, their interests, their needs, etc. So with all of this in mind, everything this person is, theoretically speaking, is connected to their external self, not necessarily by a single degree of separation, not necessarily being showcased in massive ways, but everything leaves traces of itself, some more sublte, some more intense, but traces nonetheless. Our job as deductionists is to trace these back to their source, to reverse engineer them to find what this person did, felt, thought, liked, etc.

Let's now imagine this same idea from a practical lens, this is not exactly a realistic consideration, the traces left behind someone's interactions with their environment fade, we can also only really use the traces we can perceive in some way, so things like fingerprints, while technically there aren't useful. The human psyche is deeply complex, and we can't always assume we understand the chain of events that happen in someone's head that may lead to the extranalization of these clues, or the lack of it, we're also human, which means that even if all of this wasn't the case, we don't have the type of flawless processing abilities necessary to always be able to trace things back to their source in a reliable manner. And this is nowhere near a fully comprehensive list of why the theoretical scenario we just used isn't exactly a realistic one

Now, as deductionists it's our job to navigate these realistic complications, and try to approach our deductions to that theoretical model as much as we can. So, if we look at the original question "can you deduce...?" through that theoretical model, the answer is always yes, there's always gonna be some part of that person's environment that comes directly from whatever part of their behavior or cognition we're trying to unravel, and so yes, we can just trace it back from that clue or clues. Realistically speaking though, we gotta keep in mind a few more factors, like is whatever clue we're looking for even visible at this point in time? or in this environment? does the clue that will tell me if this person smokes, or if they've gone on vacation recently, even exist in the current space where i'm perceiving them? And is it always gonna be the same clue for everyone? and is that clue specifically only going to show up if the information i'm looking for is true? These are just some of the questions we gotta ask ourselves, and the answer to these questions isn't always clear

As a quick example, a while back i was asked if i could deduce someone's sexuality, and again, the answer is yes, technically. I'm positive their sexuality has played a role in their internal or external life, which means that i'm positive it's left a mark somewhere, a clue i can follow. Do i know what that clue is? No, is it always the same for everyone? Probably not, is it observable in the enviroment i'm seeing this person in? It's impossible to know, maybe it isn't, but this clue does exist somewhere, i'd just have to find it. And that's really what deduction is, a game of which clues about who this person is can i find, both because of its existence, and through my own skills, and even if i do find it, can i interpret it correctly and follow it to an accurate conclusion?

Now, i know this post is not gonna stop the questions of this nature, but it's good to clear the air about them and to be able to explain in detail the answer to this question without having to go on a rant everytime i receive an ask about this. And more importantly, it's good to make sure that every beginner knows that yes, you can deduce just about anything, but that doesn't mean there's a magical formula for everything, it's a matter of how good you are at the puzzle game that is deduction, and how many puzzle pieces you actually have to play with

Some objects take priority over others when it comes to relevance when observing. For example placing down your phone to your right on a table and other items to your left (like food, glasses, a purse, a wallet, etc.) because when it comes to handedness, a lot of the time the phone takes priority over other things.

- how to consistently record (I lose motivation every single time as if writing it down will dilute the deductions)

- how do you know you're right?

- where do you get your sources from? (I would like to do individual research)

And if you don't mind, feedback on my deductions @identitycroissant-tm (spoiler: also pretty similar to @autistobrat , she's my friend)

Thank you so much, your help is appreciated :D

Hello! Love these questions!

So first off, regarding the recording of your deductions. My advice is to forget about noting down every deduction you make, usually the only times writing a deduction down is useful, is when presenting it to someone, or when doing a specific excercise that requires you to write it down. I'd suggest during everyday deduction activities to keep your deductions in your head, for two reasons:

First of all, you don't want to get used to requiring a place to write things down to do deductions, ideally you wanna be able to do them in your head throughout your day, and learning to deduce by writing them down constantly trains your brain to go through these thought processes on paper, rather than in your own head, which would be a problem to unlearn down the line.

Second you're absolutely right, writing down your deductions is very much a pain, and the last thing you want is for your brain to associate deductions with a chore, a thing you have to sit down and do, especially since writing down a deduction usually leads to paragraphs and paragraphs of explanations and conclusions that can get messy and hard to write. And most of the time your brain works faster than your hand, so it's easier to forget parts of the deduction, conclusions you've reached, thoughts you had, and things you wanted to revisit.

So generally speaking i suggest you keep them in your head, if you feel like you need pen and paper as a support for your thought process, i suggest you stick to very small pocket notebooks that limit your space, and use them as whiteboards, a place to note down any information you find, or conclusions you come to in a list format or bullet points to reference once your thought process has taken your elsewhere, or a place to draw a more diagramn/flowchart-like visual aid for what you're thinking. Leave the actual writing down of a deduction for sending it to someone or for excercises that require it

As for how do i know i'm right, initially it's very simple, you ask! Ask the people you deduce, any time you have the chance to confirm your deductions do so, it's imperative, the only way to get better is to figure out which deductions you've made worked and which ones didn't.

Obviously if you're just sitting in public and deduce someone at the bus or something, don't feel like you have to go ask them about it, but generally speaking if you're deducing something online, or someone in real life that you feel comfortable with, or generally in any situation that you feel you can confirm, do so.

As time goes by you start to realize what works and what doesn't in deduction, you start to realize you're right about a large majority of what you deduce, and that builds confidence. At some point it'll build enough confidence that (assuming there's no extra issues like social anxiety and such), you'll be able to just display your deductions or talk about them without the fear of being wrong. Sure you might get one or two things wrong, every once in a while you might fuck up a whole deduction, but your track record allows your to trust yourself quite a bit. It's kinda like doing advanced math equations and stuff, you practice with questions where you can see the answer, and eventually you know you can do it, and you know you'll be right large majority of the time, enough to take an exam and get an A

OBJECTIVE: USE YOUR PERSONAL ENVIRONMENT TO TRAIN YOUR COGNITIVE ABILITIES AND CONSCIOUSLY UNDERSTAND HOW YOU MUST NAVIGATE INFORMATION

Details: Take an object you own, this can be done with a single object like a pen or a whole area like a room, or even a house or apartment. The goal is to observe whatever subject you've chosen, and use your inside knowledge about who you are, and what your life is like, to trace back the observations you make to their root, and make connections.

The point is not to be able to state things like "oh, these scratch patterns on my shoes come from the way i come up the stairs into my apartment", connecting the observation to its source isn't the instructive part. This exercise puts you in a unique position where you know both sides of the deduction, the observation and the root of it, so what you must focus on is what are the cognitive tools you use (or would use) to connect the two.

Example: As i'm typing this i'm looking at my laptop and noticing there's a slight mark of the bottom of a cup on the right side of the computer, next to where the mousepad is. I know this comes from using that area to place my cups, specifically when watching movies with friends over video call during the night. The connection of observation to source isn't the point, the point is to be able to analize all the cognitive patterns surrounding how i can connect these two if i didn't know where this observation comes from

Since i know how this observation came to be, i also know that it does make a lot of sense for this mark to be on the right hand side of the computer and not on the left, because of my handedness. I also know that i only ever put cups there when i'm watching movies, which makes a lot of sense because it's the only time i'm using my computer without interacting with the keyboard or the mousepad, there's no way that a cup could be put there without severely hindering the use of my computer, so that mark can only appear in that very specific situation. As i'm thinking this i ask myself "well i watch other things throughout the day, things like youtube videos and such, i know i don't engage in the same behavior there, but why?" the point of the question is to teach myself to ask these questions when deducing other people, but also to get an idea of what the correct answer could look like, since i can very easily answer my own question: Because when i watch movies i sit back in my couch, away from my computer, not expecting to interact with it in a long time, while with videos or something of the sort in any other part of my day, i don't expect the stationary period to last long, and i remain close to my computer, sitting at my desk.

Knowing the answer to this question and being able to reach it is not the point, the point is to realize what the characteristics of this answer are: It's simple, it accounts for everything i can see, it's also the path of least resistance between question and answer, since it's simply boiled down to "I don't do this in any other scenario because it's a deeply inconvenient behavior unless i specifically don't engage with my computer for a long time", it follows Occam's Razor, where the simplest answer is indeed the correct one (or at least one of the simplest answers). The point of the exercise is to make light of the characteristics of the observation and how i can logically navigate them to reach its root, to then replicate those same cognitive processes in a real deduction

Through this exercise, i can see that things like convenience, angles of accessibility when interacting with objects are all concepts that are directly connected with this situation. I can notice that it's sometimes important to keep in mind that anything that has a screen has a certain maximum and minimum distance at which it can be used, and each one has its own implications. I can stumble into, and forced to acknowledge concepts like physical and spatial limitations and how they might connect to handedness (the side of the hand a person uses the most can get cluttered and sometimes they're forced to use that are for one thing or another, like use a keyboard or set down a cup), and this concept can lead to the understanding that two things can be true at once and they can at the same time be mutually exclusive (like me being right handed and placing my cup on the right side of the computer and also using both my hands to type and write on the computer on a consistent basis, but only one of these things can be true at any given moment), which starts introducing me to the idea of thinking of what i'm observing as a factor of time, and how the observations can all be visible at once, but may have originated at different points in time

This breakdown that i have done about what i'm observing means, and what i can potentially learn from it, and how different concepts arise simply through the things that i'm observing, is the point of the exercise, doing this to yourself teaches you that this is exactly the type of thing you should be doing when deducing.

It's essentially making a deduction with training wheels, you know you're not gonna fall, cause you know the conclussion to the deduction, so you can focus on the process of making it and the cognitive processes that arise with it

This may be the most important and useful exercise i can give you if used correctly, it's been the single most important training tool in my development as a deductionist, and it's also probably the most complicated one.

Now go give it a shot!

Happy Observing!

-DV