Cultivating the Guessing Instinct

Abstract

AbstractThis inquiry examines how an index tracks the internalization of habits, from action templates to intersubjective and intrasubjective regulators (West 2013, 2014). Habit draws upon spatial primitives (Mandler 2010) and is expressed as sensory coordinations (tracking movement, force, orientation). Indexical action templates advance mechanical and self-regulative purposes: Source, path, and goal transition to social and internal regulators. Inferences drawn from event sequences culminate in plausible directives – recommending courses of action (Peirce MS 637: c1909), useful in dialogue alterations. Such alterations require habit-change, fitting novel participants into different event slots – driven by good instinctual guesses or “twigging ideas” (Peirce MS 930: c1913).