Rorschach relationship test

My partner and I have a running silly debate. The topic: Can you make a reference without knowing what you’re referencing?

This question comes up for us remarkably often because Nickie and I have significant differences in how our memories function. I have precise recall of words and phrases, with a nit-picky need to match a quote, idiom, or song lyric to its exact source. Nickie memory is not as language-dependent. She remembers concepts by association, but seems to form the words to describe the memory from scratch. Sometimes this produces phrases that sound like puzzles or jokes but make an intuitive sense when taken as a whole. For example, one of her greatest creations: “I have a beef to grind.”

This statement has two conflicting references in it, except both manage to express the same idea. Whether you key in on “axe to grind” or “have beef with someone” the meaning is clear. The two are held together by the fact beef (the meat) can also be ground, which is truly beautiful. It’s basically a six-word story.

Then comes the question of credit. For “beef to grind” I give full authorship to Nickie’s beautiful mind, even though she wasn’t consciously trying to compose a perfect sentence. But it’s possible these words could have slipped by unnoticed if she had said them to someone without my compulsion. Did the full meaning originate in her mind or mine? In this case we both agree that she had all the associated ideas first, so the combination came from her even though the phrasing was a lucky accident.

Nickie and I start to disagree when the associated idea is something she doesn’t know. This is usually the case with song lyrics. Me and a friend of ours love to play the (very cool and not at all annoying) game of identifying song lyrics when they overlap with something that was just said. This can rekindle our debate with an exchange like the following:

Nickie: “I didn’t know I was referencing that song.”

Me: “Have you heard that song?”

Nickie: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Then it wasn’t reference. It was a coincidence.”

Nickie: “But I said the words and you thought of it.”

It’s a dumb argument over semantics, we know that, but it can provide some fun kitchen-table philosophy.

First off, we have agreed that we mean “reference” as in “allusion.” Nickie contends that she can allude to X without knowing anything about X. She argues that as long as I, the listener, thought of X as a result of her words, she is the one who made the reference. She does not even need to know X exists. I also don’t have to tell her about the connection: she can remain unaware and she still gets credit for making the reference.

My stance is that making a reference requires foreknowledge. It usually requires intent, but not always. I might say “the more you know” as a stock reply, not because I want you to recall the old PSA. However, I am still referencing that slogan because I know it exists and, if I thought about it, I could make the connection.If Nickie said “the more you know” without thinking about it, I would give her full credit for referencing the PSA. However, that phrase also conjures a more vivid memory for me.

In my wayward teens, I often wandered around the mall by myself. It was across the street from my strange little school and I had a lot of free time. One of the department stores had closed—I think it was a Mervyn’s which I grew up assuming was a big chain—and was replaced with a Kohl's. The Kohl's had dry plastic smell that I still associate with the dying mall of the 2000’s. But the real big turnoff was the ads they would pipe through the store’s speaker system. Mervyn’s probably had promotions mixed into its muzak playlist, but I swear you couldn’t walk through the Kohl’s without hearing their half-stolen slogan at least twice: “The more you know, the more you Kohl’s.”

Nickie might have a memory of that commercial, but if she said “the more know you know” I would not give her credit for alluding to this visceral memory of my wasted youth. Though, once she’s read this she’ll be able to stake that claim. We will both enjoy deconstructing my petty possessiveness.

This emotional weight we put on “credit” is odd, even if it’s mostly in jest. If someone read this and said they had a similar memory of an invasive species of department store, I would be touched. If that person then revealed they lied about this minor anecdote, I would be offended. I really want the words, the sounds, smells, the images in my head to be just so in yours.

Which leads me to wonder whether a random word generator, maybe something with built on hyped-up software, provokes this feeling in believers. I am stuck on this idea of sincerity, of author intent. But could a chitchatbot produce brain juice? Is that the same?

I’d rather have Nickie.