Posted by
Nick Thompson on
May 06, 2010; 5:12pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-coat-hook-of-the-mind-tp5012713p5015356.html
Interesting, Glen.
We seem to disagree quite thoroughly. To me, analogies are part of the
implicature of scientific metaphors.
EG, if the natural selection metaphor is correct, then
pigeon varieties : pigeon species :: species of animals : all animals.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (
[hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
> [Original Message]
> From: glen e. p. ropella <
[hidden email]>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
[hidden email]>
> Date: 5/6/2010 10:22:46 AM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The coat hook of the mind
>
> Steve Smith wrote circa 10-05-06 08:30 AM:
> > I'm curious about how this group comes down on the topic of the utility
of
> > metaphor in general. I find that most people are fairly strongly
polarized on
> > the topic and most have not given more than casual thought to it.
>
> In my naive perspective, I think of metaphor as a kind of linguistic
> trickiness, not necessarily purely rhetorical in the sense that the
> trickster wants to persuade, but more of a magus or "teacher" trying to
> get someone to open their mind a little bit more.
>
> > Since there are many modelers here, I would promote the idea that the
use of
> > metaphor in everyday language is an informal act of building and using
models.
> > Models built using familiar concepts and their inter-relations to
understand
> > less-familiar domains. And of course it would be natural to ask if it
is
> > "turtles/models all the way down" and *that* is a truly interesting
question.
> > Where *do* models, analogies, metaphors ground out? In direct
experience? In
> > atomic elements of intuitive understanding?
>
> To me, metaphor is distinct from analogy in the sense that metaphor is a
> language game... a game of swapping the _names_ of things to manipulate
> thoughts (your own or others). And in that sense, it's an
> epistemological tool. Analogy, on the other hand, is more real, more
> ontological. Analogy is the result of a real similarity between two
> things, not just a language game.
>
> I enjoy examining the etymology of words in situations like this.
> Metaphor parses out as something like "the carrier for a transfer". The
> word-swappage is a medium through which we modify thought. Analog
> parses out as "a comparison of proportions". Analogies arise from a
> kind of validation process: measure thing #1, measure thing #2, compare
> the measurements, if they're similar, they're analogous (under that
> measure).
>
> Hence, analogy is fundamentally related to concrete, physical modeling
> (which is etymologically related to "measure") whereas metaphor is more
> related to the mind and how we think. Metaphors can be fantastical and
> imaginary whereas analogies have to be more concretely grounded to some
> repeatable method of measurement.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
http://agent-based-modeling.com>
>
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