Posted by
Nick Thompson on
May 08, 2010; 12:10am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-coat-hook-of-the-mind-tp5012713p5021847.html
Glen, 'n' all:
I think one of the implications of the The Rant I recently posted is that
metaphors can be made unfuzzy, precise, and exact if we are willing to take
the time to separate out their implications into those that we already know
to be false, those we already know to be true, and those that are not yet
known to be true of false.
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: 5/7/2010 4:34:20 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The coat hook of the mind
>
> Jochen Fromm wrote circa 10-05-06 01:41 PM:
> Equations and metaphors are similar, they
> relate two different terms, things, and sides.
> Metaphors let us express one thing in terms of another.
> In this sense, metaphors are the "calculus of the mind".
Can we really say this? My experience with metaphors is that they are
always inexact, imprecise, inaccurate, etc. They're fuzzy constructs.
Granted, they do help one think. But they're more like fuzzy
"waypoints" that provide a general direction of thought rather than,
say, a precise coordinate system and a vector in that system. Analogies
in general, on the other hand, can be very precise (or very imprecise).
I suppose if you replaced = with â (approximately equal to, or similar
to), then we might come closer to what we normally think of as equations.
Byers talks a bit about how "equals" is a type of lens through which a
thing can be viewed in a totally different way (e.g. e = mc^2). But
even there, for us to use "=", we have to be really serious about the
mapping being exact, not fuzzy or vague like metaphors.
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
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