Posted by
Nick Thompson on
May 09, 2010; 10:31pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-coat-hook-of-the-mind-tp5012713p5028079.html
Glen:
Ok. Let's work with this:
You wrote:
> That's perfectly reasonable. But if it's only the "implications" of the
> metaphor that can be made precise, then the metaphor itself, regardless
> of how important it was in the formation of the result, is NOT what is
> precise. The result of the "implication" (inference) is what is made
> precise, not the metaphor.
The metaphor I want to examine is that between the manner in which the
different strains of pigeons in Darwin's coop came to be the way they were
and the manner in which different species of plants and animals came to be
the way they are.
What I am imagining that MIGHT contradict what you are saying is that if
the metaphor is taken seriously there is an exact, precise, fuzzy sequence
of events that arrises from how, say, a tufted pigeon got his tuft and if
that exact history were applied (metaphorically) to, say, how the giraffe
got his long neck, VERY PRECISE UNFUZZY EXPECTATIONS ABOUT GIRAFFES
(emphasis not shouting) would arise some of which would be clearly false
and unintended, some of which would be intended and true, and some of which
would be unknown. In otherwords, there is something of a confusion between
a metaphor and a generalization. If you say your love is like a red, red,
rose you have started with a rose, generalized it, and then applied the
generalized metaphor to your love. And that is, in some sense, vague. I
would agree. But if you were to skip the generalization part and just say,
"my love is like this rose", then you would have a very specific metaphor.
I guess I am just trying to argue that the issue of vagueness and the issue
of metaphoricalness are orthogonal to one another.
N
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: 5/9/2010 3:10:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The coat hook of the mind
>
> Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 05/07/2010 05:14 PM:
> > 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.
>
> That's perfectly reasonable. But if it's only the "implications" of the
> metaphor that can be made precise, then the metaphor itself, regardless
> of how important it was in the formation of the result, is NOT what is
> precise. The result of the "implication" (inference) is what is made
> precise, not the metaphor.
>
> Hence, if we can regard analogs as resulting from metaphors, then that
> falls right in line with my proposition that analogs can be made precise
> but metaphors cannot. Metaphors _rely_ on the fuzziness. They are the
> "carriers" of the "transfer". If you remove the fuzziness from them,
> they are no longer metaphors.
>
> RE: Jochen's comment, then, I'd say that analogy is the calculus of the
> mind. Metaphors are something more fluffy and mental providing the
> conceptual motivation for the development of analogs.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
http://agent-based-modeling.com>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.orgNicholas 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: 5/9/2010 3:10:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The coat hook of the mind
>
> Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 05/07/2010 05:14 PM:
> > 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.
>
> That's perfectly reasonable. But if it's only the "implications" of the
> metaphor that can be made precise, then the metaphor itself, regardless
> of how important it was in the formation of the result, is NOT what is
> precise. The result of the "implication" (inference) is what is made
> precise, not the metaphor.
>
> Hence, if we can regard analogs as resulting from metaphors, then that
> falls right in line with my proposition that analogs can be made precise
> but metaphors cannot. Metaphors _rely_ on the fuzziness. They are the
> "carriers" of the "transfer". If you remove the fuzziness from them,
> they are no longer metaphors.
>
> RE: Jochen's comment, then, I'd say that analogy is the calculus of the
> mind. Metaphors are something more fluffy and mental providing the
> conceptual motivation for the development of analogs.
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
http://agent-based-modeling.com>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org