Re: the role of metaphor in scientific thought

Posted by Curt McNamara on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/the-role-of-metaphor-in-scientific-thought-tp7590080p7590168.html

With all due respect -- I have looked through these missives and this prose in vain for any deep examination of metaphor.

For background: the natural systems working group of INCOSE is studying metaphor as a fundamental skill for designers and engineers interested in transferring biological "solutions" to the world of design. One thing we have taken away: to transfer something via metaphor requires that the (system) attributes "drop away" and that the (systemic) relations are what is transferred between the domains.

We put a few papers in this folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j4sdk4jflrxsv45/AADEcCHI9dO4n3AtqrYutuy6a?dl=0

The work of Dedre Gentner seems fundamental to us.

           Curt

On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 11:46 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Friammers,

 

I understand that some members of the Mother Church are getting together soon for a discussion on the role of Metaphor in Scientific Thought.  Hard for me to imagine a meeting that I would regret missing more than this one.  I hope that some of you will post some of your deliberations under this thread so that those of us in the Friam diaspora can have some of the value of them. 

 

FWLIW, The attached PDF is from a book manuscript,  pieces of which have been kicking around for more than 40 years, which Eric Charles has been trying unsuccessfully to get me to pull together into something publishable. If any of you is curious, the text will help you to understand the things I said in the recent complexity discussion and their relation to the “levels” discussion and the metaphor discussion that follows.  The specific discussion on metaphor is late in the pdf, so that if that is what interests you, you can safely skip to the first section on models.  For me, a model is just a scientific metaphor. Full stop.

 

If anybody had comments to share, we, of course, would be deeply grateful.

 

There are more chapters.

 

Nick  

 

 

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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove