Nick said:To which Russ replied: I took it to mean "the whetted edge" for which the metaphorical source is perhaps more obviously apt (an edge deliberately or carefully kept sharp?) than "wet" which for me is interestingly allusory (makes me think of our general reference to brain-stuff as wet-ware?) but not as obviously useful. Perhaps Nick has something more specific in mind? 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. For myself, Lakoff and Johnson captured me 30 years ago with "Metaphors we Live By" but I regularly encounter strong opposition to the idea that metaphor is central to our understanding and communication. Some of this I attribute to the *very* lame use of overt metaphor in rhetoric by many. On the other hand, I'm willing to accept the possibility that some people simply don't (think that they?) use analogy much in their understanding of the world around them. I accept that metaphor is more obviously used in the understanding of, for example, human nature more than perhaps the physical world. I believe that Lakoff and Nunez make some very compelling arguements tying metaphor into Mathematics in their book "Where Mathematics Comes From". 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? In response to Jochen's original quote of Bergson: "The brain is the coathook of the mind" is mildly useful to remind us (perhaps) that the stuff of the mind (ideas?) are merely things we use the structure (coat-hook) of the brain to hold them in place and provide some bit of arrangement. It is not a deep or strong metaphor as I see it, but I find that metaphors originating in other languages, cultures, times often elude me until I've considered or discussed them with others. In my question of whether and why not everyone accepts metaphors as important to understanding, it might be worth noting that if Bergman's metaphorical association of brain to coat-hook (and mind to coats, hats, scarves?) feels like a mnemonic device more than an explanatory device and in it's brevity feels like more of a "quip" than an explanation. In rhetoric, it seems we use many devices besides direct explanation to persuade... in fact, we often evade explanation altogether in favor of creating associations that support the cause of our rhetoric, independent of their validity. Colorful and superficially apt associations seem to often be the stuff of rhetoric. I believe we may have some scholars of rhetoric here who could correct me, as I am speaking mostly of the informal rhetoric used in everyday talk, in advertising, in politics. To credit Jochen's original question, I would also say that Bergson's use of "coat hook" served to "hook" me into this conversation... while I understood "coat hook of the mind" fairly literally in the sense of what coat-hooks are designed for, I could not help but have the image of the "hookness" of a coat hook and the allusions to many other forms of hooks inform my thinking and feeling about the question at hand, causing many "threads" of my thinking to be "snagged" by the idea of "hooks" as well as images of a long shepherd's "hook" reaching out onto the stage of my vaudeville act here to pull me off the stage... - Steve |
============================================================ 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
