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 ([email protected]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <[email protected]> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> > 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 > > > ============================================================ > 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
