I can see why you're interest in metaphors. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 11:40 AM Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > EricS, I stipulate that there is no scoundrel worse than the old > professor that insists that others read his old papers. It is one of two > papers in which I engage in "formal" metaphor analysis. I think it is, of > all the papers I have written, the most interesting, not because it is the > best, but because the can of worms it opens is largest and juiciest. You > will find it at > > Thompson, Nicholas S. “Shifting the Natural Selection Metaphor to the > Group Level.” *Behavior and Philosophy*, vol. 28, no. 1/2, 2000, pp. > 83–101. *JSTOR*, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27759407. Accessed 27 Mar. > 2026. > > There is no pay wall, but there is a song and dance. I will try to > attach a copy below. I think I will stand or fall on the value of this > paper as a demonstration of the manner in which metaphors can guide useful > arguments if taken seriously. > > On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 5:34 AM Santafe <[email protected]> wrote: > >> This is a great note, in the sense of being helpful from endless going >> around in circles, and written to get somewhere. I am always grateful when >> EricC visits from the Oort cloud and enables a conversation to go into some >> direction again. >> >> I want, though (of course) to object to something. And a paragraph below >> enables me to see the way I want to do it. EC already understands the >> source of the objection, and I will include the final paragraph where it is >> flagged, though I want to beware oversimplifying to the point of having >> strawmen (which I don’t think is being done here). But first; the >> objection: >> >> >> On Mar 26, 2026, at 16:25, Eric Charles <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> There are at least three interesting things going on in the >> metaphor discussion. The least interesting aspect of it is squabbling over >> what does or does not count as a metaphor (vice simile, model, analogy, >> etc.). Not that that isn't a perfectly good discussion, it just that it's >> *just* a vocabulary discussion, not an ideas discussion. >> >> 1) What is an explicit metaphor, and to what extent do the constant >> implicit metaphors that permeate our language resemble them? Nick has a >> particular way of thinking about metaphors, based on the intent of the >> person invoking the metaphor. Metaphors always assert that two things are >> alike, not that they are identical, so that implies that all metaphors are >> imperfect, and that that is intentional, and does not invalidate a >> metaphor. Metaphors can thus be divided into intended implications and >> not-intended implication, etc., etc. .... and Nick is fairly obsessed with >> these, especially in scientific contexts where people seem to be using the >> metaphors in different ways and that leads to a deep underlying confusion >> in a seemingly functional field, e.g., Darwinian evolution by means of >> "natural" selection.... >> >> >> This is the poster child for a thing that to me is the ultimate >> non-issue, and has been shown to be the non-issue it is for many decades >> now. >> >> Look up George Price: >> sciencedirect.com >> <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002251938570149X> >> <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002251938570149X> >> <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002251938570149X> >> https://gwern.net/doc/genetics/selection/natural/1995-price.pdf >> >> Price lays out, to a perfectly acceptable degree, an operational >> description. Of sets of things, of partitioning, of some’s being retained >> and others’ being eliminated, from the ongoing history of sets that are the >> targets of description. It’s a phenomenon that takes place in nature, in >> all sorts of forms. We need some lexeme to refer to it. What is a good >> one? Selection seems about as apt as anything in English. Quite beside >> the fact that Darwin wrote about animal breeding, this will still be >> perhaps the most apt word I have available. Not merely “sorting”, because >> I need also the consequence of the sort that a retention/elimination step >> ensues. Human intentionality is not imputed to the phenomenon itself at >> all, though there can be a subset of cases where it enters as part of the >> chain of causation. >> >> When anybody resurrects this zombie of claiming that some terrible >> metaphor of human breeding-selection is indelible in the cognition of >> people thinking about evolution that leads them into confusion, my >> experience of the conversation is much like the experiences I have had with >> the Implicit Bias crowd. It doesn’t take much time around many of them, >> before I am pretty firmly convinced that what they want is to condemn >> basically everybody (but, one by one, whomever they are talking to). (The >> nicest image that comes to mind is Aunt Ada’s “I saw something nasty in the >> woodshed” from Cold Comfort Farm, with about as much content.) The >> motivation is the whole, and any conversation will take whatever sophistic >> form gives the performance of fulfilling the motivation. To be clear about >> what really is going on, and to think well about it and improve the way we >> handle such problems in living, is incidental to why they do what they do. >> A kind of trojan horse of a kind we so often see: the existence of a >> legitimate justice aim becomes a vehicle for people who want to play >> domination games and to bully. They don’t erase the legitimate justice >> aim, but by having little serious interest in it (or a secondary and >> self-serving one, at best), they move it out of scope for any interaction >> you can have with them. At which point I don’t feel like feeding the >> trolls. Talk to me about really understanding and really helping, and stop >> the performing and pretending, or leave me alone. >> >> I do think one has to have some interest in knowing what people are >> doing, in context of the commitment to get thoughts clear and to solve some >> problems for which the solution has criteria, to keep such intuitions from >> turning into strawmen. >> >> >> The paragraph I promised to acknowledge, which I think also sees all >> this, was this one: >> >> I suspect that much of the frustration of Nick v others on this list is >> the instance of those others that any implications of the flavor text can >> be ignored once the mechanism has been mathematized, vs Nick's instance >> that if the flavor text is still being used it is almost certainly doing >> some metaphor-like work in the background of whoever is using, or hearing, >> the term (because otherwise, why not ditch it entirely). >> >> >> Eric(S) >> >> >> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / >> ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: 5/2017 thru present >> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >> > > > -- > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology > Clark University > [email protected] > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson > https://substack.com/@monist > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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