[FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

Sat Jun 10 15:22:16 EDT 2017

Dave -

Thanks for weighing in here, my own studies have not been so formal nor 
probably as deep.   I have to admit to not knowing that cognitive 
anthropology was a subject, just as Nick introduced me to evolutionary 
psychology as it's own field!

I appreciate your introduction of /epiphor/, /paraphor/ and /dead 
metaphor/.  I began a discursion here (which I fortunately deleted) 
which lead me to read some MacCormac and more to the point Philip 
Wheelwright on the modern, technical usage of /epiphor/ and /diaphor/, 
from the Greek/Aristotelian /epiphoria/ and /diaphoria. /I particularly 
find your coining of /paraphor/, as I think this is as common in our 
modern discourse/thinking as "confirmation bias".

I also like your point that the "Scientific Method" is more metaphor 
than reality, or more to the point, a narrative device to show how a 
discovery "might have been made" when more often than not, it was backed 
into while bumping around looking for something entirely different, and 
often involving a "flash of insight" before then being laboriously wrung 
out and demonstrated using the somewhat more "engineering" oriented 
methods of the "Scientific Method" to move from motivated hypothesis to 
strongly validated theory.

I don't know if you regularly attend WedTech, but this depth/topic of 
discussion might motivate me to make the long trek into town...

- Steve

On 6/10/17 9:36 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd 
> dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the 
> issue of metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial 
> intelligence and cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic 
> papers I published dealt with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, 
> the 'journal of record' in the field at the time.
>
> My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: 
> /A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor/ and /Metaphor and Myth in Science and 
> Religion./
>
> MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first 
> suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead 
> metaphor" or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which referents 
> suggested by the first 'something'  are confirmed to correlate to 
> similar referents in the second "something." E.G. an atom is like a 
> solar system suggests that a nucleus is like the sun and electrons are 
> like planets plus orbits are at specific intervals and electrons can 
> be moved from one orbit to another by adding energy (acceleration) 
> just like any other satellite. As referents like this were confirmed 
> the epiphor became a productive metaphor and a model, i.e. the Bohr 
> model. Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms and 
> particle/waves made it clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in 
> nearly every respect and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning 
> chemistry suggests that it is still a useful tool for metaphorical 
> thinking; modified to "what might you infer/reason, if you looked at 
> an atom _as if_ it were a tiny solar system."
>
> In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a mind, 
> the mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become dead 
> metaphors. Instead they became models "physical symbol system" and 
> most in the community insisted that they were lexical terms (notably 
> Pylyshyn, Newell, and Simon). To explain this, I added the idea of a 
> "paraphor" to MacCormac's evolutionary sequence — a metaphor so 
> ingrained in a paradigm that those thinking with that paradigm cannot 
> perceive the obvious failures of the metaphor.
>
> MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use and 
> misuse of metaphor and its relationship to models (mathematical and 
> iillustrative) in both science and religion. The "Scientific Method," 
> the process of doing science, is itself a metaphor (at best) that 
> should have become a dead metaphor as there is abundant evidence that 
> 'science' is not done 'that way' but only after the fact as if it had 
> been done that way. In an Ouroborosian twist, even MacCormac;s theory 
> of metaphor is itself a metaphor.
>
> If this thread attracts interest, I think the work of MacCormac would 
> provide a rich mine of potential ideas and a framework for the 
> discussion. Unfortunately, it mostly seems to be behind pay walls — 
> the books and JSTOR or its ilk.
>
> dave west
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 9, 2017, at 03:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> I meant to spawn a fresh proto-thread here, sorry.
>>
>>> Given that we have been splitting hairs on terminology, I wanted to 
>>> at least OPEN the topic that has been grazed over and over, and that 
>>> is the distinction between Model, Metaphor, and Analogy.
>>>
>>> I specifically mean
>>>
>>>  1. Mathematical Model
>>>     <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_model>
>>>  2. Conceptual Metaphor
>>>     <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor>
>>>  3. Formal Analogy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy>
>>>
>>> I don't know if this narrows it down enough to discuss but I think 
>>> these three terms have been bandied about loosely and widely enough 
>>> lately to deserve a little more explication?
>>>
>>> I could rattle on for pages about my own usage/opinions/distinctions 
>>> but trust that would just pollute a thread before it had a chance to 
>>> start, if start it can.
>>>
>>> A brief Google Search gave me THIS reference which looks promising, 
>>> but as usual, I'm not willing to go past a paywall or beg a 
>>> colleague/institution for access (I know LANL's reference library 
>>> will probably get this for me if I go in there!).
>>>
>>> http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631221081_chunk_g97806312210818
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> ============================================================
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>
>
>
> ============================================================
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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