[FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

Sat Jun 10 15:35:17 EDT 2017

I had never heard the word ouroboros
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros> before Dave used it. Thanks for
the term. But even though I had never heard the term, the ouroboros was the
image that came to mind when I first learned recursion!

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 12:22 PM Steven A Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> 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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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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