[FRIAM] trolling, 'hidden' to 'touch' and 'contact'

[Steven A Smith]

> Perhaps coincidentally ... or maybe cause I'm triggered ...:
>
>   Do Atoms Ever Touch?
>   https://youtu.be/P0TNJrTlbBQ
>
> They go 'round and 'round about the definitions and *finally* arrive at the conclusion that "the analogy breaks down". So, the answer to "are emotional states hidden" is "no", but not because they are or are not hidden (by whatever definition of "hidden" you may choose), but because the question is NONSENSE! >8^) So, for all you people who think metaphor is so fundamental ... does this confirm or contradict your bias?

Metaphorist trolling much <grin>?

It confirms *my* bias, but I think your conception of "metaphor as
fundamental" might be different than my own.  I also may be guilty of
"moving the goalposts".  I've been studying Category Theory for possible
formalisms suitable for a sort of universal abstraction of structure
mappings between different formal structures (e.g. sets, topological
spaces, vector spaces, posets, manifolds) and the kinds of structures
found in complex (layered) metaphors.  

Just like "scientific theories" or "models" or "maps",  *metaphors are
always wrong*, some alternately more/less useful/wrong than others.  
The relation "apt" comes to mind.

I would NOT claim that reality is structured by
metaphors/analogies/ontologies/models/theories, but rather that our
*language* and formal understanding is structured in that way. 

This maybe ties in to the parallel thread which Nick so aptly dubbed
"experience beyond experience".  To the extent that there is no way to
structure what we "know", tying it to what we have "sensed", we have
"beyond experience"?

It also maybe ties into deep machine learning.  IMO machine learning
excels at predictive power while being virtually void of explanatory
power.  The holy grail of neural nets/machine learning/learning
classifier systems is to analyze the artifact resulting from training
well enough to provide explanatory power.  

FWIW, a few of the resources I've found that provide interesting (far
from conclusive) insight into all of this are:

 1. Big Picture suggesting how/why CT might inform or relate to MT-
    https://www.math3ma.com/blog/what-is-category-theory-anyway
 2. Not very deep or even convincing but broadly referential to the
    topic -
    http://bohemiantheory.blogspot.com/2014/03/metaphorically-category-theory-is-study.html
 3. Meaning, Metaphors, and Morphisms: Theory of Intermediate Natural
    Transformations - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.10542.pdf

I don't know that anyone else here is motivated to dig into any of
these, but some parallax would be helpful.  The last one is the most
formal/thorough/promising but does have the added challenge of a (rough)
translation from Japanese.

- Steve



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