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

[Steven A Smith]

Onomataptouie!  With all the Corona Virus awareness, I understand more
better why spitting was once such a visceral insult (even beyond the
mere sliming by a throatful of phlegm).  Is phlegm one of the substances
that helps trolls stick together? 

I really DO appreciate how your style of argument elicits more expansive
and deep thinking.  It feels a bit like the Socratic on Steroids (or
high octane fuel or psychadelics?).   But I digress with "metaphors all
the way down".

My argument *against* reality being structured by metaphors is the same
as the map/territory duality, models are wrong, scientific theories are
contingent.   All of these are "useful" for prediction.   I would claim
that we DO "just give up and live in our fantasy worlds"... not because
they *don't* work, but because they do.   Or they do well enough. 

Pre-copernican, even flat-earth models worked *well enough* until people
started to experience (or aspire to) things for which they were not
sufficient (sail west to get east).   Keplerian mechanics were more
predictively *accurate* than Copernican, but the fantasy worlds of the
sun traversing the sky or of circular orbits still worked for most
purposes but were not necessarily more explanatory.  "don't bother my
pretty little head with those other models!"    But when Newton added
his insight, something qualitatively different happened.   

It was the style of structuring of substances that the Alchemists did
(and found useful) that lead to the Periodic Table which was very
predictive/useful but only became more explanatory when atomic orbital
theory was added.   Your own argument about structuring our
understanding of atomic structure as if electrons literally orbited a
nuclear body, substituting electromagnetic forces for gravitational, now
takes up the argument on my behalf <ptouie>.  

On your larger argument against poetry and visualization, I agree that
their best features are NOT in direct communication, but rather in the
sharing of nuanced insight. 

Regarding your original point of "the distinction between reality and
our language/understanding", my newest "insight" is how CT allows/helps
mathematicians to draw parallels (analogies, mappings) between different
mathematical domains entirely based on their structural similarities,
and apparently how this has allowed one field's insights to be applied
to another.   This is directly supportive of how I see metaphor to be
useful...  it helps us apply existing understandings in one domain to
another.

- Sneeze

On 3/6/20 7:12 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> We trolls need to stick together.
>
> This distinction between reality and our language/understanding is suspect, to me. This was the basis for Rosen's Life Itself argument, what he called "natural law". The idea is that either our reasoning systems are enough like reality to *work*, or they aren't. And if they aren't enough like it, then we should just give up and stay in our fantasy worlds.
>
> So, if you wouldn't claim that reality is deeply structured by metaphor, but our reasoning *is* deeply structured by metaphor, then where do the 2 meet? Or are you, as Nick repeats like a broken record, some kind of ... dualist! [ptouie] ... (What's an onomatopoeic word for spitting?) 
>
> On 3/5/20 8:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> Metaphorist trolling much <grin>?
>> [...]
>> 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.