[FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

Thu May 28 23:51:13 EDT 2020

See larding below

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2020 9:33 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor [POSSIBLE DISTRACTON FROM]: privacy games

Steve, 

After thinking about them I think curved manifolds are real just as right triangles.  Perhaps my introspection deludes me.

[NST===>Good point, because, literally speaking, you have never seen either of them.  <===nst] 

I think you agree with me about thinking without language.  Sometimes.  In the morning I don't think, "Now I am going to open this cabinet to get a bowl..."

[NST===>Well, do you think in any form?  I just open the cabinet and reach for the bowl.  Does all action require? Imply? a thought?  <===nst] 

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, May 28, 2020, 9:11 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com> > wrote:

Frank -

My first  reaction:  I don't think "bent space time" is a metaphor.  I don't use metaphor in thought because I know exactly what I "mean". 

unless space-time is a plastic/elastic solid (solid aether?), I'm not sure what the phrase means if not metaphorically?  If I want to talk about space-time in this way more rigorously, I would not "bend" it, I would describe it's geometry as non-euclidean.   I would claim that we metaphorically "bend" space-time *relative* to the idealized euclidean space we all (most all?) apprehend somewhat directly (though our visual system apprehends space in perspective geometry where objects are consistently smaller by a factor of 1/r where r is their distance from us).  Sound is somewhat more complicated but also has a 1/r component.    

I'm not even sure I use language in thought except when I'm planning an email, for instance.

Frank/Eric -

I do agree that the idea of "metaphors all the way down" shift a little across this boundary.   A lot of my own "thinking" is not explicitly linguistic, but it *is* imagistic and involves analogs (analogies?), much like an analog computer (of which there are many modes and examples, not all electronic) operates perhaps?    I think I related here that I was dreaming in "celestial mechanics" for a while.  I don't know enough details about celestial mechanics to believe I was really honestly "calculating" orbits and orbit-changes, etc... in any useful/literal way,  I was just "experiencing" what it *might* be like to somewhat directly control thrusters with conserved energy and reaction mass whilst "feeling" energetic isoclines in delta-v/gravity space.   

I didn't experience "bent space" so much as the same kind of dissonance I feel when I try to think of great-circle navigation on a map  or even more entertaining/complicated, whilst in the context of winds (sailing/flying) and currents/tides.   My visual site-lines serve me fairly well, up to the curvature of the earth, which would continue to serve me well in interplanetary scale locomotion/navigation, yet if my propulsion method includes a solar-sail (and/or magnetic induction aspects)

I think that "metaphor" is used more in science to communicate with outsiders and as shorthand (e.g. "bent" spacetime) among insiders.  This is where I will defer my language to Glen's appeals to switch to (my idea of what he would ask for) analogy, formal analogy, mathematical models, formal mappings within mathematical formulations.   My only shot for metaphor at this level is to refer to Lakoff/Nunez's "Where Mathematics Comes From" which I claim provides a good argument for how even mathematics is technically/fundamentally metaphorical.  But rather than insist on that (for no good reason), I am happy to converge on the use of the other (analogy, model, mapping) terms.  I think Glen asked me for something like this directly offlist many months ago and I can't remember if I actually said out loud that I was accepting that.  (I hope I am characterizing Glen's position and our interaction accurately).

- Steve

Eric Charles wrote:

I'm not sure I follow all the different sticking points this conversation has developed... but I'm gonna risk punch the tar baby anyway... 

I'm not sure Glen's point about "xyz" gets us very far. Sure, you can call anything you want by any label you want. I'm not sure anyone disputes that. But after that there remain three-ish different issues, which I think Nick tends to muddle: 

1) The role of metaphor in communication.

2) The role of metaphor in thought.

3) The role of metaphor in science.

Did I punch the tar baby enough? Am I hopelessly stuck? Or did I possibly help accomplish anything?

Tar Babies R Us!  

I think you accomplished something for me... your 3 domains above are useful to me and I hope my response registered somewhat to them, with Frank's counter/example of "bent space" is helpful to you or others.

I will leave the "toe/tow the line" metaphors alone here.  I find the *expanded* etymology of metaphors fascinating, especially when juxtoposed phonographically as is this pair, but do think it is probably a distraction from the point at hand.

- Steve

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> 
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20200528/6cf610d4/attachment.html>