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

[Jon Zingale]

Frank, Steve,

My favored approach is to say that *space is like a manifold*.
For me, space is a *thing* and a manifold is an *object*. The former
I can experience free from my models of it, I can continue to
learn facts(?) about space not derived by deduction alone
(consider Nick's posts on inductive and abductive reasoning).
I concede here that we talk about an objectified space, but
I am not intending to. I am using the term space as a place-
holder for the thing I am physically moving about in. OTOH
manifolds are fully *objectified*, they exist by virtue of their
formality. Any meaningful question *about a manifold* itself
is derived deductively from its construction. Neither in their
own right are metaphors, the metaphor is created when we
treat space *as if it were* a manifold. Just my two cents.

At the beginning of MacLane's *Geometrical Mechanics,* (a book
I have held many times, but never found an inexpensive copy
to buy) MacLane opens his lecture's with '*The slogan is: Kinetic*
*energy is a Riemann metric on configuration space*'. What a baller.

Glen,

I love that you mention the <placeholder>, ultimately reducing
the argument to a *snowclone*. Because the title of the thread
actually implicates a discussion of metaphor, and because I may
have missed your point about *xyz,* please allow me this question.
Do you feel that *snowclones* are necessarily templates for making
metaphors, or do you feel that a snowclone is somehow different?

Jon
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20200529/d3baac91/attachment.html>