[FRIAM] The "Metaphor" Sting: The scorpion speaks

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Hi, everybody.  

 

Let me just say that raising metaphoric nature of a conversation during a
conversation is not an attempt to  the Frog.   It is always done because the
scorpion senses that the frog is swimming in circles and has lost sight both
of the river and the bank.  I long to have a conversation about the
metaphoric nature of scientific thought.  I long to analyze scientific
metaphors with you all.  What is a good metaphor, what is a bad one.  What
is a strong metaphor, what is a weak one.  How does this metaphor alert us
to some possibilities, blind us to others.  What expectations does this
metaphor lead us to other than the facts that inspired it?  What is the
relation between "popular" books and rigorous exposition.  It cannot be that
such books are only "sloppy" representations of how Scientists really think.
I come from a field which was guided for 40 years by the metaphor of The
Selfish Gene, which was presented in a popular book which was read and cited
by thousands of practitioners in the field.) 

 

I don't expect (or even hope for) any response now.  But I would like you to
ponder for the future what the role of the scorpion is in a conversation.
And here, we see, where the analysis of my metaphor might be useful.   Is
the scorpion ever useful to the frog?  Perhaps the scorpion should be
conceived as a honey-bee who serves up sugary snacks when the frog flags at
mid river.  I think there is an algebra of metaphoric thought and we need to
make it explicit and understand it better.   Is there a role for scorpions
in an intellectual ecosystem?

 

All the best and have a wonderful summer, 

 

Nick Thompson

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

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

 

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