<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">thank you for your clarification</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Speaking only for myself: your argument is correct.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I spend a lot of time writing about fringe stuff, e.g., consciousness and altered states and enlightenment. Metaphor (using as umbrella term here) is an essential tool for any possible communication. It is a sharp edged tool. The intent is to create a lens through which my reader and myself can explore something. Crafting a precision, useful, lens requires more than a casual understanding of tool (lens) making. Also required, sensitivity to the communication that was supposed to be advanced using the tool to see if desired/expected results were, in fact, achieved; such that any necessary retooling can be performed.<u> </u>An absolute essential: the ability to abandon the tool when it proves itself contra-communicati<u>on-supporting.</u></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Long, long, ago; in a physical FRIAM, far, far, away the initial discussion of "metaphor" centered on abuses in the sciences. Both Nick and I were, essentially, accusing too many scientists of tossing around metaphors with no regard to their appropriateness nor usefulness. They were not careful, or even even aware, of the need to craft a useful metaphor and, most importantly, <u>were unable to abandon ones that were demonstrably wrong, even harmful. </u></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Subsequently, especially on-line, the conversation spiraled inward in a, largely, unproductive manner. I wished it had, instead, focused on specific cases of metaphor abuse and possible alternatives approaches to understanding that which the metaphor was supposed to have helped.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">[An aside: I know a lot about fetishism, another aspect of my NSFW self, and the insinuation of such with regard this topic is categorically wrong!]</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">On Fri, Mar 20, 2026, at 8:27 AM, glen wrote:</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Fools have more to say, and more impact, than, for example, nit-picking </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> grammar nazis.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Anyway, here is the counterargument, AGAIN! OK. I grant you all 5 of </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> your points. As a fan of postmodernist approaches, the examination of </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> every layer of every narrative in the stack *can* be worthwhile and </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> interesting, especially for academics. I'm glad you are also a </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> postmodernist.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> But if you actually want to *understand* what some other agent is </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> trying to say, you read *through* their text. You use it as a lens. If, </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> every time you picked up your eyeglasses, you only looked *at* the </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> lenses, those glasses would be useless as a tool. Every time you meet a </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> missive focusing on the metaphors used, you are explicitly/purposefully </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> misunderstanding the author. If metaphors are a tool, you're ignoring </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> their tool-ness. You promote the means/tool to an end. [\u26e7]</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> People use their deeply embedded metaphors to communicate. If all you </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> can do is yap about their metaphors, you are blocking their ability to </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> communicate and your ability to understand what they mean.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> I'll turn your moral back around on you. You can choose to ignore my </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> counter argument, yet again. Or you can tell me why it's more important </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> to look at the lens than through the lens. [\u26e4]</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> [\u26e7] A good analogy, here, is that of paraphilia </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia</a>>. You have a fetish. Rather </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> than a metaphor *enhancing* your ability to see the world, you've </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> fetishized them. You think the metaphor *is* the world. Like a </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> fetishist, you're aroused by the tool, not the objective.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> [\u26e4] I can shunt a counter-counter argument in advance. In a mostly </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> rhetorical world, if you merely look *through* the metaphor, you're at </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> risk of being a victim of purposefully designed narratives, intended to </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> exploit or mislead you. Therefore, a critical thinker must *also* look </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> at the lenses, not merely through them. But this argument fails because </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> if you can't even look through the lens in the first place, then you </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> can never critically analyze how it [mis]directs your gaze. So the </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> *first* and primary skill is to be able to look *through* metaphors. </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Looking at them is a secondary skill. And, like the grammar nazis, a </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> fetish for the form preemptively excludes an understanding of the </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> function.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> On 3/19/26 1:10 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">>> 1. Metaphors are everywhere. We can disclaim them all we like, but they are deeply embedded in the way in which we proceed from thought to thought. They lurk in how professionals talk to one another and also in the manner in which professionals talk to the public.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">>> 2. There is a lot of evidence these days that scientists have "lost" the public. This is a very dangerous situation. My suspicion is that this has to do with the metaphors we use when we talk to the public about what we do.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">>> 3. We all seem to agree that there is truth and falsehood disguised in every metaphor.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">>> 4. Given the ambiguity of metaphors, I am interested in a method for understanding their role in thought and communication, particularly in understanding the manner in which truth and falsehood is deployed in them. How are we to distinguish between a better and a worse metaphor if all contain elements of falsehood. What am I to take from your metaphor? What are you to take from mine?</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">>> 5. Given the entanglement of truth and falsehood in metaphor, it's worth exploring distinctions between what implications a speaker intends by a metaphor, what the coherence of the metaphor can logically sustain by way of implication, and what implications hearers take from the metaphor.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> -- </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> ¡s\u0131\u0279\u018e \u05df\u0131\u0250H \u22a5 \u0250\u05df\u05df\u01dddo\u0279 \u01dd u\u01dd\u05df\u0183</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> \u1f45\u03c4\u03b5 oi \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c7\u03d1\u03c1\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u1f10\u03b3\u1f70 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u1f35\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ce\u03c3\u03c9.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <a href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> to (un)subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com</a>/</div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> archives: 5/2017 thru present </div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com</a>/</div></body></html>