<div dir="ltr"><div>Steve, </div><div><br></div><div>I completely misunderstood the talk metaphor. In fact, its a wonderful example of how checking metaphors can improve communication. I had you polishing the lens, making it cleaner, more transparent, more accurate. Mak </div><div>ing it a better transducer of what lies beyond it. Therefore none of my remarks made much sense.</div><div><br></div><div>I think of models as formal metaphors, or as, in the case of agent models, as contrived metaphors. No daylight. The analysis continues from there: What did the user intend from the metaphor, what did the hearer take from it, and to what extent is the intent or inference a coherent understanding of the metaphor. </div><br><div>I experience "I wonder if we can actually communicate at all" very differently from you. To me, it is one of those war-weary, sophomoric shrugs that I have to analyze endlessly to try and find any meat in it. In conversations, do we usually not understand some of the implications of what another person is saying? Yes. In conversations, do we sometimes understand some of the implications of what the other person is saying? Yes. Is it a good idea if you are going to deal repeatedly with a person to try to sort these categories out? Yes. Is assuming that what I got out is what the person is putting into it always a good idea? No, not always. Is metaphor analysis one way of getting into that kind of conversation? Yes. Is such analysis necessary in every context. No. </div><div>N</div><div> </div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 3:26\u202fPM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<p>Nick -</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>I will work backwards. What is the test by which you
determine whether your talc-ing of the lens has improved your
vision or whether it has made it worse? That's not a
rhetorical question. Work it through in your imagination.
How exactly do you determine this? This is the question that
lies</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I think my metaphor (as they are wont to do) fell short or
directed you wrongly. The "talc" was meant to be a dusted
surface layer to scatter light rather than refract it so that the
lens-grinder can more effectively read surface imperfections?</p>
<p>As a laser-scanner or photogrammetric surface capture needs
backscattered light to actually read the shape of the surface. I
think your apprehension of "talc" as an aid in evaluating the
quality of the lens (metapor or spatula as glen would prefer) fits
more into the category of viewing a test-pattern through the lens
to look for gross geometrical, spectral distortions as well as
local defects?</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div> at the bottom of EricS's complaint about TK. We would
like to think it's not "just" a social test. This is where
Peirce takes off, I think: yes, it's a social test, but it's
not "just" a social test. In fact, the long term social test
has methods, it has rigor, it has precision, it has all the
good things that collective human cognition can have.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
This is a way of saying that Social Scines is in fact a Science (I
don't disagree even if it's rigor and style are naturally distorted
by it's context).
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div> These are scientific methods and the pursuit of
such methods will lead you to have fewer surprises in your
life. The one thing it will never have is experience of
entities beyond the realm of human experience. It follows
that every sighting of a thing previously not encountered has
to be a metaphor. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>"facts about the world" vs "relations between ideas". I would
add that our wet-noodling of "metaphor" is more broadly "wet
noodling" of "modeling relations" with a special cat-o-nines with
broken glass in the knots reserved for the more
figurative/colorful/literary styled versions? </p>
<blockquote>
<p><i><aside> is the contrast between wet-noodle-flogging
and rawhide-cat-o-nine-with-broken-glass useful or just
distracting?</aside></i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>As an(other) aside (footnote, subscript, marginalia) to the whole
"metaphors/not" neverending-discussion, I think we simply have
lost whatever hysteresis element might be appropriate to keep us
from oscillating between (vaguely): "everything is metaphor and
don't you forget it!" and "metaphors are dumb!" (caricature). </p>
<p>I was deeply moved (first reactionarily, then maybe generatively,
and finally comfortingedly?) by glen's assertion/question about
"whether we really communicate at all". I'm sure i fully fail to
understand what he meant by that, but nevertheless something like
*new understanding" emerged in me over hearing that (repeatedly?)
and mulling (like spiced wine stirred with a spatula?) a great
deal. ("mulling" might be a plumb-dead metaphor as is would be
"plumb" itself?)</p>
<p>I'm pleasantly puzzled at the contradictions that all this
implies. Early on I wanted to use the paradox/contradiction to
debunk glen's claim, but if anything, trying to do such, it wormed
it's way (another dead-spatula) into my mind (like RFK Jr's
special friend) and now it feels excruciatingly more like Godel's
Incompleteness than anything.</p>
<p>I see how metaphors *obscure* and *deflect* and *overstate* and
perhaps that is what makes them so damn good for what they do (all
the time)? The source of generativity? An "absential" perhaps
in Deacon's vocabulary?</p>
<p>Mumble,</p>
<p> - Steve</p>
<br>
</div>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><br><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Nicholas S. Thompson</div><div>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology</div><div>Clark University</div><div><a href="mailto:nthompson@clarku.edu" target="_blank">nthompson@clarku.edu</a></div><div><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson" target="_blank">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson</a></div><div><a href="https://substack.com/@monist" target="_blank">https://substack.com/@monist</a></div></div></div>