[FRIAM] projection propaganda

[Prof David West]

thank you—your reply triggered self-awareness in sloppy usage.

Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy are similar but quite distinct, but a lot of people, including me except when I am being very very careful - tend to use "metaphor" as a conflation of all three.

Bohr did say that an atom is a tiny solar system, a metaphor (the use of is) but almost certainly meant "is like" which is a simile. More importantly, he spoke at some extent about how the two terms (solar system / atom) relate, making it an analogy.

Similarly, Quine (I think) used the term metaphor as an umbrella term for all three comparatives. And this is that of which I am also frequently guilty.

Metaphor became a research topic for me when I was doing my Masters thesis in comp sci (AI) and was prompted by the reciprocal metaphor: "the brain is a computer / a computer is a brain." This metaphor dominated the conversation across multiple fields including computing, psychology, and cognitive science while attempting to intrude on disciplines like cultural anthropology. The metaphor was used as if it was a lexical term, and computer scientists like Pylyshyn insisted that it was. Sure, the substrate was different, silicon and meat, but that was irrelevant.

The metaphor persists  when both "mind" and "intelligence" are defined as side effects of brain operation, hence there is no difference in mind or intelligence arising NAND (et.al.) gates closing in a computer with that arising from synapses firing in a human brain.

That is where MacCormac's lifecycle comes into play: I should be able to take the metaphor as epiphor, examine it for correlating referents, and determine if the epiphor can evolve to lexical term or dead metaphor. But doing this takes us deeply into the world of analogy. So it is sloppy usage to persist in using the term metaphor.

My sloppy usage is not forgiven by, but is far less egregious, than those that persist in treating the metaphor as if it was a lexical term.

BTW: "davew is a human being," is, to me, a metaphor. And, if I use analogy to explore it, it rapidly becomes a dead metaphor.

davew




On Wed, Jul 16, 2025, at 12:10 PM, glen wrote:
> OK. I kinda appreciate the attempt at a typology ... like the ontology 
> trees rooted in "thing". It doesn't give me any sense of what y'all 
> would admit is *not* a metaphor (or any conjugate or qualified version 
> of it). At the very least, we could resort to something like semiotics 
> where, given 1 triad, we can say things like "in this triad, the sign 
> is not the object and the interpretant is not the sign and the object 
> is not the interpretant". I mean, that's not very satisfying. But it 
> would be better.
>
> Another fix would be to identify if "metaphor" is really a usage mode, 
> not an ontological property. Then we could say things like "left-brain" 
> is being *used* as a metaphor for System 2. A role is a different thing 
> from a thing playing a role. We could form other types of sentence that 
> way, too, like "this coffee mug is being used as a rock" or "think of 
> this coil of wire as if it were bookshelf".
>
> Another thing that would help me is to draw a detailed distinction 
> between a metaphor and an analogy. I've got a rich conceptual structure 
> around analogies. But the way the token "metaphor" is used seems 
> hopelessly sloppy to me.
>
> But to start, it would be useful to get a couple of lists: 1) things 
> that are not metaphors and 2) things that are metaphors. If we can't 
> even do that, then it is truly hopeless and I'll continue avoiding the 
> token and suspecting those who use it of bad faith.
>
> On 7/16/25 9:43 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>> I think we are using 'metaphor' in an inconsistent fashion.
>> 
>> My viewpoint begins with W. V. O. Quine:
>> 
>> /"Along the philosophical fringes of science, reasons may be found to question basic conceptual structures and to search for ways to reshape them. Old idioms are bound to fail, and only metaphor can begin to limn the new order"/
>> 
>> Then add McCormac's "lifecycle."  First is the *epiphor, *e.g., an atom is like a solar system, nucleus and orbiting electrons.
>> 
>> The familiar side of this relation suggests referents/aspects that can be looked for on the unfamiliar side.
>> 
>> If these referents/aspects are confirmed the paraphor evolves to be a lexical term.
>> 
>> If they are not confirmed, the metaphor becomes a dead metaphor and is discarded.
>> 
>> There are some special cases: the Bohr model of an atom as solar system, persists, not because referents/aspects are confirmed on both sides—quite the opposit—but because it is a useful tool for teaching elementary chemistry.
>> 
>> In my CS Masters Thesis and first professional publication, I coined the term, paraphor for a metaphor—specifically the brain-computer / computer-brain metaphor—where the referents are consistently contradicted but the metaphor persists because it fits a prevailing paradigm of thought about the subject area.
>> 
>> I am sympathetic to the assertion by Nick, et. al., "that it is all metaphor." but on very different grounds. In my case the "all is illusion" and antipathy to the verb to be.
>> 
>> davew
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 16, 2025, at 10:53 AM, glen wrote:
>>  > I had intended to only address Dave's assertion "trapped within a
>>  > narrowly defined model". But I'll try to tackle 2 objections at the
>>  > same time. Again, my target is this "everything's a metaphor" bullshit.
>>  >
>>  > "Familiar" is a problematic term, here. Both Dave and Steve invoke the
>>  > "definite" (ala Feferman's "what is definite"). When we use formal,
>>  > schematic systems to translate a method from one domain to another,
>>  > it's fine to call that "metaphor" at a cocktail party. But it's just
>>  > not. Unbound/a-semantic terms are not metaphorical terms.
>>  >
>>  > Now, Steve's right to separate (A) from (B) because "explaining" is
>>  > different from translation, at least in the naive science/knowledge
>>  > sense. (In the less bound/grounded statistics sense, they're closer to
>>  > the same concept. But it seems Steve means the science/knowledge
>>  > sense.) And when we explain things this way (by allowing some flex and
>>  > slop in some of the terms of the model so someone from another domain
>>  > can do the mapping themselves), we're relying on the audience to have a
>>  > bushy *context* so they can/could bind all the terms as concretely
>>  > (definitely) as we've done in the source domain. If the 2 contexts
>>  > (person modeling in the source domain & person modeling in the target
>>  > domain) aren't equivalently rich, then "explanation" fails.
>>  >
>>  > And this is where Dave's wrong about multiscale modeling. The context
>>  > at the large scale can be wildly different from the context at the
>>  > meso- or micro-scales, similar between meso- and micro-scales. It
>>  > hinges on whatever is meant by "narrow", of course. But multi-modal
>>  > modeling not only exists, but is fairly common. There are even toolkits
>>  > for doing it without giving it too much thought. All that's needed is
>>  > to define (or even loosely describe) couplings between the modes so
>>  > that they can sync up in time and space. Within the components,
>>  > anything goes.
>>  >
>>  > On 7/15/25 2:27 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>  >>   Literary metaphor is the tool which literary practicioners use to formalize (less rigorously by design?) their own models of their observation of the world.  Somewhere in between or elsewhere (to invoke a spatial metaphor?) lies the conceptual metaphors I claim we all use all the time to A) apply our intuitive experience/understanding in one familiar domain to another less familiar one; B) to explain things we (think we) understand in a domain we are familiar with to someone else who is more familiar with another domain.   Yes there is lossy compression and distortion involved in thee processes when used in good faith. When used in bad faith (e.g. political rhetoric), this becomes a feature (of the persuasion) not a bug (of the understanding/communication).
>>  >>
>>  >> </mansplainery>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >> On 7/15/2025 2:52 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>>  >>> I like your framework and it has some direct relevance to the other part of this thread about McGilchrist.
>>  >>>
>>  >>> I would add multi-disciplinary ("broadly skilled") modelers to multiscale modelers and actually think them more important. Multiscale modelers might be able to avoid composition fallacies but will still be trapped within a narrowly defined model.
>>  >>>
>>  >>> I would also go out on a limb and claim that metaphor and metaphoric reasoning is key to being able to select a model that best fits.
>>  >>>
>
>
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