[FRIAM] A bold meteorological theory

[Steve Smith]

Jon's great pointer <metaphor> to Koopman functions and the whole 
eigenfunction space <metaphor> that unfurled <metaphor)> from it lead 
<metaphor> me to refine <metaphor> my model <metaphor?> of latent 
semantic space (LLMs for the moment) as 
plenae/manifolds/bundles/sheaves/geodesics <formal diffGeo mathematical 
models laced with metaphorical terms and implications> and then 
dynamical systems' attractor landscapes <metaphor> with  nested 
basins<metaphor> and saddle points <metaphor>.

Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" vs Borges "Library of Babel" 
perhaps?   To the extent that we (post literate?) humans live in an 
Intersubjective Reality mediated by long-form, long-term narrative 
(Medium is the Massage), we are "nothing but Narrative" in some sense 
which rides on the control points of a high-dimensional, higher order 
spline whose control points are the source domain of Metaphor.  Layer on 
top (see con-men, posuers) the  goal of rhetoric (to carve the mogul-ly 
landscape of intersubjective narrativity).

While I ran my mouth <keyboard> here, i did manage not to think of an 
Elephant once until I scanned your (glen's) original post for possible 
extra hooks to hook into the latchhook rug of my monologue <Colbert 
reference>, but I did let a Zebra sneak his nose into my tent <mixed 
metaphor>  in a couple of times...

Life in intersubjective reality (wherein *all* life lives it's life 
climbing the salmon ladder of surprisal miniimizatoin?) is canalization 
"all the way down"?  Even dedicated "powder skiers" are seeking to carve 
(proto) moguls, even if they are too proud to ski them themselves.

(apologies to avid skiers, I haven't been on downhill skis for nearly 30 
years)

     ...  but I do love me a good MogulMetaphor.  Next we will wax up. 
our Metaphors and "shoot some curls"? <surfing or some other elitist 
showy hobby>

Those who ride the ridges between the ruts, swerve cross-weiz to them, 
cut out across unsullied landscapes feel like brave pioneers, or maybe 
we just don't have patience for ruts (other peoples, we either cherish 
or ignore our own?).

Metaphorically Yours,

  -Steve

On 3/16/26 7:55 am, glen wrote:
> That's some good advice, there. Narratives like the naked Emperor are 
> crucial tools for posers and con men. Each and every metaphor you 
> identify in a missive is evidence of the authors' (plural possessive - 
> no such thing as a sole author) Bad Faith. And the number of metaphors 
> is directly correlated with the extent of the Bad Faith.
>
> None of us are innocent. None of us are the child in the narrative. 
> It's a venomous fiction, injected by the fangs of the storyteller. 
> Even literal babies bring along their own "genetic memory", in utero 
> accretion, biases, and expertise. The story, that story and all 
> others, is there to persuade, to trick you, to canalize you into 
> thinking in some particular set of ways.
>
> Now I'd like you to stop thinking about elephants.
>
> On 3/15/26 10:17 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> Perhaps I should just drop the metaphor and speak to the beliefs the 
>> metaphor represents to me. Expertise both sights and blinds us; great 
>> expertise sights and blinds us greatly.
>>
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