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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