Hi Steve, and EricS, 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 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. 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.
EricS. I have, as you know, enormous respect for you,, and gratitude for your open-mindednss back in the old days when we heathens were allowed to tread the sacred halls of the Institute and, if we were very respectful, pet the cat.. When i remember those days, it is bizarre to me that we cannot share a good laugh about the contradictions in your paragraph: *It is tempting to laugh at the way to take Glen’s meaning; where when Glen argues that one should look through the lens in the sense of meaning-making, Nick claims innocently to understand that as looking through the lens at (invented? Freudian-style emotional motives. There will never be a thrust that gets through that parry, we have watched it for decades. All good fun. * First we need to clear up some metaphysical ground. Two bird watchers out for a walk in Santa Fe on a recent afternoon. BW#1: I just saw a blue-footed booby. BW#2: There are no blue-footed boobies in Santa Fe in April. BW#1: Nonetheless, I just saw a blue-footed booby. Now there are several understandings of this situation that resolve the contradiction and still leave BW#1's assertion to be true. These include all sorts of altered states, delusion, illusion, etc. . And there is the intenSionality issue; BW#1 may speak a language in which "blue-footed booby" refers to the bird which BW#2 would call a "Stellars Jay." Science can handle all of those. The tricky understandings are those in which we declare BW#1 to be telling some sort of lie. He is joking, he is faking, he is claiming falsely, he is arguing dishonestly, etc. Now these understandings all imply that BW#1 is disingenuous. Such claims can, of course, can be verified, but such verifications involve long experience with the speaker and his context and require one to assume that he is not to be trusted or does not know the nature and quality of his own acts, or both. Such claims are inherently insulting, and, at the best, require great circumspection and tact in their verification. So, lets assume that Nick is being honest when he says what he first sees when he reads a correspondent's posts is a troll under a bridge grumping about who is walking over his bridge. Let's assume that that is what Nick naively sees. That's his first impression. And let's assume that he has to actually apply all sorts of analytical tools to see through to the valuable arguments beneath. Let's not assume (unless you are prepared to make the argument) that he is lying about having this experience. Now this is tricky, because I (a somewhat respected correspondent) have been goaded into reporting a first impression of the words of another (more respected correspondent) which is apparently discordant with your understanding of the latter . The one thing we cannot do is shrug. If there is one thing that must be true about scientists is that they care about disagreement. Obviously, not all disagreements are of equal importance, so one has to prioritize. But if one does tackle a disagreement, one has to examine not only the disagreement between two experiences, but the lenses through which those experiences have been seen. Those of us who use metaphors must be willing to examine them. We can never say, "Of course that is what my metaphor means." That is all I have ever been saying. Those of you who claim (if there are any of you) that some things are directly seen while others arrived at through analysis, pretense and sophistry must be prepared to explain how some experiences come to be simple while others are complex. Nick On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 10:49 AM Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > I've spent my self-conscious life/energy trying to understand whence comes > "understanding", and fortunately the bulk of my life (*what happens > whilst making other plans*) has been un-selfconscious, with a lot of > breathing, walking, wood-splitting, tree-climbing, hell-raising, etc along > the way. > > "understanding" as a placeholder for other related terms like "insight" > and "apprehension" implies (for me) an act of model-fitting (primarily) and > by extension, model-extension? If/when there are "leaps" ("revolutions") > of intuition (personal)/ scientific paradigms (collective), I presume > there is some kind of "pull back" to a meta-understanding of one's personal > (or collective) model of modeling. It is fascinating to me that we (can > and) do this at all. > > As LLM's expose *(behaviour* which appear to some degree, > indistinguishable from incredible model-fitting and meta-model fitting unto > model extension/revision, we have a new line of parallax. > > My love of metaphor is probably little more than my appreciation of > stereoscopic vision (or more aptly, motion parallax?). Having a plethora > of POVs to look at phenomena through, a plethora of meta-models to munge > into (maybe more?)apt models to choose from can be very powerful (or at > least obsessive/addictive?) > > I suspect that most use of metaphor in science is post-hoc, it gets added > (e.g. ES' -Verschränkung/ entanglement, interlinking, entwining, > interlacing) after a more A)intuitive to those steeped in the topics and B) > formalized in mathematical models with an eye to communicating said > models/intuition to the un(der0initiated. glen has occasionally > challenged with something like: "why use 'metaphor' when you really just > mean 'model'?" and I do in fact concede that most use of metaphor is > acutely figurative/convenient/superficial and as it gets more and more > formal/grounded it approaches a formal model. > > Without significant machinery for manipulating metaphorical models > formally, it is perhaps an art to manage metaphors honestly. The likes of > Lakoff, et al... would seem to be good at it (up to a point) and there are > in fact huge (by number not percent) communities of people who study the > use and application of (conceptual/blending) metaphor formally. I ache > for (yet) more formal tools to normalize all of this. As Marcus > references - hypergraphs/graph-matching is a domain which has melted > somewhat under computational power (O(N^2)). > > I'm going to go back to talcing the surfaces of my lenses so I can inspect > them under a (lensed) microscope now... there is nothing more interesting > to a navel than it's own navel. > On 3/21/26 6:21 am, Santafe wrote: > > It has seemed to me that there is a bit of a parallel to the thing Nick > does that I mostly post objections to (and that I read Glen as objecting > to, though I should only speak for myself), and the thing Kuhn does that I > object to in reading him. > > So I’ll talk about Kuhn (TK): > > In Structure of Scientific Revolutions, TK plays sociologist, and comments > on power structures, economies of scale, thoughtlessness, exploitation at > the expense of exploration until one’s back is completely against a wall, > and other such sociological phenomena. No argument from me, against all > that's happening. Also in Venture Capital, consumer behavior, finance, > religion, political movements, cults, instigation and prosecution of wars, > etc. Indeed, were I to describe it in _any_ area of the interplay of > individual and group cognition, I could take up TK’s characterization and > not change much (sometimes nothing at all) except the name of the subject > matter. > > But along the way in that sociology, TK treats the role of scientific > empiricism as if it were somehow just given, and one can refer to it as an > adjudicator (a kind of toss-off), without any attention to whether it > actually is given, whether it is hard, or whether the indefiniteness of > that problem of _reasoning_ and _analysis_ plays any role in when people > think they can exploit versus when they decide as clans that they are > forced to explore (so, I am granting much of the rest of the structure of > TK’s sociological picture, and not pursuing the many places I think he errs > in imposing it). TK’s passing-over-in-silence of this dimension is more > striking, since the previous generation or two of philosophers of science > had mainly wanted to worry about that question, and had clearly run aground > on giving a good analysis of it, though they made many practically sensible > and apt observations in the general direction. > > To me, if there is anything that makes describing the pursuit of > scientific understanding a topic to write about under its own name, as > opposed to writing a completely generic treatment that might have a title > like Mass Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, or perhaps bookended by > something titled The Wisdom of Crowds, the nature of the reasoning problem > of what constitutes empiricism would be at the center of putting “science” > in the title of that monograph. > > To come back to the Nick/Glen exchange, I don’t mind that lens grinders > look at lenses, while hopefully they also sometimes look through them to > decide what good criteria are for grinding strategies. (Indeed, I don’t > think anybody in the list would argue against the need for both). It’s > also perfectly fine to write very general treatises on human behavior. So, > TK’s book could have been entitled People are Often Lazy in Ways that Make > Them Effectively Stupid, and That Can Lead to Cycles, and I could then have > reviewed the book as a useful if not terribly surprising sociological > analysis. I tend to take those things as established for so long by now. > that repeating them isn’t so engaging, and I itch to move on toward > differences in the substrate, where maybe we can say new things that > weren’t said before. > > > It is tempting to laugh at the way Nick deliberately refuses to take > Glen’s meaning; where when Glen argues that one should look through the > lens in the sense of meaning-making, Nick claims innocently to understand > that as looking through the lens at (invented?) Freudian-style emotional > motives. There will never be a thrust that gets through that parry, we > have watched it for decades. All good fun. > > > I do want to distill and call out from the thread what seem to me to be > several clean formulations of questions that interest me, and that seem > still very open: > > From SteveS: > > Scientific language is a *lossy compression layer over a high-dimensional > formal plenum*, not a generative metaphor system. > > (I would modify that it has elements of both — as I know Steve already > intends — and that their co-traveling is one of the interesting aspects) > > and then: > > *What might we know anecdotally of the contexts where generative metaphors > are used in recognizing new models for observed phenomena? * > From DaveW: > > ... the proper, even essential and inevitable, use of metaphor is as and > "exploratory tool (epistemic scaffold). > > (that whole note actually). > > Hard to offer good content in reply to these, because that would require > an actual insight, as does all work that might become satisfying. I like > the well-articulated problem, though. > > Eric > > > > On Mar 20, 2026, at 14:51, glen <[email protected]> > <[email protected]> wrote: > > This seems like a fantastic attempt! It's still layered with sophistry. > You're saying I've stripped you of the capacity or interest. Yet that's > clearly not true. You're reifying a thought experiment, a counterfactual. > That's fine. > > The attempt to look at the world naively is a good one, though, even if > what you're looking at is the *presentation* of my meaning ("anger", > "contempt", "rage", troll metaphor, etc.). It's good to strip away layers > of the narrative like that to see if you can view something naively, > "objectively". But it's still an analysis of the presentation, not the > target of the arrangement of lenses and mirrors I tried to assemble. > > IDK. I've done all I can, I think. My intent was to circumscribe and > directly target why Schmulik would/will eventually ghost you: because you > look at his metaphor instead of through it. > > I'd like to leave off congratulating you on the attempt in the hopes that > you'll do it again later, in some other context, but without adding the > pedantic counterfactual. Just for grins, I'll add that a medium dose of > psychedelics, in the proper set & setting of course, can help doff one's > debilitating obsessions. And I recommend shrooms. You can buy the spores on > the internet. They're legal pretty much anywhere. And grow them in your > closet. Doing so adds a little connection to nature and the plant to help > layer the trip. Cleanse your doors of perception! 8^D > > > On 3/20/26 11:21 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > Ok, Glen, You win. You have stripped from me any capacity or interest in > how metaphors mean, the limits of what they do and don't convey. I am in > that state. Now, without reference or exploration of any metaphor, please > help me understand what you meant by the following passage: > */But if you actually want to *understand* what some other agent is trying > to say, you read *through* their text. You use it as a lens. If, every time > you picked up your eyeglasses, you only looked *at* the lenses, those > glasses would be useless as a tool. Every time you meet a missive focusing > on the metaphors used, you are explicitly/purposefully misunderstanding the > author. If metaphors are a tool, you're ignoring their tool-ness. You > promote the means/tool to an end. [⛧] /* > It's funny, because before you stripped me of my ability to think about > metaphors, I thought I understood you precisely. You want me to take life > just as it presents itself. Ok. I can do that, sort of. It's what I do > most of the time. As we both know, there is nothing simple about how the > world presents itself. There is always a past and a future and the naive > present is always an amalgam of the two. We live neither in nor for the > moment. But I will hum along. What do I see in this case? Well, first I > naively see anger and contempt. I could try to mitigate that experience, > by examining the text, but no, I am not permitted to do that in this world > of naive perception. What I see, is a man incoherent with ... rage? What > I see is a creature lurking in the dark moist crevaces under a bridge > shouting, "Who's that treading over my bridge?" Thats what I naively see. > But none of that is helpful to me in trying to reap the benefit of your > prodigious mind. So I try to NOT take what I see naively to be all that is > there to be seen. I say to myself, this is a man who has given me some > really great working metaphors. This is a man whose thought is respected > widely by people whose thought I respect. Before he stripped my of my > analytical powers, I was led to try and squeeze every bit of juice out of > the dry- skinned fruit he grumpily proffered. Now, I just see an angry man > living in an incoherent world. > Please, please Glen give me back my powers of analysis so I can see you as > I used to see you. > N > On Fri, Mare 20, 2026 at 7:28 AM glen <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]>> wrote: > Fools have more to say, and more impact, than, for example, nit-picking > grammar nazis. > Anyway, here is the counterargument, AGAIN! OK. I grant you all 5 of > your points. As a fan of postmodernist approaches, the examination of every > layer of every narrative in the stack *can* be worthwhile and interesting, > especially for academics. I'm glad you are also a postmodernist. > But if you actually want to *understand* what some other agent is > trying to say, you read *through* their text. You use it as a lens. If, > every time you picked up your eyeglasses, you only looked *at* the lenses, > those glasses would be useless as a tool. Every time you meet a missive > focusing on the metaphors used, you are explicitly/purposefully > misunderstanding the author. If metaphors are a tool, you're ignoring their > tool-ness. You promote the means/tool to an end. [⛧] > People use their deeply embedded metaphors to communicate. If all you > can do is yap about their metaphors, you are blocking their ability to > communicate and your ability to understand what they mean. > I'll turn your moral back around on you. You can choose to ignore my > counter argument, yet again. Or you can tell me why it's more important to > look at the lens than through the lens. [⛤] > [⛧] A good analogy, here, is that of paraphilia < > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia>>. You have a fetish. Rather > than a metaphor *enhancing* your ability to see the world, you've > fetishized them. You think the metaphor *is* the world. Like a fetishist, > you're aroused by the tool, not the objective. > [⛤] I can shunt a counter-counter argument in advance. In a mostly > rhetorical world, if you merely look *through* the metaphor, you're at risk > of being a victim of purposefully designed narratives, intended to exploit > or mislead you. Therefore, a critical thinker must *also* look at the > lenses, not merely through them. But this argument fails because if you > can't even look through the lens in the first place, then you can never > critically analyze how it [mis]directs your gaze. So the *first* and > primary skill is to be able to look *through* metaphors. Looking at them is > a secondary skill. And, like the grammar nazis, a fetish for the form > preemptively excludes an understanding of the function. > On 3/19/26 1:10 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > > 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. > > 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. > > 3. We all seem to agree that there is truth and falsehood disguised > in every metaphor. > > 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? > > 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. > -- > > > > -- > ¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ > ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα > σώσω. > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,uq75YT_QCctYTsQ1GSYr7BYtVwlAoxF9iJif_DYxhg3zF8kpgtcBSKDKBQ61OQZjeL6y6TCWsD4KcJzK9gChs0k7-prM1nWHMTuSIGhknNr7sA,,&typo=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -- Nicholas S. 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