Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Roger Critchlow]

Alaska Air was fine, I rescheduled from the red-eye flight to the late
evening arrival.

The word I was groping after to describe the character -- or lack of
character -- of pattern matchers was:
--
op·por·tun·is·tic
ˌäpərt(y)o͞oˈnistik/
*adjective*

   1. exploiting chances offered by immediate circumstances without
   reference to a general plan or moral principle.
   "the change was cynical and opportunistic"
   - ECOLOGY
  (of a plant or animal) able to spread quickly in a previously
  unexploited habitat.
  - MEDICINE
  (of a microorganism or an infection caused by it) rarely affecting
  patients except in unusual circumstances, typically when the
immune system
  is depressed.

--
The latest issue of Science is a special issue on AI in scientific
research.  This article, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6346/22,
is about making deep neural nets interpretable.

-- rec --

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 5:41 PM, Steven A Smith  wrote:

> It is almost time (in geologic as well as seasonal scales) to take the
> polar route!   Count the bears along the way?
>
> Or maybe the Drumpf can be talked into cutting a wide canal from the great
> lakes at the 49th parallel to keep those "unsavory furriners out of our
> Great 'Murrica Agin!"
>
> I think it might be as easy to build a moat as a wall of the magnitude he
> want(ed)s across the southern border?
>
> And then Roger could SAIL to WA (hard to tack in a canal and that tunnel
> under the Canadian Rockies would be pretty much wind-free I think?).
>
>
>
> On 6/11/17 12:20 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>
> Via Cape Horn or the Panama Canal?
>
>
> Frank Wimberly
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Jun 11, 2017 11:36 AM, "Roger Critchlow"  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Steven A Smith 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> PS>  Do you EVER visit SFe?  I haven't cracked a single book I bought
>>> when you were leaving... I have friends and colleagues dying and downsizing
>>> so fast that my own damn library is growing faster than I can even shelve
>>> properly.   Bastards!
>>>
>>
>> Heh, need google book scanner machine for father's day, hurry!
>>
>> I thought of one of the books that I parted from when I was writing this,
>> but I can't remember its title or author.  I just scanned through the 992
>> results of searching "learning" at mitpress.mit.edu and didn't find it,
>>
>> I haven't visited Santa Fe since I left.  Making a second trip to
>> Washington state in a few weeks.
>>
>> -- rec --
>>
>>
>> 
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Steven A Smith]

It is almost time (in geologic as well as seasonal scales) to take the 
polar route!   Count the bears along the way?


Or maybe the Drumpf can be talked into cutting a wide canal from the 
great lakes at the 49th parallel to keep those "unsavory furriners out 
of our Great 'Murrica Agin!"


I think it might be as easy to build a moat as a wall of the magnitude 
he want(ed)s across the southern border?


And then Roger could SAIL to WA (hard to tack in a canal and that tunnel 
under the Canadian Rockies would be pretty much wind-free I think?).




On 6/11/17 12:20 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

Via Cape Horn or the Panama Canal?


Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jun 11, 2017 11:36 AM, "Roger Critchlow" > wrote:




On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Steven A Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:

PS>  Do you EVER visit SFe?  I haven't cracked a single book I
bought when you were leaving... I have friends and colleagues
dying and downsizing so fast that my own damn library is
growing faster than I can even shelve properly.   Bastards!


Heh, need google book scanner machine for father's day, hurry!

I thought of one of the books that I parted from when I was
writing this, but I can't remember its title or author.  I just
scanned through the 992 results of searching "learning" at
mitpress.mit.edu  and didn't find it,

I haven't visited Santa Fe since I left.  Making a second trip to
Washington state in a few weeks.

-- rec --



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
 by Dr. Strangelove




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Roger Critchlow]

Alaska Air this time, Jet Blue last time, both involving red-eye legs, I
gotta cut that out.

-- rec --

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 2:20 PM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> Via Cape Horn or the Panama Canal?
>
>
> Frank Wimberly
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Jun 11, 2017 11:36 AM, "Roger Critchlow"  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Steven A Smith 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> PS>  Do you EVER visit SFe?  I haven't cracked a single book I bought
>>> when you were leaving... I have friends and colleagues dying and downsizing
>>> so fast that my own damn library is growing faster than I can even shelve
>>> properly.   Bastards!
>>>
>>
>> Heh, need google book scanner machine for father's day, hurry!
>>
>> I thought of one of the books that I parted from when I was writing this,
>> but I can't remember its title or author.  I just scanned through the 992
>> results of searching "learning" at mitpress.mit.edu and didn't find it,
>>
>> I haven't visited Santa Fe since I left.  Making a second trip to
>> Washington state in a few weeks.
>>
>> -- rec --
>>
>>
>> 
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Roger Critchlow]

That's funny, none of those definitions mention Levi-Strauss or any other
intellectual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage

The first, “social bricolage,” was introduced by cultural anthropologist Claude
> Lévi-Strauss <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss> in
> 1962. Lévi-Strauss was interested in how societies create novel solutions
> by using resources that already exist in the collective social
> consciousness. The second, "creative cognition,” is an intra-psychic
> approach to studying how individuals retrieve and recombine knowledge in
> new ways. Psychological bricolage, therefore, refers to the cognitive
> processes that enable individuals to retrieve and recombine previously
> unrelated knowledge they already possess.[7]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage#cite_note-7>[8]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage#cite_note-8> Psychological
> bricolage is an intra-individual process akin to Karl E. Weick
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_E._Weick>’s notion of bricolage in
> organizations, which is akin to Lévi-Strauss' notion of bricolage in
> societies.[9]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage#cite_note-organizational1-9>


-- rec --

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 1:35 PM, Nick Thompson 
wrote:

> R.,
>
>
>
> Thanks for this.
>
>
>
> “bricolage “ is one of those words I thought I knew the meaning of… and
> didn’t.  I thought it referred to what you got if you dropped a stack of
> fine china while carrying it to the table before your wife’s dinner party
> for her boss.  Bad pun from “breakage” I guess.  Here is a really nifty
> source, containing both definitions and etymology:
>
>
>
> http://www.memidex.com/bricolage
>
>
>
> It actually seems to mean “puttering’, at its root.  So, a day which you
> spent doing a little of this and a little of that is broccolage.  The
> meaning gets extended to objects constructed in the same way as such a
> day…. An object constructed of a little of this and a little of that is
> considered bricolage.  Bower birds and packrats’ construtions are
> “bricolage”  .  Mockingbird songs would be bricolage.
>
>
>
> Now I have to go back and read you post.
>
>
>
> Not stinking hot yet.  I think the front is about to come through.  Still
> some over-running.
>
>
>
> N
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Roger
> Critchlow
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 11, 2017 10:58 AM
>
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy
>
>
>
> The pattern is that people recognize patterns.  Patterns of sensory
> experience that get resolved to people, places, things, phenomena.
> Patterns of gesture, utterance, markings on media which get recognized as
> language.  Patterns of linguistic expression which contend to be seen as
> models, or metaphors, or analogies, or similes, or congruencies, or
> homologies, or patterns.
>
>
>
> At this point, one might ask: how many layers of pattern recognition are
> there between sensory experience and arguments about models and metaphors?
> But our best artificial examples of pattern recognizers are deep neural
> nets, and they don't care about no stinking layers.  A  "layer" in a net
> might feed its conclusions to the "next layer", to itself, to its peers, to
> its ancestors, to its descendants, to any of the above with a delay, or all
> of the above.  The net architecture is probably written to allow as many of
> these connections as are feasible and to use the back propagation of error
> to prune.  And next week's architecture will have more feasible connections
> than last week's.
>
>
>
> So that's a model of why we can get in such a muddle when we talk about
> patterns of patterns, we try to impose patterns of logical consistency,
> coherent architecture, hierarchical structure, modularity, levels of
> organization, and so on, all of which are good patterns, but they are none
> of them the ruling pattern that our pattern recognizers are built on, which
> is all of the above, and some other principles as yet to be recognized, in
> whatever proportions works.
>
>
>
> Pattern recognition is a form of natural selection.  The result is
> bricolage rather than direct application of engineering principles.  I was
> trying to find the adjectival form for bricolage.  Adventitious,
> fortuitous, seredipitous -- but all of these imply 

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Frank Wimberly]

Via Cape Horn or the Panama Canal?


Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jun 11, 2017 11:36 AM, "Roger Critchlow"  wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Steven A Smith  wrote:
>
>> PS>  Do you EVER visit SFe?  I haven't cracked a single book I bought
>> when you were leaving... I have friends and colleagues dying and downsizing
>> so fast that my own damn library is growing faster than I can even shelve
>> properly.   Bastards!
>>
>
> Heh, need google book scanner machine for father's day, hurry!
>
> I thought of one of the books that I parted from when I was writing this,
> but I can't remember its title or author.  I just scanned through the 992
> results of searching "learning" at mitpress.mit.edu and didn't find it,
>
> I haven't visited Santa Fe since I left.  Making a second trip to
> Washington state in a few weeks.
>
> -- rec --
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Roger Critchlow]

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Steven A Smith  wrote:

> PS>  Do you EVER visit SFe?  I haven't cracked a single book I bought when
> you were leaving... I have friends and colleagues dying and downsizing so
> fast that my own damn library is growing faster than I can even shelve
> properly.   Bastards!
>

Heh, need google book scanner machine for father's day, hurry!

I thought of one of the books that I parted from when I was writing this,
but I can't remember its title or author.  I just scanned through the 992
results of searching "learning" at mitpress.mit.edu and didn't find it,

I haven't visited Santa Fe since I left.  Making a second trip to
Washington state in a few weeks.

-- rec --

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Nick Thompson]

R., 

 

Thanks for this. 

 

“bricolage “ is one of those words I thought I knew the meaning of… and didn’t. 
 I thought it referred to what you got if you dropped a stack of fine china 
while carrying it to the table before your wife’s dinner party for her boss.  
Bad pun from “breakage” I guess.  Here is a really nifty source, containing 
both definitions and etymology:

 

http://www.memidex.com/bricolage

 

It actually seems to mean “puttering’, at its root.  So, a day which you spent 
doing a little of this and a little of that is broccolage.  The meaning gets 
extended to objects constructed in the same way as such a day…. An object 
constructed of a little of this and a little of that is considered bricolage.  
Bower birds and packrats’ construtions are “bricolage”  .  Mockingbird songs 
would be bricolage. 

 

Now I have to go back and read you post. 

 

Not stinking hot yet.  I think the front is about to come through.  Still some 
over-running.  

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 10:58 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

 

The pattern is that people recognize patterns.  Patterns of sensory experience 
that get resolved to people, places, things, phenomena.  Patterns of gesture, 
utterance, markings on media which get recognized as language.  Patterns of 
linguistic expression which contend to be seen as models, or metaphors, or 
analogies, or similes, or congruencies, or homologies, or patterns.

 

At this point, one might ask: how many layers of pattern recognition are there 
between sensory experience and arguments about models and metaphors?  But our 
best artificial examples of pattern recognizers are deep neural nets, and they 
don't care about no stinking layers.  A  "layer" in a net might feed its 
conclusions to the "next layer", to itself, to its peers, to its ancestors, to 
its descendants, to any of the above with a delay, or all of the above.  The 
net architecture is probably written to allow as many of these connections as 
are feasible and to use the back propagation of error to prune.  And next 
week's architecture will have more feasible connections than last week's.

 

So that's a model of why we can get in such a muddle when we talk about 
patterns of patterns, we try to impose patterns of logical consistency, 
coherent architecture, hierarchical structure, modularity, levels of 
organization, and so on, all of which are good patterns, but they are none of 
them the ruling pattern that our pattern recognizers are built on, which is all 
of the above, and some other principles as yet to be recognized, in whatever 
proportions works.  

 

Pattern recognition is a form of natural selection.  The result is bricolage 
rather than direct application of engineering principles.  I was trying to find 
the adjectival form for bricolage.  Adventitious, fortuitous, seredipitous -- 
but all of these imply a kind of luck, and promiscuous implies 
undiscriminating.  I'm looking for the word for discriminating in its selection 
of elements but entirely open to whatever solution might be available.  Hmm.

 

All of this leaves aside the issue of whether the pattern recognized is true or 
false according to the pattern of empirical falsification or the pattern of 
feels right.

 

-- rec --

 

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 8:57 AM, Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > wrote:

R.

 

Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s….?

 

And the pattern is………? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com 
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 7:11 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >


Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

 

I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.

 

-- rec --

 

 

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 11:56 PM, Tom Johnson mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> > wrote:

Dave West writes: "... An example, "the future is in front of us." 

 

Unless you're a member of some Andean tribe whose name I've forgotten.  Then 
the past is in front of use because we know what it is, we can see it.  And the 
future is behind us because we know not what it is.  (Source: a recent SAR 
lecture that isn't online yet.)

 

TJ






Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Jou

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Steven A Smith]

application of engineering principles.  I 
was trying to find the adjectival form for bricolage.  Adventitious, 
fortuitous, seredipitous -- but all of these imply a kind of luck, and 
promiscuous implies undiscriminating.  I'm looking for the word for 
discriminating in its selection of elements but entirely open to 
whatever solution might be available.  Hmm.


All of this leaves aside the issue of whether the pattern recognized 
is true or false according to the pattern of empirical falsification 
or the pattern of feels right.


-- rec --

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 8:57 AM, Nick Thompson 
mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote:


R.

Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s….?

And the pattern is………?

N

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>

*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>] *On Behalf Of *Roger Critchlow
*Sent:* Sunday, June 11, 2017 7:11 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>


*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.

-- rec --

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 11:56 PM, Tom Johnson mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com>> wrote:

Dave West writes: "... An example, "the future is in front of
us."

Unless you're a member of some Andean tribe whose name I've
forgotten.  Then the past is in front of use because we know
what it is, we can see it.  And the future is behind us
because we know not what it is.  (Source: a recent SAR lecture
that isn't online yet.)

TJ




Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482 (c) 505.473.9646
(h)
Society of Professional Journalists <http://www.spj.org>
*Check out It's The People's Data
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*

http://www.jtjohnson.com <http://www.jtjohnson.com/>
t...@jtjohnson.com <mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com>


On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 8:53 PM, Jenny Quillien
mailto:jquill...@cybermesa.com>> wrote:

If there is a WedTech on this thread I would also
certainly attend. So I vote that Dave gets busy and leads
us toward the light.

Jenny Quillien

On 6/10/2017 8:24 PM, Prof David West wrote:

Hi Nick, hope you are enjoying the east.

The contrast class for "conceptual metaphor" is
"embedded metaphor" ala Lakoff, et. al. An example,
"the future is in front of us." Unless, of course you
speak Aymaran in which case "the future is behind us."

Steve, I do not regularly attend WedTech, but if this
thread becomes a featured topic, I certainly would be
there.

davew

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017, at 07:35 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Hi, Dave,

Thanks for taking the time to lay this out.  I
wonder what you call the present status of
“natural selection” as a metaphor. In this case,
the analogues between the natural situation and
the pigeon coop remain strong, but most users of
the theory have become ignorant about the salient
features of the breeding situation.  So the
metaphor hasn’t died, exactly; it’s been sucked
dry of its meaning by the ignorance of its
practitioners.

I balk at the idea of a “conceptual metaphor”. 
It’s one of those terms that smothers its object

with love.  What is the contrast class? How could
a metaphor be other than conceptual?  I think the
term  subtly makes a case for vague metaphors.  In
my own ‘umble view, metaphors should be as
specific as possible. Brain/mind is a case two
things that we know almost nothing about are used
as metaphors for one another resulting in the vast
promulgation of gibberish. Metaphors should sort
knowledge into three categories, stuff we know
that is consistent with the metaphor, stuff we
know that is IN consistent with

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Roger Critchlow]

The pattern is that people recognize patterns.  Patterns of sensory
experience that get resolved to people, places, things, phenomena.
Patterns of gesture, utterance, markings on media which get recognized as
language.  Patterns of linguistic expression which contend to be seen as
models, or metaphors, or analogies, or similes, or congruencies, or
homologies, or patterns.

At this point, one might ask: how many layers of pattern recognition are
there between sensory experience and arguments about models and metaphors?
But our best artificial examples of pattern recognizers are deep neural
nets, and they don't care about no stinking layers.  A  "layer" in a net
might feed its conclusions to the "next layer", to itself, to its peers, to
its ancestors, to its descendants, to any of the above with a delay, or all
of the above.  The net architecture is probably written to allow as many of
these connections as are feasible and to use the back propagation of error
to prune.  And next week's architecture will have more feasible connections
than last week's.

So that's a model of why we can get in such a muddle when we talk about
patterns of patterns, we try to impose patterns of logical consistency,
coherent architecture, hierarchical structure, modularity, levels of
organization, and so on, all of which are good patterns, but they are none
of them the ruling pattern that our pattern recognizers are built on, which
is all of the above, and some other principles as yet to be recognized, in
whatever proportions works.

Pattern recognition is a form of natural selection.  The result is
bricolage rather than direct application of engineering principles.  I was
trying to find the adjectival form for bricolage.  Adventitious,
fortuitous, seredipitous -- but all of these imply a kind of luck, and
promiscuous implies undiscriminating.  I'm looking for the word for
discriminating in its selection of elements but entirely open to whatever
solution might be available.  Hmm.

All of this leaves aside the issue of whether the pattern recognized is
true or false according to the pattern of empirical falsification or the
pattern of feels right.

-- rec --

On Sun, Jun 11, 2017 at 8:57 AM, Nick Thompson 
wrote:

> R.
>
>
>
> Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s….?
>
>
>
> And the pattern is………?
>
>
>
> N
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Roger
> Critchlow
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 11, 2017 7:11 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy
>
>
>
> I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.
>
>
>
> -- rec --
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 11:56 PM, Tom Johnson  wrote:
>
> Dave West writes: "... An example, "the future is in front of us."
>
>
>
> Unless you're a member of some Andean tribe whose name I've forgotten.
> Then the past is in front of use because we know what it is, we can see
> it.  And the future is behind us because we know not what it is.  (Source:
> a recent SAR lecture that isn't online yet.)
>
>
>
> TJ
>
>
>
> 
> Tom Johnson
> Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
> 505.577.6482 <(505)%20577-6482>(c)
> 505.473.9646 <(505)%20473-9646>(h)
> Society of Professional Journalists <http://www.spj.org>
> *Check out It's The People's Data
> <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*
>
> http://www.jtjohnson.com   t...@jtjohnson.com
> 
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 8:53 PM, Jenny Quillien 
> wrote:
>
> If there is a WedTech on this thread I would also certainly attend. So I
> vote that Dave gets busy and leads us toward the light.
>
> Jenny Quillien
>
>
>
> On 6/10/2017 8:24 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>
> Hi Nick, hope you are enjoying the east.
>
>
>
> The contrast class for "conceptual metaphor" is "embedded metaphor" ala
> Lakoff, et. al. An example, "the future is in front of us." Unless, of
> course you speak Aymaran in which case "the future is behind us."
>
>
>
> Steve, I do not regularly attend WedTech, but if this thread becomes a
> featured topic, I certainly would be there.
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2017, at 07:35 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> Hi, Dave,
&

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Prof David West]

 They were
>>>> thinking of it as a spontaneous process, as when sugar dissolves
>>>> into water; I was thinking of it as including active processes, as
>>>> when one substance is stirred into another.  They would say, “Oil
>>>> and water don’t mix.”  I would say, “bloody hell, they do, too,
>>>> mix.  They mix every time I make pancakes.”  The argument drove me
>>>> nuts for several years because any fool, watching hard edged
>>>> thunderheads rise over the Jemez, can plainly see both that the
>>>> atmosphere is being stirred AND that the most air in the
>>>> thunderhead is not readily diffusing into the dryer descending air
>>>> around it.  From my point of view, convection is something the
>>>> atmosphere does, like mixing; from their point of view, convection
>>>> is something that is DONE TO the atmosphere, like stirring.  You
>>>> get to that distinction only by thinking of very specific examples
>>>> of mixing as you deploy the metaphor.>>>>  


>>>> Nick


>>>>  


>>>> Nicholas S. Thompson


>>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology


>>>> Clark University


>>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/[4]


>>>>  


>>>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of
>>>> *Prof David West *Sent:* Saturday, June 10, 2017 11:36 AM *To:*
>>>> friam@redfish.com *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy>>>>  


>>>> long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
>>>> dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the
>>>> issue of metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial
>>>> intelligence and cognitive models of "mind." the very first
>>>> academic papers I published dealt with this issue (They were in AI
>>>> MAgazine, the 'journal of record' in the field at the time.>>>>  


>>>> My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R.
>>>> MacCormac: *A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor* and *Metaphor and Myth
>>>> in Science and Religion.*>>>>  


>>>> MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first
>>>> suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead
>>>> metaphor" or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which
>>>> referents suggested by the first 'something'  are confirmed to
>>>> correlate to similar referents in the second "something." E.G. an
>>>> atom is like a solar system suggests that a nucleus is like the sun
>>>> and electrons are like planets plus orbits are at specific
>>>> intervals and electrons can be moved from one orbit to another by
>>>> adding energy (acceleration) just like any other satellite. As
>>>> referents like this were confirmed the epiphor became a productive
>>>> metaphor and a model, i.e. the Bohr model. Eventually, our
>>>> increasing knowledge of atoms and particle/waves made it clear that
>>>> the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in nearly every respect and the
>>>> metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry suggests that it is
>>>> still a useful tool for metaphorical thinking; modified to "what
>>>> might you infer/reason, if you looked at an atom _as if_ it were a
>>>> tiny solar system.">>>>  


>>>> In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a
>>>> mind, the mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become dead
>>>> metaphors. Instead they became models "physical symbol system" and
>>>> most in the community insisted that they were lexical terms
>>>> (notably Pylyshyn, Newell, and Simon). To explain this, I added the
>>>> idea of a "paraphor" to MacCormac's evolutionary sequence — a
>>>> metaphor so ingrained in a paradigm that those thinking with that
>>>> paradigm cannot perceive the obvious failures of the metaphor.>>>>  


>>>> MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use and
>>>> misuse of metaphor and its relationship to models (mathematical and
>>>> iillustrative) in both science and religion. The "Scientific
>>>> Method," the process of doing science, is itself a metaphor (at
>>>> best) that should have become a dead

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Nick Thompson]

R.

 

Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s….?

 

And the pattern is………? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 7:11 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

 

I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.

 

-- rec --

 

 

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 11:56 PM, Tom Johnson mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> > wrote:

Dave West writes: "... An example, "the future is in front of us." 

 

Unless you're a member of some Andean tribe whose name I've forgotten.  Then 
the past is in front of use because we know what it is, we can see it.  And the 
future is behind us because we know not what it is.  (Source: a recent SAR 
lecture that isn't online yet.)

 

TJ






Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482  (c)
505.473.9646  (h)
Society of Professional Journalists <http://www.spj.org>  
Check out It's The People's Data 
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671> 

http://www.jtjohnson.com <http://www.jtjohnson.com/>
t...@jtjohnson.com <mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> 


 

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 8:53 PM, Jenny Quillien mailto:jquill...@cybermesa.com> > wrote:

If there is a WedTech on this thread I would also certainly attend. So I vote 
that Dave gets busy and leads us toward the light.

Jenny Quillien

 

On 6/10/2017 8:24 PM, Prof David West wrote:

Hi Nick, hope you are enjoying the east.

 

The contrast class for "conceptual metaphor" is "embedded metaphor" ala Lakoff, 
et. al. An example, "the future is in front of us." Unless, of course you speak 
Aymaran in which case "the future is behind us."

 

Steve, I do not regularly attend WedTech, but if this thread becomes a featured 
topic, I certainly would be there.

 

davew

 

 

 

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017, at 07:35 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Hi, Dave,

 

Thanks for taking the time to lay this out.  I wonder what you call the present 
status of “natural selection” as a metaphor. In this case, the analogues 
between the natural situation and the pigeon coop remain strong, but most users 
of the theory have become ignorant about the salient features of the breeding 
situation.  So the metaphor hasn’t died, exactly; it’s been sucked dry of its 
meaning by the ignorance of its practitioners. 

 

I balk at the idea of a “conceptual metaphor”.  It’s one of those terms that 
smothers its object with love.  What is the contrast class?  How could a 
metaphor be other than conceptual?  I think the term  subtly makes a case for 
vague metaphors.  In my own ‘umble view, metaphors should be as specific as 
possible.  Brain/mind is a case two things that we know almost nothing about 
are used as metaphors for one another resulting in the vast promulgation of 
gibberish. Metaphors should sort knowledge into three categories, stuff we know 
that is consistent with the metaphor, stuff we know that is IN consistent with 
the metaphor, and stuff we don’t know, which is implied by the metaphor.  This 
last is the heuristic “wet edge” of the metaphor.  The vaguer a metaphor, the 
more difficult it is to distinguish between these three categories, and the 
less useful the metaphor is.  Dawkins “selfish gene” metaphor, with all its 
phony reductionist panache, would not have survived thirty seconds if anybody 
had bothered to think carefully about what selfishness is and how it works.  
See, 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311767990_On_the_use_of_mental_terms_in_behavioral_ecology_and_sociobiologyThTh

 

This is why it is so important to have something quite specific in mind when 
one talks of layers.   Only if you are specific will you know when you are 
wrong. 

 

I once got into a wonderful tangle with some meteorologists concerning 
“Elevated Mixed Layers”  Meteorologists insisted that  air masses, of different 
characteristics, DO NOT MIX.   It turns out that we had wildly different models 
of “mixing”.  They were thinking of it as a spontaneous process, as when sugar 
dissolves into water; I was thinking of it as including active processes, as 
when one substance is stirred into another.  They would say, “Oil and water 
don’t mix.”  I would say, “bloody hell, they do, too, mix.  They mix every time 
I make pancakes.”  The argument drove me nuts for several years because any 
fool, watching hard edged thunderheads rise over the Jemez, can plainly see 
both that the atmosphere is being stirred

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Roger Critchlow]

>> stirred AND that the most air in the thunderhead is not readily diffusing
>> into the dryer descending air around it.  From my point of view, convection
>> is something the atmosphere does, like mixing; from their point of view,
>> convection is something that is DONE TO the atmosphere, like stirring.  You
>> get to that distinction only by thinking of very specific examples of
>> mixing as you deploy the metaphor.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com
>> ] *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Saturday, June 10, 2017 11:36 AM
>> *To:* friam@redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy
>>
>>
>>
>> long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
>> dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the issue of
>> metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial intelligence and
>> cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic papers I published
>> dealt with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, the 'journal of record' in
>> the field at the time.
>>
>>
>>
>> My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: *A
>> Cognitive Theory of Metaphor* and *Metaphor and Myth in Science and
>> Religion.*
>>
>>
>>
>> MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first
>> suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead metaphor"
>> or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which referents suggested by
>> the first 'something'  are confirmed to correlate to similar referents in
>> the second "something." E.G. an atom is like a solar system suggests that a
>> nucleus is like the sun and electrons are like planets plus orbits are at
>> specific intervals and electrons can be moved from one orbit to another by
>> adding energy (acceleration) just like any other satellite. As referents
>> like this were confirmed the epiphor became a productive metaphor and a
>> model, i.e. the Bohr model. Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms
>> and particle/waves made it clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in
>> nearly every respect and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry
>> suggests that it is still a useful tool for metaphorical thinking; modified
>> to "what might you infer/reason, if you looked at an atom *as if* it
>> were a tiny solar system."
>>
>>
>>
>> In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a mind, the
>> mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become dead metaphors.
>> Instead they became models "physical symbol system" and most in the
>> community insisted that they were lexical terms (notably Pylyshyn, Newell,
>> and Simon). To explain this, I added the idea of a "paraphor" to
>> MacCormac's evolutionary sequence — a metaphor so ingrained in a paradigm
>> that those thinking with that paradigm cannot perceive the obvious failures
>> of the metaphor.
>>
>>
>>
>> MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use and
>> misuse of metaphor and its relationship to models (mathematical and
>> iillustrative) in both science and religion. The "Scientific Method," the
>> process of doing science, is itself a metaphor (at best) that should have
>> become a dead metaphor as there is abundant evidence that 'science' is not
>> done 'that way' but only after the fact as if it had been done that way. In
>> an Ouroborosian twist, even MacCormac;s theory of metaphor is itself a
>> metaphor.
>>
>>
>>
>> If this thread attracts interest, I think the work of MacCormac would
>> provide a rich mine of potential ideas and a framework for the discussion.
>> Unfortunately, it mostly seems to be behind pay walls — the books and JSTOR
>> or its ilk.
>>
>>
>>
>> dave west
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 9, 2017, at 03:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> I meant to spawn a fresh proto-thread here, sorry.
>>
>>
>>
>> Given that we have been splitting hairs on terminology, I wanted to at
>> least OPEN the topic that has been grazed

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Tom Johnson]

Dave West writes: "... An example, "the future is in front of us."

Unless you're a member of some Andean tribe whose name I've forgotten.
Then the past is in front of use because we know what it is, we can see
it.  And the future is behind us because we know not what it is.  (Source:
a recent SAR lecture that isn't online yet.)

TJ



Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
Society of Professional Journalists <http://www.spj.org>
*Check out It's The People's Data
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*
http://www.jtjohnson.com   t...@jtjohnson.com


On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 8:53 PM, Jenny Quillien 
wrote:

> If there is a WedTech on this thread I would also certainly attend. So I
> vote that Dave gets busy and leads us toward the light.
>
> Jenny Quillien
>
> On 6/10/2017 8:24 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>
> Hi Nick, hope you are enjoying the east.
>
> The contrast class for "conceptual metaphor" is "embedded metaphor" ala
> Lakoff, et. al. An example, "the future is in front of us." Unless, of
> course you speak Aymaran in which case "the future is behind us."
>
> Steve, I do not regularly attend WedTech, but if this thread becomes a
> featured topic, I certainly would be there.
>
> davew
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 10, 2017, at 07:35 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> Hi, Dave,
>
>
>
> Thanks for taking the time to lay this out.  I wonder what you call the
> present status of “natural selection” as a metaphor. In this case, the
> analogues between the natural situation and the pigeon coop remain strong,
> but most users of the theory have become ignorant about the salient
> features of the breeding situation.  So the metaphor hasn’t died, exactly;
> it’s been sucked dry of its meaning by the ignorance of its practitioners.
>
>
>
> I balk at the idea of a “conceptual metaphor”.  It’s one of those terms
> that smothers its object with love.  What is the contrast class?  How could
> a metaphor be other than conceptual?  I think the term  subtly makes a case
> for vague metaphors.  In my own ‘umble view, metaphors should be as
> specific as possible.  Brain/mind is a case two things that we know almost
> nothing about are used as metaphors for one another resulting in the vast
> promulgation of gibberish. Metaphors should sort knowledge into three
> categories, stuff we know that is consistent with the metaphor, stuff we
> know that is IN consistent with the metaphor, and stuff we don’t know,
> which is implied by the metaphor.  This last is the heuristic “wet edge” of
> the metaphor.  The vaguer a metaphor, the more difficult it is to
> distinguish between these three categories, and the less useful the
> metaphor is.  Dawkins “selfish gene” metaphor, with all its phony
> reductionist panache, would not have survived thirty seconds if anybody had
> bothered to think carefully about what selfishness is and how it works.
> See, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311767990_On_the_
> use_of_mental_terms_in_behavioral_ecology_and_sociobiologyThTh
>
>
>
> This is why it is so important to have something quite specific in mind
> when one talks of layers.   Only if you are specific will you know when you
> are wrong.
>
>
>
> I once got into a wonderful tangle with some meteorologists concerning
> “Elevated Mixed Layers”  Meteorologists insisted that  air masses, of
> different characteristics, DO NOT MIX.   It turns out that we had wildly
> different models of “mixing”.  They were thinking of it as a spontaneous
> process, as when sugar dissolves into water; I was thinking of it as
> including active processes, as when one substance is stirred into another.
> They would say, “Oil and water don’t mix.”  I would say, “bloody hell, they
> do, too, mix.  They mix every time I make pancakes.”  The argument drove me
> nuts for several years because any fool, watching hard edged thunderheads
> rise over the Jemez, can plainly see both that the atmosphere is being
> stirred AND that the most air in the thunderhead is not readily diffusing
> into the dryer descending air around it.  From my point of view, convection
> is something the atmosphere does, like mixing; from their point of view,
> convection is something that is DONE TO the atmosphere, like stirring.  You
> get to that distinction only by thinking of very specific examples of
> mixing as you deploy the metaphor.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Jenny Quillien]

If there is a WedTech on this thread I would also certainly attend. So I 
vote that Dave gets busy and leads us toward the light.


Jenny Quillien


On 6/10/2017 8:24 PM, Prof David West wrote:

Hi Nick, hope you are enjoying the east.

The contrast class for "conceptual metaphor" is "embedded metaphor" 
ala Lakoff, et. al. An example, "the future is in front of us." 
Unless, of course you speak Aymaran in which case "the future is 
behind us."


Steve, I do not regularly attend WedTech, but if this thread becomes a 
featured topic, I certainly would be there.


davew



On Sat, Jun 10, 2017, at 07:35 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:


Hi, Dave,


Thanks for taking the time to lay this out.  I wonder what you call 
the present status of “natural selection” as a metaphor. In this 
case, the analogues between the natural situation and the pigeon coop 
remain strong, but most users of the theory have become ignorant 
about the salient features of the breeding situation.  So the 
metaphor hasn’t died, exactly; it’s been sucked dry of its meaning by 
the ignorance of its practitioners.



I balk at the idea of a “conceptual metaphor”.  It’s one of those 
terms that smothers its object with love. What is the contrast 
class?  How could a metaphor be other than conceptual?  I think the 
term  subtly makes a case for vague metaphors.  In my own ‘umble 
view, metaphors should be as specific as possible.  Brain/mind is a 
case two things that we know almost nothing about are used as 
metaphors for one another resulting in the vast promulgation of 
gibberish. Metaphors should sort knowledge into three categories, 
stuff we know that is consistent with the metaphor, stuff we know 
that is IN consistent with the metaphor, and stuff we don’t know, 
which is implied by the metaphor.  This last is the heuristic “wet 
edge” of the metaphor.  The vaguer a metaphor, the more difficult it 
is to distinguish between these three categories, and the less useful 
the metaphor is.  Dawkins “selfish gene” metaphor, with all its phony 
reductionist panache, would not have survived thirty seconds if 
anybody had bothered to think carefully about what selfishness is and 
how it works.  See, 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311767990_On_the_use_of_mental_terms_in_behavioral_ecology_and_sociobiologyThTh



This is why it is so important to have something quite specific in 
mind when one talks of layers.   Only if you are specific will you 
know when you are wrong.



I once got into a wonderful tangle with some meteorologists 
concerning “Elevated Mixed Layers” Meteorologists insisted that  air 
masses, of different characteristics, DO NOT MIX.   It turns out that 
we had wildly different models of “mixing”.  They were thinking of it 
as a spontaneous process, as when sugar dissolves into water; I was 
thinking of it as including active processes, as when one substance 
is stirred into another.  They would say, “Oil and water don’t mix.”  
I would say, “bloody hell, they do, too, mix.  They mix every time I 
make pancakes.”  The argument drove me nuts for several years because 
any fool, watching hard edged thunderheads rise over the Jemez, can 
plainly see both that the atmosphere is being stirred AND that the 
most air in the thunderhead is not readily diffusing into the dryer 
descending air around it.  From my point of view, convection is 
something the atmosphere does, like mixing; from their point of view, 
convection is something that is DONE TO the atmosphere, like 
stirring.  You get to that distinction only by thinking of very 
specific examples of mixing as you deploy the metaphor.



Nick


Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>



*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Prof 
David West

*Sent:* Saturday, June 10, 2017 11:36 AM
*To:* friam@redfish.com
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy


long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd 
dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the 
issue of metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial 
intelligence and cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic 
papers I published dealt with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, 
the 'journal of record' in the field at the time.



My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: 
/A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor/ and /Metaphor and Myth in Science 
and Religion./



MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first 
suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead 
metaphor" or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which 
referents suggested by the first 'something'  are confirmed to 
correlate to simil

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Prof David West]

Hi Nick, hope you are enjoying the east.

The contrast class for "conceptual metaphor" is "embedded metaphor" ala
Lakoff, et. al. An example, "the future is in front of us." Unless, of
course you speak Aymaran in which case "the future is behind us."
Steve, I do not regularly attend WedTech, but if this thread becomes a
featured topic, I certainly would be there.
davew



On Sat, Jun 10, 2017, at 07:35 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Hi, Dave,


>  


> Thanks for taking the time to lay this out.  I wonder what you call
> the present status of “natural selection” as a metaphor. In this case,
> the analogues between the natural situation and the pigeon coop remain
> strong, but most users of the theory have become ignorant about the
> salient features of the breeding situation.  So the metaphor hasn’t
> died, exactly; it’s been sucked dry of its meaning by the ignorance of
> its practitioners.>  


> I balk at the idea of a “conceptual metaphor”.  It’s one of those
> terms that smothers its object with love.  What is the contrast class?
> How could a metaphor be other than conceptual?  I think the term
> subtly makes a case for vague metaphors.  In my own ‘umble view,
> metaphors should be as specific as possible.  Brain/mind is a case two
> things that we know almost nothing about are used as metaphors for one
> another resulting in the vast promulgation of gibberish. Metaphors
> should sort knowledge into three categories, stuff we know that is
> consistent with the metaphor, stuff we know that is IN consistent with
> the metaphor, and stuff we don’t know, which is implied by the
> metaphor.  This last is the heuristic “wet edge” of the metaphor.  The
> vaguer a metaphor, the more difficult it is to distinguish between
> these three categories, and the less useful the metaphor is.  Dawkins
> “selfish gene” metaphor, with all its phony reductionist panache,
> would not have survived thirty seconds if anybody had bothered to
> think carefully about what selfishness is and how it works.  See,
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311767990_On_the_use_of_mental_terms_in_behavioral_ecology_and_sociobiologyThTh>
>   


> This is why it is so important to have something quite specific in
> mind when one talks of layers.   Only if you are specific will you
> know when you are wrong.>  


> I once got into a wonderful tangle with some meteorologists concerning
> “Elevated Mixed Layers”  Meteorologists insisted that  air masses, of
> different characteristics, DO NOT MIX.   It turns out that we had
> wildly different models of “mixing”.  They were thinking of it as a
> spontaneous process, as when sugar dissolves into water; I was
> thinking of it as including active processes, as when one substance is
> stirred into another.  They would say, “Oil and water don’t mix.”  I
> would say, “bloody hell, they do, too, mix.  They mix every time I
> make pancakes.”  The argument drove me nuts for several years because
> any fool, watching hard edged thunderheads rise over the Jemez, can
> plainly see both that the atmosphere is being stirred AND that the
> most air in the thunderhead is not readily diffusing into the dryer
> descending air around it.  From my point of view, convection is
> something the atmosphere does, like mixing; from their point of view,
> convection is something that is DONE TO the atmosphere, like stirring.
> You get to that distinction only by thinking of very specific examples
> of mixing as you deploy the metaphor.>  


> Nick


>  


> Nicholas S. Thompson


> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology


> Clark University


> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


>  


> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Prof
> David West *Sent:* Saturday, June 10, 2017 11:36 AM *To:*
> friam@redfish.com *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy>  


> long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
> dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the
> issue of metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial
> intelligence and cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic
> papers I published dealt with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine,
> the 'journal of record' in the field at the time.>  


> My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac:
> *A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor* and *Metaphor and Myth in Science and
> Religion.*>  


> MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first
> suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead
> metaphor" or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which referents
> suggested b

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Nick Thompson]

Steve, 

 

Notice that you use a metaphor, here to account for creative activity in
science.

 

, it was backed into while bumping around looking for something entirely
different

 

I can imagine you and I sitting down and describing a particular case in
which we found something while looking for something else and applying that
metaphor to a case of scientific discovery . to good effect. 

 

The thing about my man Peirce is that he was interested in describing
science as it was actually practiced by people who did it well.  He would
say that that sort of serendipity happens only to prepared minds, and he
gave those flashes of insight a name, "abduction."  It's quite similar in
many ways to metaphor making.  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2017 3:22 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

 

Dave -

Thanks for weighing in here, my own studies have not been so formal nor
probably as deep.   I have to admit to not knowing that cognitive
anthropology was a subject, just as Nick introduced me to evolutionary
psychology as it's own field!

I appreciate your introduction of epiphor, paraphor and dead metaphor.  I
began a discursion here (which I fortunately deleted) which lead me to read
some MacCormac and more to the point Philip Wheelwright on the modern,
technical usage of epiphor and diaphor, from the Greek/Aristotelian
epiphoria and diaphoria.   I particularly find your coining of paraphor, as
I think this is as common in our modern discourse/thinking as "confirmation
bias".

I also like your point that the "Scientific Method" is more metaphor than
reality, or more to the point, a narrative device to show how a discovery
"might have been made" when more often than not, it was backed into while
bumping around looking for something entirely different, and often involving
a "flash of insight" before then being laboriously wrung out and
demonstrated using the somewhat more "engineering" oriented methods of the
"Scientific Method" to move from motivated hypothesis to strongly validated
theory.

I don't know if you regularly attend WedTech, but this depth/topic of
discussion might motivate me to make the long trek into town...   

- Steve

On 6/10/17 9:36 AM, Prof David West wrote:

long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the issue of
metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial intelligence and
cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic papers I published dealt
with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, the 'journal of record' in the
field at the time.

 

My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: A
Cognitive Theory of Metaphor and Metaphor and Myth in Science and Religion.

 

MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first suggestion
that something is like something else to either "dead metaphor" or "lexical
term" depending on the extent to which referents suggested by the first
'something'  are confirmed to correlate to similar referents in the second
"something." E.G. an atom is like a solar system suggests that a nucleus is
like the sun and electrons are like planets plus orbits are at specific
intervals and electrons can be moved from one orbit to another by adding
energy (acceleration) just like any other satellite. As referents like this
were confirmed the epiphor became a productive metaphor and a model, i.e.
the Bohr model. Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms and
particle/waves made it clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in nearly
every respect and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry suggests
that it is still a useful tool for metaphorical thinking; modified to "what
might you infer/reason, if you looked at an atom as if it were a tiny solar
system."

 

In the case of AI, the joint epiphors - the computer is like a mind, the
mind is like a computer - should have rapidly become dead metaphors. Instead
they became models "physical symbol system" and most in the community
insisted that they were lexical terms (notably Pylyshyn, Newell, and Simon).
To explain this, I added the idea of a "paraphor" to MacCormac's
evolutionary sequence - a metaphor so ingrained in a paradigm that those
thinking with that paradigm cannot perceive the obvious failures of the
metaphor.

 

MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use and misuse
of me

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Nick Thompson]

Hi, Dave, 

 

Thanks for taking the time to lay this out.  I wonder what you call the present 
status of “natural selection” as a metaphor. In this case, the analogues 
between the natural situation and the pigeon coop remain strong, but most users 
of the theory have become ignorant about the salient features of the breeding 
situation.  So the metaphor hasn’t died, exactly; it’s been sucked dry of its 
meaning by the ignorance of its practitioners.  

 

I balk at the idea of a “conceptual metaphor”.  It’s one of those terms that 
smothers its object with love.  What is the contrast class?  How could a 
metaphor be other than conceptual?  I think the term  subtly makes a case for 
vague metaphors.  In my own ‘umble view, metaphors should be as specific as 
possible.  Brain/mind is a case two things that we know almost nothing about 
are used as metaphors for one another resulting in the vast promulgation of 
gibberish. Metaphors should sort knowledge into three categories, stuff we know 
that is consistent with the metaphor, stuff we know that is IN consistent with 
the metaphor, and stuff we don’t know, which is implied by the metaphor.  This 
last is the heuristic “wet edge” of the metaphor.  The vaguer a metaphor, the 
more difficult it is to distinguish between these three categories, and the 
less useful the metaphor is.  Dawkins “selfish gene” metaphor, with all its 
phony reductionist panache, would not have survived thirty seconds if anybody 
had bothered to think carefully about what selfishness is and how it works.  
See, 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311767990_On_the_use_of_mental_terms_in_behavioral_ecology_and_sociobiologyThTh

 

This is why it is so important to have something quite specific in mind when 
one talks of layers.   Only if you are specific will you know when you are 
wrong.  

 

I once got into a wonderful tangle with some meteorologists concerning 
“Elevated Mixed Layers”  Meteorologists insisted that  air masses, of different 
characteristics, DO NOT MIX.   It turns out that we had wildly different models 
of “mixing”.  They were thinking of it as a spontaneous process, as when sugar 
dissolves into water; I was thinking of it as including active processes, as 
when one substance is stirred into another.  They would say, “Oil and water 
don’t mix.”  I would say, “bloody hell, they do, too, mix.  They mix every time 
I make pancakes.”  The argument drove me nuts for several years because any 
fool, watching hard edged thunderheads rise over the Jemez, can plainly see 
both that the atmosphere is being stirred AND that the most air in the 
thunderhead is not readily diffusing into the dryer descending air around it.  
From my point of view, convection is something the atmosphere does, like 
mixing; from their point of view, convection is something that is DONE TO the 
atmosphere, like stirring.  You get to that distinction only by thinking of 
very specific examples of mixing as you deploy the metaphor.  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2017 11:36 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

 

long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd dissertation 
in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the issue of metaphor and 
model, specifically in the area of artificial intelligence and cognitive models 
of "mind." the very first academic papers I published dealt with this issue 
(They were in AI MAgazine, the 'journal of record' in the field at the time.

 

My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: A 
Cognitive Theory of Metaphor and Metaphor and Myth in Science and Religion.

 

MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first suggestion 
that something is like something else to either "dead metaphor" or "lexical 
term" depending on the extent to which referents suggested by the first 
'something'  are confirmed to correlate to similar referents in the second 
"something." E.G. an atom is like a solar system suggests that a nucleus is 
like the sun and electrons are like planets plus orbits are at specific 
intervals and electrons can be moved from one orbit to another by adding energy 
(acceleration) just like any other satellite. As referents like this were 
confirmed the epiphor became a productive metaphor and a model, i.e. the Bohr 
model. Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms and particle/waves made it 
clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in nearly every respect and the 
metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry suggests that it is still a 
useful tool for met

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Nick Thompson]

Wow, Steve.  Wow!  He’s sompin!  n

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2017 4:29 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

 

And invoking the term "twist", he added a bit of Möbius Strip connotation!
It did feel ingenious to me as well.  

As an odd aside, I'm designing a "feathered serpent" bas-relief design for
the rocket mass heater I built last year in my sunroom...  I hadn't
considered adding the Ourobousian nature to it!  The following is not my
design, just one of many illustrative examples of the Tewa version:



Does a feathered serpent need to be more like a tapeworm to go
Ourobourosianally Möbius?

- Sieve

 

On 6/10/17 1:35 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:

I had never heard the word ouroboros
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros>  before Dave used it. Thanks for
the term. But even though I had never heard the term, the ouroboros was the
image that came to mind when I first learned recursion!

 

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 12:22 PM Steven A Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com> > wrote:

Dave -

Thanks for weighing in here, my own studies have not been so formal nor
probably as deep.   I have to admit to not knowing that cognitive
anthropology was a subject, just as Nick introduced me to evolutionary
psychology as it's own field!

I appreciate your introduction of epiphor, paraphor and dead metaphor.  I
began a discursion here (which I fortunately deleted) which lead me to read
some MacCormac and more to the point Philip Wheelwright on the modern,
technical usage of epiphor and diaphor, from the Greek/Aristotelian
epiphoria and diaphoria.   I particularly find your coining of paraphor, as
I think this is as common in our modern discourse/thinking as "confirmation
bias".

I also like your point that the "Scientific Method" is more metaphor than
reality, or more to the point, a narrative device to show how a discovery
"might have been made" when more often than not, it was backed into while
bumping around looking for something entirely different, and often involving
a "flash of insight" before then being laboriously wrung out and
demonstrated using the somewhat more "engineering" oriented methods of the
"Scientific Method" to move from motivated hypothesis to strongly validated
theory.

I don't know if you regularly attend WedTech, but this depth/topic of
discussion might motivate me to make the long trek into town...   

- Steve

On 6/10/17 9:36 AM, Prof David West wrote:

long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the issue of
metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial intelligence and
cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic papers I published dealt
with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, the 'journal of record' in the
field at the time.

 

My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: A
Cognitive Theory of Metaphor and Metaphor and Myth in Science and Religion.

 

MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first suggestion
that something is like something else to either "dead metaphor" or "lexical
term" depending on the extent to which referents suggested by the first
'something'  are confirmed to correlate to similar referents in the second
"something." E.G. an atom is like a solar system suggests that a nucleus is
like the sun and electrons are like planets plus orbits are at specific
intervals and electrons can be moved from one orbit to another by adding
energy (acceleration) just like any other satellite. As referents like this
were confirmed the epiphor became a productive metaphor and a model, i.e.
the Bohr model. Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms and
particle/waves made it clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in nearly
every respect and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry suggests
that it is still a useful tool for metaphorical thinking; modified to "what
might you infer/reason, if you looked at an atom as if it were a tiny solar
system."

 

In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a mind, the
mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become dead metaphors. Instead
they became models "physical symbol system" and most in the community
insisted that they were lexical terms (notably Pylyshyn, Newell, and Simon).
To explain this, I added the idea of a "paraphor" to MacCormac's
evolutionary sequence — a metaphor so ingr

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Steven A Smith]

And invoking the term "twist", he added a bit of Möbius Strip 
connotation!  It did feel ingenious to me as well.


As an odd aside, I'm designing a "feathered serpent" bas-relief design 
for the rocket mass heater I built last year in my sunroom...  I hadn't 
considered adding the Ourobousian nature to it!  The following is not my 
design, just one of many illustrative examples of the Tewa version:



Does a feathered serpent need to be more like a tapeworm to go 
Ourobourosianally Möbius?


- Sieve


On 6/10/17 1:35 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
I had never heard the word ouroboros 
 before Dave used it. Thanks 
for the term. But even though I had never heard the term, the 
ouroboros was the image that came to mind when I first learned recursion!


On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 12:22 PM Steven A Smith > wrote:


Dave -

Thanks for weighing in here, my own studies have not been so
formal nor probably as deep.   I have to admit to not knowing that
cognitive anthropology was a subject, just as Nick introduced me
to evolutionary psychology as it's own field!

I appreciate your introduction of /epiphor/, /paraphor/ and /dead
metaphor/.  I began a discursion here (which I fortunately
deleted) which lead me to read some MacCormac and more to the
point Philip Wheelwright on the modern, technical usage of
/epiphor/ and /diaphor/, from the Greek/Aristotelian /epiphoria/
and /diaphoria. /I particularly find your coining of /paraphor/,
as I think this is as common in our modern discourse/thinking as
"confirmation bias".

I also like your point that the "Scientific Method" is more
metaphor than reality, or more to the point, a narrative device to
show how a discovery "might have been made" when more often than
not, it was backed into while bumping around looking for something
entirely different, and often involving a "flash of insight"
before then being laboriously wrung out and demonstrated using the
somewhat more "engineering" oriented methods of the "Scientific
Method" to move from motivated hypothesis to strongly validated
theory.

I don't know if you regularly attend WedTech, but this depth/topic
of discussion might motivate me to make the long trek into town...

- Steve

On 6/10/17 9:36 AM, Prof David West wrote:

long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the
issue of metaphor and model, specifically in the area of
artificial intelligence and cognitive models of "mind." the very
first academic papers I published dealt with this issue (They
were in AI MAgazine, the 'journal of record' in the field at the
time.

My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R.
MacCormac: /A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor/ and /Metaphor and
Myth in Science and Religion./

MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first
suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead
metaphor" or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which
referents suggested by the first 'something'  are confirmed to
correlate to similar referents in the second "something." E.G. an
atom is like a solar system suggests that a nucleus is like the
sun and electrons are like planets plus orbits are at specific
intervals and electrons can be moved from one orbit to another by
adding energy (acceleration) just like any other satellite. As
referents like this were confirmed the epiphor became a
productive metaphor and a model, i.e. the Bohr model. Eventually,
our increasing knowledge of atoms and particle/waves made it
clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in nearly every respect
and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry suggests
that it is still a useful tool for metaphorical thinking;
modified to "what might you infer/reason, if you looked at an
atom _as if_ it were a tiny solar system."

In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a
mind, the mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become
dead metaphors. Instead they became models "physical symbol
system" and most in the community insisted that they were lexical
terms (notably Pylyshyn, Newell, and Simon). To explain this, I
added the idea of a "paraphor" to MacCormac's evolutionary
sequence — a metaphor so ingrained in a paradigm that those
thinking with that paradigm cannot perceive the obvious failures
of the metaphor.

MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use
and misuse of metaphor and its relationship to models
(mathematical and iillustrative) in both science and religion.
The "Scientific Method," the process of doing science, is itself
a metaphor (at best) that should have become a dead metaphor as
ther

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Russ Abbott]

I had never heard the word ouroboros
 before Dave used it. Thanks for
the term. But even though I had never heard the term, the ouroboros was the
image that came to mind when I first learned recursion!

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 12:22 PM Steven A Smith  wrote:

> Dave -
>
> Thanks for weighing in here, my own studies have not been so formal nor
> probably as deep.   I have to admit to not knowing that cognitive
> anthropology was a subject, just as Nick introduced me to evolutionary
> psychology as it's own field!
>
> I appreciate your introduction of *epiphor*, *paraphor* and *dead
> metaphor*.  I began a discursion here (which I fortunately deleted) which
> lead me to read some MacCormac and more to the point Philip Wheelwright on
> the modern, technical usage of *epiphor* and *diaphor*, from the
> Greek/Aristotelian *epiphoria* and *diaphoria.   *I particularly find
> your coining of *paraphor*, as I think this is as common in our modern
> discourse/thinking as "confirmation bias".
>
> I also like your point that the "Scientific Method" is more metaphor than
> reality, or more to the point, a narrative device to show how a discovery
> "might have been made" when more often than not, it was backed into while
> bumping around looking for something entirely different, and often
> involving a "flash of insight" before then being laboriously wrung out and
> demonstrated using the somewhat more "engineering" oriented methods of the
> "Scientific Method" to move from motivated hypothesis to strongly validated
> theory.
>
> I don't know if you regularly attend WedTech, but this depth/topic of
> discussion might motivate me to make the long trek into town...
>
> - Steve
> On 6/10/17 9:36 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>
> long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
> dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the issue of
> metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial intelligence and
> cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic papers I published
> dealt with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, the 'journal of record' in
> the field at the time.
>
> My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: *A
> Cognitive Theory of Metaphor* and *Metaphor and Myth in Science and
> Religion.*
>
> MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first
> suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead metaphor"
> or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which referents suggested by
> the first 'something'  are confirmed to correlate to similar referents in
> the second "something." E.G. an atom is like a solar system suggests that a
> nucleus is like the sun and electrons are like planets plus orbits are at
> specific intervals and electrons can be moved from one orbit to another by
> adding energy (acceleration) just like any other satellite. As referents
> like this were confirmed the epiphor became a productive metaphor and a
> model, i.e. the Bohr model. Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms
> and particle/waves made it clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in
> nearly every respect and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry
> suggests that it is still a useful tool for metaphorical thinking; modified
> to "what might you infer/reason, if you looked at an atom *as if* it were
> a tiny solar system."
>
> In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a mind, the
> mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become dead metaphors.
> Instead they became models "physical symbol system" and most in the
> community insisted that they were lexical terms (notably Pylyshyn, Newell,
> and Simon). To explain this, I added the idea of a "paraphor" to
> MacCormac's evolutionary sequence — a metaphor so ingrained in a paradigm
> that those thinking with that paradigm cannot perceive the obvious failures
> of the metaphor.
>
> MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use and misuse
> of metaphor and its relationship to models (mathematical and iillustrative)
> in both science and religion. The "Scientific Method," the process of doing
> science, is itself a metaphor (at best) that should have become a dead
> metaphor as there is abundant evidence that 'science' is not done 'that
> way' but only after the fact as if it had been done that way. In an
> Ouroborosian twist, even MacCormac;s theory of metaphor is itself a
> metaphor.
>
> If this thread attracts interest, I think the work of MacCormac would
> provide a rich mine of potential ideas and a framework for the discussion.
> Unfortunately, it mostly seems to be behind pay walls — the books and JSTOR
> or its ilk.
>
> dave west
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 9, 2017, at 03:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> I meant to spawn a fresh proto-thread here, sorry.
>
> Given that we have been splitting hairs on terminology, I wanted to at
> least OPEN the topic that has been grazed over and over,

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

Thanks for weighing in here, my own studies have not been so formal nor 
probably as deep.   I have to admit to not knowing that cognitive 
anthropology was a subject, just as Nick introduced me to evolutionary 
psychology as it's own field!


I appreciate your introduction of /epiphor/, /paraphor/ and /dead 
metaphor/.  I began a discursion here (which I fortunately deleted) 
which lead me to read some MacCormac and more to the point Philip 
Wheelwright on the modern, technical usage of /epiphor/ and /diaphor/, 
from the Greek/Aristotelian /epiphoria/ and /diaphoria. /I particularly 
find your coining of /paraphor/, as I think this is as common in our 
modern discourse/thinking as "confirmation bias".


I also like your point that the "Scientific Method" is more metaphor 
than reality, or more to the point, a narrative device to show how a 
discovery "might have been made" when more often than not, it was backed 
into while bumping around looking for something entirely different, and 
often involving a "flash of insight" before then being laboriously wrung 
out and demonstrated using the somewhat more "engineering" oriented 
methods of the "Scientific Method" to move from motivated hypothesis to 
strongly validated theory.


I don't know if you regularly attend WedTech, but this depth/topic of 
discussion might motivate me to make the long trek into town...


- Steve

On 6/10/17 9:36 AM, Prof David West wrote:
long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd 
dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the 
issue of metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial 
intelligence and cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic 
papers I published dealt with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, 
the 'journal of record' in the field at the time.


My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: 
/A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor/ and /Metaphor and Myth in Science and 
Religion./


MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first 
suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead 
metaphor" or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which referents 
suggested by the first 'something'  are confirmed to correlate to 
similar referents in the second "something." E.G. an atom is like a 
solar system suggests that a nucleus is like the sun and electrons are 
like planets plus orbits are at specific intervals and electrons can 
be moved from one orbit to another by adding energy (acceleration) 
just like any other satellite. As referents like this were confirmed 
the epiphor became a productive metaphor and a model, i.e. the Bohr 
model. Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms and 
particle/waves made it clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in 
nearly every respect and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning 
chemistry suggests that it is still a useful tool for metaphorical 
thinking; modified to "what might you infer/reason, if you looked at 
an atom _as if_ it were a tiny solar system."


In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a mind, 
the mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become dead 
metaphors. Instead they became models "physical symbol system" and 
most in the community insisted that they were lexical terms (notably 
Pylyshyn, Newell, and Simon). To explain this, I added the idea of a 
"paraphor" to MacCormac's evolutionary sequence — a metaphor so 
ingrained in a paradigm that those thinking with that paradigm cannot 
perceive the obvious failures of the metaphor.


MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use and 
misuse of metaphor and its relationship to models (mathematical and 
iillustrative) in both science and religion. The "Scientific Method," 
the process of doing science, is itself a metaphor (at best) that 
should have become a dead metaphor as there is abundant evidence that 
'science' is not done 'that way' but only after the fact as if it had 
been done that way. In an Ouroborosian twist, even MacCormac;s theory 
of metaphor is itself a metaphor.


If this thread attracts interest, I think the work of MacCormac would 
provide a rich mine of potential ideas and a framework for the 
discussion. Unfortunately, it mostly seems to be behind pay walls — 
the books and JSTOR or its ilk.


dave west



On Fri, Jun 9, 2017, at 03:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

I meant to spawn a fresh proto-thread here, sorry.

Given that we have been splitting hairs on terminology, I wanted to 
at least OPEN the topic that has been grazed over and over, and that 
is the distinction between Model, Metaphor, and Analogy.


I specifically mean

 1. Mathematical Model

 2. Conceptual Metaphor

 3. Formal Analogy 

I don't know if this narrows it down enough to discuss but I think 
these three terms hav

Re: [FRIAM] Model, Metaphor, Analogy

[Prof David West]

long long ago, my master's thesis in computer science and my phd
dissertation in cognitive anthropology dealt extensively with the issue
of metaphor and model, specifically in the area of artificial
intelligence and cognitive models of "mind." the very first academic
papers I  published dealt with this issue (They were in AI MAgazine, the
'journal of record' in the field at the time.
My own musings were deeply informed by the work of Earl R. MacCormac: *A
Cognitive Theory of Metaphor* and *Metaphor and Myth in Science and
Religion.*
MacCormac argues that metaphor 'evolves' from "epiphor" the first
suggestion that something is like something else to either "dead
metaphor" or "lexical term" depending on the extent to which referents
suggested by the first 'something'  are confirmed to correlate to
similar referents in the second "something." E.G. an atom is like a
solar system suggests that a nucleus is like the sun and electrons are
like planets plus orbits are at specific intervals and electrons can be
moved from one orbit to another by adding energy (acceleration) just
like any other satellite. As referents like this were confirmed the
epiphor became a productive metaphor and a model, i.e. the Bohr model.
Eventually, our increasing knowledge of atoms and particle/waves made
it clear that the model/metaphor was 'wrong' in nearly every respect
and the metaphor died. Its use in beginning chemistry suggests that it
is still a useful tool for metaphorical thinking; modified to "what
might you infer/reason, if you looked at an atom _as if_ it were a tiny
solar system."
In the case of AI, the joint epiphors — the computer is like a mind, the
mind is like a computer — should have rapidly become dead metaphors.
Instead they became models "physical symbol system" and most in the
community insisted that they were lexical terms (notably Pylyshyn,
Newell, and Simon). To explain this, I added the idea of a "paraphor" to
MacCormac's evolutionary sequence — a metaphor so ingrained in a
paradigm that those thinking with that paradigm cannot perceive the
obvious failures of the metaphor.
MacCormac's second book argues for the pervasiveness of the use and
misuse of metaphor and its relationship to models (mathematical and
iillustrative) in both science and religion. The "Scientific Method,"
the process of doing science, is itself a metaphor (at best) that should
have become a dead metaphor as there is abundant evidence that 'science'
is not done 'that way' but only after the fact as if it had been done
that way. In an Ouroborosian twist, even MacCormac;s theory of metaphor
is itself a metaphor.
If this thread attracts interest, I think the work of MacCormac would
provide a rich mine of potential ideas and a framework for the
discussion. Unfortunately, it mostly seems to be behind pay walls — the
books and JSTOR or its ilk.
dave west



On Fri, Jun 9, 2017, at 03:11 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I meant to spawn a fresh proto-thread here, sorry.
> 
>> Given that we have been splitting hairs on terminology, I wanted to
>> at least OPEN the topic that has been grazed over and over, and that
>> is the distinction between Model, Metaphor, and Analogy.>> 
>>  I specifically mean 
>>
>>  1. Mathematical Model[1]
>>  2. Conceptual Metaphor[2]
>>  3. Formal Analogy[3]>> I don't know if this narrows it down enough to 
>> discuss but I think
>> these three terms have been bandied about loosely and widely enough
>> lately to deserve a little more explication?>> I could rattle on for pages 
>> about my own usage/opinions/distinctions
>> but trust that would just pollute a thread before it had a chance to
>> start, if start it can.>> A brief Google Search gave me THIS reference which 
>> looks promising,
>> but as usual, I'm not willing to go past a paywall or beg a
>> colleague/institution for access (I know LANL's reference library
>> will probably get this for me if I go in there!).>> 
>> http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631221081_chunk_g97806312210818>>
>>  


>> 


>> 
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