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> Analogies are almost never useful That statement is too broad to possibly be true.
by erikpukinskis 7y ago
> Analogies are almost never useful
That statement is too broad to possibly be true.
- qubex 7y agoAnd demonstrably false: what are numbers and arithmetic if not metaphors for acts performed on actual objects? “Get three apples, give away two, share what’s left with your sister” is encoded in the arithmetic analogy (3-2)/2. Analogies... are more pernicious than you think. Indeed, if one wishes to be extremely extreme, one might go as far as to argue that all language is ‘analogy’, insofar as it assigns symbolic monikers to real-world objects. Furthermore, phonetic encodings (alphabets) are a further level of analogy, as they posit that (for example) the “in” in “indeed” is “similar enough” to the “in” in “insofar” to be denoted with identical symbols. Those symbols are, themselves... you guessed it... analogies, metaphors, and other various kinds of abstractions.