I understand the terminology in the context of the original papers, but to me the metaphors don't seem to generalize well, or at least not in the suggested dire

I understand the terminology in the context of the original papers, but to me the metaphors don't seem to generalize well, or at least not in the suggested direction. This is probably just an unfortunate situation, due to progressive understanding. Pointing this out in the slides gave me a sense of relief. Personally, I wouldn't put names to every minor part of an algorithm or formula that was discovered to work empirically. But then again, I haven't discovered anything, and the authors of the respective papers certainly deserve some credit for their inventions!