4 ms·

> Do you have some solution to this age old conundrum? Well, as it happens, the person you are replying to did have at least an outline of a solution in this c

> Do you have some solution to this age old conundrum? Well, as it happens, the person you are replying to did have at least an outline of a solution in this case, which could be stated thus: analogies may be regarded as models to the extent that they are useful for making predictions or testing hypotheses. it probably needs some refinement (for example, analogies carefully-crafted to "predict" the outcome in very narrow cases, but which diverge significantly with modest changes, probably don't count), but it is about as good as you can get in pinning down the semantics of ordinary language. For example, a hydraulic analogy to electric circuits may be useful in simple cases, but once reactive elements are introduced, it is probably time to abandon it. Similarly, the 'bowling-ball on a mattress' analogy for general relativity cannot even predict the precession of Mercury, while some hydraulic and acoustic models have, apparently, been useful for better understanding black holes (even though they also spawned ridiculous headlines like "Scientists Close in on Creating Black Hole in Lab."[1]) In the case of TFA, I personally feel that the analogy being pushed is at best useless and probably misleading for any purpose. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-close-in-on-creating-black-hole-in-lab/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-close-...

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
A thoughtful and reasonable response. Especially like bringing up the hydraulic example. I was reacting to a common trope on HN to react harshly to any type of metaphor about the brain. When, where is the outrage when describing 'voltage' as a type of 'water pressure in a hose'. As you say, it is only accurate to a degree. Like giving a presentation on 'cloud' computing, and the power point has clouds, and some cohort of IT people are seething in the back of the room, "those aren't really clouds, they are servers". Guess that is the problem, all analogies are only accurate to some degree, or else they would be the original. Nothing can be fully explained by something else, without both models being the same. So at some point, analogies are just helpful to communicate some concepts, but are not complete. Yet, having something 'similar' can help get over some hump in understanding the 'new thing'. That link is pay walled, do you have another copy?
- mannykannot 2y ago
  Aside from the absurd title SciAm republished it under, the article originally appeared here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.16131 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.16131 Whether it is actually much use in understanding black holes is a matter of opinion.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Got it. Nice. So you are talking about taking this concept of 'analogies' to the extreme of an actual physical 'analogy' that can be studied. Here acoustics, to mimic the event horizon (i'm simplifying). This is pretty extreme case. I was just saying generally, that metaphors and analogies can help explain concepts. This is finding actual real correspondence between different 'model's. Were you saying earlier that there was a way to model this correspondence between models generally, for other cases? Maybe there is a category theory or something, to relate different models, so they can be analogies of each other, but both real so can have experiments?
    - mannykannot 2y ago
      I'm not thinking of anything as formal as that, more in terms of trying to get a handle on the difference between the words in ordinary language. Metaphors, analogies and models often help us understand things, but they can mislead unless they are, to a reasonable degree, models of the thing we we are trying to understand. The physicist Matt Strassler calls the latter 'phibs', and has written a recently-published book motivated by one in particular, an attempt to explain the relevance of the Higgs field. https://profmattstrassler.com/2024/04/16/why-the-higgs-field-is-nothing-like-molasses-soup-or-a-crowd/ https://profmattstrassler.com/2024/04/16/why-the-higgs-field...
      - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
        Yes, this is good article showing the downsides of analogies. Thank You. Interesting that while critiquing the common analogy, it did suggest another one. I wonder if the problem isn't analogies, it is just finding 'good ones'. "As an analogue, consider air pressure (which is itself an example of an ordinary field.) Air is a substance; it is made of molecules, and has density and weight. But air’s pressure is not a thing; it is a property of air, , and is not itself a substance. Pressure has no density or weight, and is not made from anything. It just tells you what the molecules of air are doing. The Higgs field is much more like air pressure than it is like air itself. It simply is not a substance, despite what the phib suggests."

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

A thoughtful and reasonable response. Especially like bringing up the hydraulic example. I was reacting to a common trope on HN to react harshly to any type of metaphor about the brain. When, where is the outrage when describing 'voltage' as a type of 'water pressure in a hose'. As you say, it is only accurate to a degree. Like giving a presentation on 'cloud' computing, and the power point has clouds, and some cohort of IT people are seething in the back of the room, "those aren't really clouds, they are servers". Guess that is the problem, all analogies are only accurate to some degree, or else they would be the original. Nothing can be fully explained by something else, without both models being the same. So at some point, analogies are just helpful to communicate some concepts, but are not complete. Yet, having something 'similar' can help get over some hump in understanding the 'new thing'. That link is pay walled, do you have another copy?

mannykannot 2y ago
Aside from the absurd title SciAm republished it under, the article originally appeared here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.16131 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.16131 Whether it is actually much use in understanding black holes is a matter of opinion.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Got it. Nice. So you are talking about taking this concept of 'analogies' to the extreme of an actual physical 'analogy' that can be studied. Here acoustics, to mimic the event horizon (i'm simplifying). This is pretty extreme case. I was just saying generally, that metaphors and analogies can help explain concepts. This is finding actual real correspondence between different 'model's. Were you saying earlier that there was a way to model this correspondence between models generally, for other cases? Maybe there is a category theory or something, to relate different models, so they can be analogies of each other, but both real so can have experiments?
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    I'm not thinking of anything as formal as that, more in terms of trying to get a handle on the difference between the words in ordinary language. Metaphors, analogies and models often help us understand things, but they can mislead unless they are, to a reasonable degree, models of the thing we we are trying to understand. The physicist Matt Strassler calls the latter 'phibs', and has written a recently-published book motivated by one in particular, an attempt to explain the relevance of the Higgs field. https://profmattstrassler.com/2024/04/16/why-the-higgs-field-is-nothing-like-molasses-soup-or-a-crowd/ https://profmattstrassler.com/2024/04/16/why-the-higgs-field...
    - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      Yes, this is good article showing the downsides of analogies. Thank You. Interesting that while critiquing the common analogy, it did suggest another one. I wonder if the problem isn't analogies, it is just finding 'good ones'. "As an analogue, consider air pressure (which is itself an example of an ordinary field.) Air is a substance; it is made of molecules, and has density and weight. But air’s pressure is not a thing; it is a property of air, , and is not itself a substance. Pressure has no density or weight, and is not made from anything. It just tells you what the molecules of air are doing. The Higgs field is much more like air pressure than it is like air itself. It simply is not a substance, despite what the phib suggests."