Only in terms of other things No legislation could prevent the making of verbal pictures: God walks in the garden, He stretches out His arm, His voice shakes the cedars, His eyelids try the children of men. To forbid the making of pictures about God would be to forbid thinking about God at all, for man is so made that he has no way to think except in pictures. But continually, throughout the history of the Jewish-Christian Church, the voice of warning has been raised against the power of the picture-makers: “God is a spirit”, “without body, parts or passions”; He is pure being, “I AM THAT I AM”. The fact is, that all language about everything is analogical; we think in a series of metaphors. We can explain nothing in terms of itself, but only in terms of other things. Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker Metaphors We Live ByYou only understand something relative to something you already understand metaphoranalogy
The strange familiar and the familiar strange The problem solver, when confronted with a new and yet unsolved problem, overlays the structure of the unsolved problem with an apparently similar problem with which he or she is experienced. Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange are also principally based on the use of analogy. Peter G. Rowe, Design Thinking metaphoranalogy
One Tenth of a Second An Article by Venkatesh Rao studio.ribbonfarm.com The details are fascinating, but the central argument — that the birth of modernity can be traced to a meta-crisis spawned by the 0.1s problem — is worth understanding and appreciating whether or not you’re a time nerd like me. There is no convenient leitmotif, comparable to the 0.1s problem, for our contemporary version of the rhyming conditions, but something very similar to the “tenth of a second crisis” is going on today. I suspect our Great Weirding too involves some sort of limiting factor on human cognition that we haven’t yet properly wrapped our minds around. It isn’t reaction time, but something analogous. timeanalogyprogresscognition
Scraps of the brocade of autumn There is a story of Rikyu which well illustrates the ideas of cleanliness entertained by the tea masters. Rikyu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikyu, when Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikyu: "Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground" "Young fool," chided the tea master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept. "Saying this, Rikyu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn! What Rikvu demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the natural also. Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea In a state of reverberation wabi-sabi