Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA18608 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 17 Mar 2002 21:14:19 GMT From: "Jim" <jforbes@chatpress.com> To: "Memetics@Mmu. Ac. Uk" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: metaphors, science, religion Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 16:09:14 -0500 Message-ID: <KJEBKLEEKBAIPINPHKHHKEMLCCAA.jforbes@chatpress.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Grant writes: "For subjects like mysticism or religion, we have to resort to
metaphor in an attempt to explain ideas that are too abstract to be
understood through language."
When you say that that metaphor is used in an attempt to explain ideas that
are too abstract for language, your statement comes across as odd as a
minimum and potentially incoherent because metaphor is intrinsic to
language. Further, somewhere along the way metonymy got lost.
In the semiotic model of language (as powerful a model as I have found),
metaphor exploits similarity relationships between things (as opposed to
words). Metonymy exploits contiguity relationships between things. Metaphor
and metonymy operate at the pre-linguistic level --where one element is
temporarily replaced by another -- and mediate between the affective and
linguistic "levels." There are three levels in the semiotic model:
affective, pre-linguistic, and linguistic. For what it is worth, the
affective and linguistic levels are equivalent to the primary and secondary
processes as defined by Freud in the Interpretation of Dreams. The affective
level/primary process denies any difference between similar elements or any
distance between contiguous elements. The linguistic level/secondary process
is concerned with relationships that connect one memory trace to another; it
establishes irreducible differences among similar and contiguous elements.
Also for what it is worth, the various discussions over the last week have
suggested that somehow there is a "quantum leap" (sorry, could not resist
that) between science and religion. There is a credible argument to the
effect that there is less distance between science and religion than the
discussions in this group might suggest. Interesting reading that would
support such as statement includes Lakoff and Mohnson's Metaphors We Live
By, Murray's Myth and Mythmaking, Burrell and Morgan's Sociological
Paradigms and Organizational Analysis, Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, and Huene's Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions, among
others. If, in Burrell and Morgan's terms, you are a functionalist then I
suppose science and religion are different. Since I make my living as a
techie and was taught by functionalists, I lived in the functionalist world
for many years. It was only after "graduating" if you will, that I realized
how limiting a view it had been.
Jim
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