I Think Metaphorically. So What?

What does it mean as a practical matter that I think in metaphors? Not much.

My metaphors are mostly unconscious. I cannot know what they are unless I discover them through rigorous scientific investigation. That is something I am not equipped to do. Even if I could through prodigious research catalogue all the metaphors in all the minds at the present moment, those minds create new metaphors by the bushel everyday. I would have to research all minds all the time to keep the catalogue up to date.

As a practical matter, I am stuck with the metaphors I use and create without being aware what they are, and how I am using them.

Metaphor by its very nature creates yet another transcendental infinity, a border which I cannot cross into the realm of certainty.

The Thinking Is Language Metaphor

The thinking is language metaphor is not apt.

I recall my first rocket and mortar attack in Vietnam. I hear the explosion of the first rocket landing nearby. I run out of the hut with my comrades to the bunker. I am afraid. Somebody really wants to kill me. I am helpless. The enemy is far away. I cannot shoot back. Words do not form in my mind as I recall it.

I think about the Riemann Zeta function. Words do not form in my mind while I think about it.

Language is part of thinking, but hardly the whole. Language must fit our metaphorical way of thinking.

Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Metaphor

Our minds are completely embodied. That is, the mind arises from our neural systems. What does that mean for extraterrestrial intelligence?

We will be lucky if we find any extraterrestrial species whose bodies evolved exactly like our own. Since their bodies are different, their minds will be different. They will think about different things than we do, if they think at all, and that thinking will arise in different ways.

For instance, we think metaphorically. Our brains did not specifically evolve to think metaphorically, but metaphorical thinking did arise when our brains evolved sufficiently to make it possible. The characteristic of our higher intelligence is imagination. We continually create new metaphors, and the metaphors are culturally transmitted.

If we find an extraterrestrial species that we recognize as intelligent, then the species will have neural systems similar to our own, neural systems that allow metaphorical thinking.

That is an unlikely event.

My Purpose and Conceit

I have started this blog to record my philosophical beliefs as I rethink them. I suspect I will write more fragments than fully realized essays. It will be more in the manner of Pascal's Pensees and Wittgenstein's fragments than Montaigne.

That is my purpose and also my conceit.