Science and industrialization share a deep historical and intellectual connection. In many ways, they are a pair of “ways of seeing” that emerged and coevolved between the 17th and 19th century. The laws of thermodynamics and steam power co-developed, the discovery, explanation, and control of electromagnetism was the prime driver of how factories came to… Continue reading A Factory or a Forest?
Tag: Metaphors
A Clock or a Cloud?
The philosopher of science Karl Popper created a framework of natural systems using the metaphors of clocks and clouds. In this framework, a clock-like system is one that is mechanical, linear, and predictable. Its organization can be decomposed into and recomposed from smaller components. On the other hand, a cloud-like system is one that is… Continue reading A Clock or a Cloud?
Metaphors We Live (and Die) Through
In their influential book Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson make the point that metaphors are pervasive in human cognition. They in fact structure “thought and action.” A metaphor typically defined as “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” are more than “devices of poetic imagination...rhetorical flourish” or… Continue reading Metaphors We Live (and Die) Through
Similarities in Dissimilars
The name Homo sapiens was applied by the 18th-century taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. Sapien - the wise - suggests that the defining attribute of our species is a distinct and unparalleled cognition. We think differently from all other animals, and we are able to share those thoughts with one another in ways that are… Continue reading Similarities in Dissimilars
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