Analogies

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As Nitsuh more or less says on the Affirmative Action thread, analogies are merely a technique to illuminate part of your argument. (cf The footrace analogy). If you construct an analogy which covers all of the complexity of the item it is analogizing then you surely have just recreated that original idea. Is there ever any point in trying to do this? (ie in the footrace analogy we started getting magic running shoes, people starting at different points and probably a bucket of oil if we had gone on to the effect of AA on a disproportionately wealthy member of a deprived class).

But to keep this thread light'n'all can you also give us examples of really bad analogies - where the analogy is almost useless, or made too complex. Extra points for finding graphics on the BBC website which illustrate the analogy. And Peter Snow.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:16 (twenty-three years ago)

cf Terry Jones in the Observerer.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:24 (twenty-three years ago)

analogies are not just used to illuminate a part of your argument, they're often an effort to make the larger argument tractable at all. They are about changing the emphasis on complexity in a large argument. like a physicist saying "let's say the cow is a sphere" - obv the cow ISN'T a sphere, but s/he is making a good guess that for all the things judged important right now, this is a great simplification.

Analogies are used all the time to set the scene of complex philosophical debates. Disagreeing with an analogy is spotting where an important complexity has been hidden, or brushed under the carpet, by said analogy, conversely constructing a persuasive analogy is a sleight of hand to say "actually THIS is what matters".

― Alan (Alan), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:29 (twenty-three years ago)

This reminds me of when I thought how great it would be if you could describe a problem down to the minutest detail to a computer and it would (through some sort of adaptive evolving code-generating thingy) solve the problem for you, saving you the bother of writing code yourself. It then dawned on me that "describing a problem down to the minutest detail" and "writing a program" would probably be the same amount of work and mostly amount to the same thing.

Complex analogies = hilarious but useless.

― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Agree Alan, though if I were to make an analogy your version of an analogy is saying the elephant is a tree trunk, whilst mine is saying it's a snake.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:33 (twenty-three years ago)

or that a photon is a tiny billiard ball and yet also a wave. BLIMEY THAT'S MIND BLOWING. (I'm being sarcastic)

― Alan (Alan), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Wouldn't a wave get the billiard table wet?

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Not if it was a Mexican wave.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:42 (twenty-three years ago)

exactly, it defies comprehension. that science is no better than eastern mysticism for all the sense it makes

― Alan (Alan), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:42 (twenty-three years ago)

eighteen years pass...

“There’s guys who lug the piano up onstage, and there’s guys who play the piano. And there’s a reason why the guy who plays the piano makes all the money — because that’s what people come to watch,” Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma said afterward. “Paige is a good piano player.”

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Monday, 22 March 2021 02:59 (five years ago)

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