Recently, I have had occasion to mention in a comment on P.C. something I have been thinking for the last couple of weeks:

1. If we required an exact correlation between two things for our metaphors, as wholes or between all their parts (which are really the same comparisons), metaphors would never exist.
2. “Metaphorizing” might be an example of consilient thinking.
   

The first point merely suggests that exact correlation would require that both things be identical to one another.  Objectivists (capital OH!) would tell you that’s impossible, since A=A and a thing can only be identical with itself.  But we run into this problem when we communicate such things: did you believe that the bold text clearly displays this principle?  Think carefully.  In truth, those are two different symbols which look like this third: A.  You may have been fooled (or not?) by the great similarity between the two symbols; but their objective reality includes this truth: each is made of different sets of pixels, are differentiated in their position in space, and from a particular perspective bear different relationships to one another because of the differentiation in position.   (I.e., one is “to the left” of the other, one “to the right”, for those of us observing them from here [wherever you may be.])  When we say that “A=A,” the objective reality of the two symbols is similarly differentiated in time and space, because each “A” is a complex set of sounds, which are particles of air in certain vibrational states collected into wholes distinguishable from each other.  This is an abridgment of the argument.  It is also an abridgment of an argument I’ve addressed before.

Abridgment is an interesting word, in this context, since etymologically it comes from “to shorten,” but also because it might be interpreted as “to build a bridge — a- bridge -ment — between two things.”  The word is also related etymologically to abbreviate. The other set of pixels in this argument, the equals sign, is that bridge.

The commonsense understanding of A=A can hardly be faulted.  What makes the argument so interesting for me is the fact that, were we to believe it in truth, we would see that every thing is utterly unique and individual.  To ever say that something is something else would then be ridiculous.  For instance, to say that Bush is Hitler is ridiculous from such a perspective.  But that’s an easy one.  To say that a Democrat is a Democrat is a Democrat — no matter which “democrats” we are discussing — would be a similar mistake.  Furthermore, to say that an American is an American and an Islamofascist is an Islamofascist while also saying that the two — the American and the Islamofascist — are not the same, is ridiculous from the same perspective.  In the second case, we might say that “the American and the Islamofascist are not the same” is an obvious example of A=A in action, in which case it is redundant; but in the first case, we might believe that whatever similarities exist between Americans can abridge our concept of “American” allowing us to say that an American is an American is an American, or A=A=A.  But I’ve addressed the WoT in this way before, as well.

But even if we are not always conscious of A=A, and all that it entails, we are often quite aware of it, since we almost instinctively grok metaphors — even if we don’t agree with them.  We know that the things being compared are not identicals, even if we do not know what to do about that fact.  Some people, when hearing a metaphor, will outright attack it because the comparison is so obviously “flawed.”  I.e., we sometimes want an exact comparison in our metaphors, and we may quickly latch onto the dissimilarities between the things being compared — and, there are always dissimilarities — in order to argue. On the other side of things, we may instinctively dismiss dissimilarities because we want to believe in exact correspondence whenever we hear a metaphor.

But #2 above introduces another consideration for me.  Consilient thinking has been described by Mark Safranski of ZenPundit as a manner of looking for common “rule sets” between disparate things:

Consilient thinkers look for the common underlying Rule-sets in disparate phenomena ( all phenomena at their most ambitious) - like Horizontal thinkers they are seeing connections across domains but the interests of Consilient thinkers are directed at the root level - the fundamental laws, principles and axioms applicable to all domains.

But this consideration would not be complete without also incorporating Mark’s description of horizontal thinking:

Horizontal thinking can get the expert out of that mental cul-de-sac by setting aside analysis in favor of synthesis, intuitive pattern recognition, suspension of judgment, reversing/challenging premises, counterfactual thought experiments and brainstorming alternatives.

Horizontal thinking might spot the similarities between things — pattern recognition — without really analyzing those things — forming any sort of A=B — as a result of the pattern recognition.  Furthermore, horizontal thinking would continue to see A=A as a representation of two things on each side of a third (each symbol) while acknowledging that all the pixels in the first symbol bear a relation to one another within that symbol that is quite like the relationship of all the pixels in the last symbol to one another, even if locations in time and space between the symbols were simultaneously acknowledged as being different.

A lot of very bad poetry — particularly nowadays, free verse, but not only free verse poetry — utilizes horizontal thinking. Mish-mash. It certainly displays patterns which one can suss out if one wants, but it does not even pretend to make much sense of the world or “analyze” the world. No analysis is offered by the poem, but only patterns.

But consilient thinking would call this relationship of pixels within each symbol a consistent entity all its own, worthing of observing — one that could be repeated endlessly: A=A=A=A=A[…]. This does not mean that the symbols are identicals, but only that the relationships of the individual pixels in each A is identical with the relationship of pixels in each of the others when other relationships to outside things are eliminated for describing the pixels’ relationships.  Metaphorists, then, may appear to be combining disparate things to communicate a single point (entity).  When they say that A=B=C=AB=F, they are not saying that these are identicals, but only that some aspect of each can be found in each of the others, regardless of the particular symbols being chosen for comparison, and that this aspect is an entity that does not break the rule of A=A.  I.e., this entity exists across other domains but remains self-identical.

The good-to-best poetry of any age — free verse or metrical verse — utilizes consilient thinking when constructing metaphors. Real things are being communicated between the lines, between the words, between the sounds and meanings, since each of these is quite distinct from other disparate items in the poem but “fit” together to communicate a larger self-identical entity. The poem is the analysis of this entity, an analysis which looks at the different domains crossed by this entity. The greatest poems present disparate things that, when considered together, can only point at a small handful of entities (via different metaphors) while also comparing those entities to suggest a supreme entity, an Alpha and Omega. Religionists might like to call this supreme entity God whereas Objectivists would call this Reality, but I’m not altogether certain there is a difference.

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This post was inspired in part by:

1. Gus Van Horn’s critique of The Simpsons
2. Patricia Lee Sharpe’s critique of an analysis of Robert Frost’s Mending Wall on WhirledView
3. Thoughts by yours truly here on P.C. concerning monolithic thinking for democracy and capitalism. (This post might be an abridgment of a promised post addressing the intimate relationship between democracy and capitalism — or only a very tentative step in that direction!)
4. And, indeed, by thoughts that Mending Walls can be Bridges, and that each may shorten the distances between disparate entities! (But this one will surely require a post of its own.) [Update: see Walls: And Mending Them.]