Psychosocial potential of analogy detection

Being a Waveform of Potential as an Experiential Choice (Part #7)

Given the questionable contribution of science to the present-day challenges of society, it is then appropriate to ask how such facility with analogy is to be cultivated at a time when there are many calls for a "paradigm shift" and "new thinking".

If, as an outcome of analogy detection, E=mc² is to be understood as a vital and fundamental breakthrough in understanding the integrity of the physical world, what corresponding form might be sought with respect to the psychosocial world?

What resistance is to be expected to the recognition of the analogies on which it depends -- in the light of the decades of resistance to those of Einstein? In the case of a psychosocial system, does such "resistance" need to be encompassed by the new paradigm? Could a similar case be made for the Euler identity -- e^pi + 1 = 0 -- as separately argued (Correspondences: "epi", Euler identity, and sexual dynamics?, 2013).

Isomorphisms and correspondences: Prior to its reframing as the International Society for the Systems Sciences, the Society for General Systems Research provided a significant focus for consideration of "isomorphism" between "systems" of a variety of forms -- as articulated in General Systems: Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research (1956-1997) . This could be understood as one formal approach to recognition of analogy. Another is provided by the contrasting approach to "correspondences" of the sciences and humanities, as separately discussed (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007).

Implications for governance: It is unfortunate that Hofstadter and Sander fail to indicate any implications of their insights for the problematic conditions of society -- in a period when the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) has initiated a Metaphor Program to build a world repository of metaphors enabling a computer system capable of understanding metaphors used in a variety of languages (see MetaNet: A Multilingual Metaphor Repository).

The authors' failure to recognize implications of their arguments regarding analogies, contrasts with the strong position taken at various stages by George Lakoff (Obama Reframes Syria: metaphor and war revisited, The Huffington Post, 6 September 2013; Metaphor and War: the metaphor system used to justify war in the Gulf, 1 January 1991). The potentially problematic implications of the "psychological" perspective of the authors is also tragically highlighted by the tragic complicity of the American Psychological Association in USgovernmenttorture and abuse of national security detainees, as described by Roy Eidelson and Stephen Soldz (Hawaiian Mind Games: APA fiddles while psychology burns,Psychology Today, 5 August 2013).

Constraints on pattern recognition: Given the fundamental role of analogy highlighted by Hofstadter and Sander, it is also unfortunate that they make no reference to constraints on its recognition by those on the autism spectrum, known to be a characteristic of many with exceptional mathematical skills (Gabriella Rundblad, The atypical development of metaphor and metonymy comprehension in children with autism, Autism, 14, 2010, 1, pp. 29-46). There is the delightful possibility that the analists of the security-obsessed "intelligence community" might be inherently constrained in their capacity to "connect the dots" and "see the pattern" -- however enabled by a metaphor suppository. Missing is any investment in capacity to explore creative possibilities, as separately discussed (From ECHELON to NOLEHCE: enabling a strategic conversion to a faith-based global brain, 2007).

The "global intelligence failure" regarding detection of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been formally recognized (Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Pre-War Assessments on Iraq, 9 July 2004). A related challenge merits consideration in the light of groupthink, through which people collectively "buy into" an inappropriate analogy, as highlighted by Lakoff (2013) with respect to Syria, and prior to that (Groupthink: the Search for Archaeoraptor as a Metaphoric Tale -- missing the link between "freedom fighters" and "terrorists", 2002).

The problematic use of analogy between highly disparate domains also merits consideration in the light of the Sokal Affair -- a highly publicised hoax instigated by physicist Alan Sokal to highlight the lack of rigour in postmodern cultural studies (Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: postmodern intellectuals' abuse of science, 1998; Alan Sokal, Beyond the Hoax: science, philosophy and culture, 2010; Lingua Franca, The Sokal Hoax: the sham that shook the academy, 2000). Of particular interest would be the analogical skills of Sokal himself -- as a physicist.

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Psychosocial potential of analogy detection