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When writing, especially poetry, stay with one metaphor. It may not confuse you, the writer, but mixing metaphors often confuses the readers.
For example, if you start with LOVE IS A JOURNEY then continue with metaphors about roads, signs, bends, distance, loneliness, etc.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s important work Metaphors We Live By pointed out an aspect of conceptualisation and language – that we must resort literal physical meanings and relationships in order to talk about the abstract.
The employment of metaphors of the real is the only way we can talk about unreal.
Consider these sentences.
All sentences employ spatial relation “in” to describe the concepts.
But only 1 is literal or real. Both “he” and “the kitchen” are real things. The person is located in a space. In 2 uses space to talk about time. And 3, and 4 use space to talk about membership and emotional state. While it can be argued that one can use non-space to describe things, it is neither easy, economical, nor natural. In other words, abstract or unreal concepts simply cannot be mentally, psychologically or conceptually manipulated without recourse to the real literal world.
1.
People ask how can the sensory representation of the physical world be relied upon. They ask how can I be sure that thing I see is there. The question is always framed through the visual sense.
Yet, all senses come into play.
The perceived thing visually will likely be accompanied by sound. If near enough I could probably touch and smell it. And if you are a baby you will likely want to lick (taste) it. In short, verification is never in a single sense dimension.
This kind of sensory triangulation is often forgotten. We do it so automatically that we take it for granted.
Yet the “what if the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow?” question should really be more precise like “what if the sun rises tomorrow and I don’t feel its heat?” The discrepancy between senses should trigger alarm bells.
It could be a dream perhaps. Or am I a man dreaming of being in a physical world, or a man in a physical world dreaming?
Silly question really.
For what elaborate reason would there be for creating this kind of The Matrix illusion?
Give me the red pill, please, and bring on the philosophical sentinels.
2.
The problem then with minds, souls, and spirits is that there is no triangulation other than hearsay. And when there is triangulation to the mind it is always through observation of a body-object.
There is no transference of The Matrix-like I-know-kung-fu data.
Nothing is there … or rather only a movie is there.
The imagination of the brain (not the mind) is what gives us The Matrix (literature and entertainment), Idealism (philosophy), the special theory of relativity (science), and God (religion).
Not only does the brain lead us to astray (as metaphors do), it also leads us sometimes back onto the right path (as metaphors do).
my two windows
face one direction
i am a penthouse
on legs
lame as it may be
(travelling the world
and the seven seas)
seeing only
what i want to see
and no more
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