Analogies and their dangers
Contents
The absolute non-circumventable necessity of analogies
Analogies are a necessity. We learn by analogies. When explaining new things to a child, one has to consider its mental model of the world and explain these new things in terms of analogies to parts of this pre-existing world-model.
Analogies are what establish relations between concepts. And in a philosophical sense one may see relations between concepts as that what creates reality itself.
The statement "Qumogliuplasts tribitate in case of erekitasis" is complete gibberish precisely because nobody has ever established any analogies which these words should point to. (Ok, the sentence has structure and sounds like molecular biology - there cannot be given an example that carries no information at all)
The dark side of analogies
The dark side of analogies is that they often invite or even seduce one to abuse them by applying them in areas beyond where they are applicable. In areas where the model they represent breaks down. It's an over-stretching of analogies till the point of rupture without a recognition the mistake.
Some analogies on this wiki
- Misleading biological analogies that should be avoided
- The drum analogy for atoms. See: The nature and shape of atoms
- The mechanoelectrical correspondence
- ...
Related
External links
- Wikipedia: Analogy
