Metaphors are fun to play around with. Over on my other blog, I recently called the Oregon city where I live "a blandburger sandwiched between spicy Portland and Eugene."
But Salem isn't really food.
It's what it is: people, places, buildings, roads, parks, culture (and the lack thereof), plus so much else immediately cognizable stuff. Metaphors are a big step removed from the sort of reality that doesn't depend upon mentally connecting this, such as Salem, with that, such as the innards of a sandwich.
I'm plugging away on reading a big thick book, "Philosophy in the Flesh," that I've previously blogged about here, here, and here. It's fairly dense, being more of a textbook than a title aimed at a general readership.
Yet fascinating.
The main point of the authors, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, is that concepts derived from bodily metaphors provide much, if not most, of the foundation for how we view the world.
Consider the notion of a spiritual or moral "path." Or a "way." This is a notion that is rooted in how our bodies move along from place to place. When this becomes a well-travelled route, it's called a path.
Yet in the context of a religious, spiritual, mystical, or philosophical practice -- a way of life -- the metaphor of being on a path can be seen for what it is: an abstraction removed from here-and-now reality.
Meaning, our bodies do indeed move along physical paths. However, our psyches only metaphorically engage in practices that the human mind views as akin to bodily movement.
In their chapter on Morality, Lakoff and Johnson talk about this in a fashion that applies equally to the metaphor of spiritual progress being along a "path."
There is nothing inherently metaphoric about such claims of basic experiential morality as "Health is good," "It is better to be cared for than uncared for," "Everyone ought to be protected from physical harm," and "It is good to be loved."
However, as soon as we develop such claims into a full-fledged human morallity, we find that virtually all of our abstract moral concepts -- justice, rights, empathy, nurturance, strength, uprightness, and so forth -- are defined by metaphors.
That is why there is no ethical system that is not metaphorical. We understand our experience via these conceptual metaphors, we reason according to their metaphorical logic, and we make judgments on the basis of the metaphors. This is what we mean when we say that morality is metaphoric.
...There is no set of pure moral concepts that could be understood "in themselves" or "on their own terms." Instead, we understand morality via mappings of structures from other aspects and domains of our experience: wealth, balance, order, boundaries, light/dark, beauty, strength, and so on.
If our moral concepts are metaphorical, then their structure and logic come primarily from the source domains that ground those metaphors...and we have seen how these source domains are tied up with our basic bodily well-being.
Same with religion, spirituality, and mysticism. These areas of human culture supposedly deal with experiential domains beyond the physical, or at least on the ethereal side of materiality.
Yet the ways people think about "other-worldly" subjects are decidedly bodily. For example:
-- On the HBO series, "Big Love," which is about a polygamist Mormon family, the main characters are always talking what Holy Father wants them to do, and what pleases Holy Father.
This is an example of how religions metaphorically map familiar family relationships onto how people supposedly are supposed to relate with God. Likewise, Jesus is considered to be the loving and loyal Son of God, and the Virgin Mary is a nurturing mother figure.
-- Fairly frequently I've been asked by members of the India-based spiritual organization to which I used to belong, "Have you left the Path?" I'm never sure how to respond to that question.
What path? Point to it.
I no longer believe in the metaphorical concept of a path back to God or ultimate reality. That's an abstraction, a human idea. There's no evidence that such a path actually exists between two places, one worldly and one spiritual.
Many people simply have gotten accustomed to conceiving of life as a journey along a well-defined route that can be discerned by reading holy books, having faith in the guidance of gurus, and other means.
-- Similarly, true believers speak of a "fall." A fall from grace. A fallen soul. Falling off the path. But where is the real-world topography which, outside of metaphor, would cause a person to lose his or her balance and descend from a higher to a lower state?
I could offer more examples, but hopefully you've gotten the point.
If we carefully attend to how we speak about religion, spirituality, and mysticism, the conclusions Lakoff and Johnson perusasively lay out in "Philosophy in the Flesh" will become clear.
Because we are physical beings and all of our experience is processed by the physical brain, humans naturally use bodily metaphors to conceptualize more abstract subjects. Viewing God as our father and spirituality as a path are two ways, among many, that this occurs.
Metaphors can be useful. However, they need to be seen for what they are: mappings of one realm of reality onto another realm. Maps aren't the actual territory. Almost certainly there isn't a father God, nor is there a spiritual path.
Metaphor appears less mystical and less confining (or damning) when released from its imprisonment. It is a much more playful and creative state of mind when the bounds of metaphor are dissolved into the apperceptual awareness of the moment - or so it seems.
Posted by: Jayme | February 14, 2011 at 10:03 PM
The Buddha worked in metaphors all the time -- and look where it got his teachings: Literalists took 'em over and misunderstood a good chunk of what was being said. Metaphors are great in context. Also, metaphors may help with a breakthrough to insight -- when the linear process is getting us nowhere, sometimes a metaphor acts as a colored lens that helps to bring certain strands, certain connections into better focus. But lose the context of the metaphors and o!lordy! what problems crop up.
Posted by: star | February 15, 2011 at 10:39 AM
How far is the city from the space it resides in ? Where is boundry between the city and the world ?When did the solid ,separate stable thing called a city begin ? Are these simply concepts ? Can Nothing or anything called a city actually ever be found
Posted by: Dogribb | February 17, 2011 at 12:01 PM
If all reality is really the biochemical construction in our brain, then what we actually witness as "reality" is just a mental and chemical construction. "We", as the personalities we perceive ourselves to be, as the constructions of character traits we believe define us, are nothing more than conceptualizations. "We" as we know ourselves to be are no more real than "God". "We" project onto ourselves anthropomorphic, "self aware" qualities that don't really exist. We are conditioned creatures that respond to stimuli. We are no more self-aware than a street lamp or a temperature guage.
Whatever we sentience we project as "God" we do so to a much greater degree to ourselves and each other.
But in all cases it is a projection, and not reality.
"We" as "personalities" are no more real than God - and both we, as we really are, and God and this physical reality are generally outside of the realm of human perception. We can only see them through the metaphor of our own biochemical and conditioned, filtered, and reconstructed mental imagery.
Our self-perceptions of sentience are as false as our attributions of God.
Posted by: Spencer Tepper | February 28, 2011 at 09:58 PM