Metaphor, Experientialism, and Objective Reality

Having read Louder Than Words a year or so ago, Ben Bergen’s ideas have been nibbling daily at my world-view, to use a metaphor that in no way diminishes the reality of what I believe.  I am eager to get Jim’s response to Lakoff and Johnson 1999, but even more to Bergen’s theses.  I have not found any other writing from a Christian perspective on this topic.  

The word “algorithm” has been sloshing around in my mind.  When someone perceives what they believe to be “reality,” their cognition operates something like an algorithm which converts what is “out there” into a code we call language, which we use to think with. 

We can think about “when pigs fly,” and even though flying pigs is not “reality,” we can imagine it because we do have real, shared experiences with pigs and flying. 

I’ve also been thinking about how this relates to the “resolution” of words.  A couple of hundred years ago, you could have heard or read an announcement like “We now know that the atmosphere consists of something called phlogiston. Were the scientists who “discovered” phlogiston and experienced it as "reality"  wrong? Did they falsify truth?  Only when others found ways of getting finer resolution did we find that phlogiston no longer represented “reality.” The terms we now use for anything, like “germs” or “democracy” or “life”—what are people 100 years from now going to say about them, and about us? 

Most of us use our language like we drive our cars—without thinking about it. We can’t even think or talk about cognition without using language, which “we now know” is all metaphor—thinking about one reality in terms of another reality.  St Paul said it: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Dear Rob,

Thanks for your thoughts.  I really will have to read that book.

I think your mentioning 'phlogiston' is a great idea.  Scientific ideas are ways of conceiving the world.  We think by having a theory we are explaining the world.  It seems to me that we confuse prediction ability with understanding.  I should probably read Bergen before more comment, but L and J also insist that there is a reality to be found, which limits the scope of possible worldviews.  I think scientific theory bears this out.  The very reason people decided that 'phlogiston' was incorrect was because it did not correspond to experimental data.  It was fundamentally wrong in that it (burning bodies release a substance - therefore should increase in mass) was not even an approximation of reality (burning bodies gain mass - therefore must be combining with a substance from the air).  I would probably think in terms of Newton and Einstein.  Newton's theory fit the known data at the time.  In fact, it is still a true approximation of reality for classical physics.  Einstein's theory is a different view of reality, but does not make Newton irrelevant.  It is less approximate and more exact.  Newton (nor the originators of phlogiston theory) were falsifying the data, but they misinterpreted it (or, if you prefer, made poor predictive models).

Part of my beef with L and J is the following:  They have two opposing claims: "there are no absolutes" and "we know absolutely that we are right."  If "true" doesn't mean "corresponds with reality," and we must use language to talk about reality, and language cannot say anything true, what do they mean by the idea that their theory is "true"?  Finally, it does not seem that "metaphor" is being defined at all commonsensically.  Despite L and J's affirmation that reality imposes restrictions on the metaphorical creativity of language, they feel like they give it complete free rein.  They also appear to go too far in ignoring the idea of "dead metaphor".  An example of a dead metaphor is (for many people) something like "free rein" two sentences ago.  For many people, it means "complete freedom to do whatever you need to do" with no cognizance of any connection to horses.  In what sense is it, then, metaphorical?  Certainly not in the literary or popular sense of metaphorical.  So there is part of me that feels I do not understand L and J's meaning of 'metaphor'.  Is Bergen more clear?  Let's look, too at "when pigs fly".  This is a clear use of metaphorical language in the traditional sense.  We can imagine it.  We may imagine it before we say it or when we hear it.  Some people may have to have the metaphor explained to them or its connection with reality.  But why would a metaphor have to be explained if it (in its traditional meaning) is the way we think about reality.  Again, you can just say, "Bergen", if that is where I should go first.

I wanted to look at one more of your examples, just to see if I misunderstand you.  You mention "germs".  This seems to me a question of evidential, experiential language.  One can see bacteria under a microscope.  One can see them reproducing.  This seems to be a reality on par with the question of what will people one hundred years from now think about our belief that human beings reproduce sexually (okay, this is becoming a bad example, but I think you get my drift).

You say, "we can't even think or talk about cognition without language".  Are you saying that we think in our language?  What about those times when we know what we are trying to say but can't find words to convey them?  Or is the subject matter of cognition such that it requires language to think about it?

Linguistic Relativity is a lot stronger than my younger self would have admitted, but it still does not completely obliterate reality.  I think L and J's claim that it hides as much as it reveals about reality is an apt saying, though.  It doesn't follow, though, that what it reveals is not true.  It seems to me that a generation or two ago, linguists, in general, were pretty sanguine that anything can be said in any language that can be said in any other.  Now, it seems to me, the pendulum is swinging the other way.  It seems the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is coming back in vogue.  I'm not ready to jump on the bandwagon yet (but, again, I'll need to consider Bergen).

Thanks again for your interaction, Rob.  I would love to hear if I am totally misunderstanding the state of things.

Eddie Kotynski

Jim,

Thanks for sending the links.  I had a chance when you first posted, to follow up on some of your writings.  I had a couple of thoughts.

First, I don't think the notion of reality, nor the idea of science is strictly Christian.  My reading of history suggests that the Greeks were doing science long before Christianity.  These notions of reality and certainty are expressed by writers in the philosophical tradition from Parmenides to Aristotle and beyond.  It takes faith to have an ontology, but I don't think it takes Christian faith to do so.  Now as to the science of human purpose and morality, I agree with you.  Cicero mentioned that the Peripatetic philosophers agree as to natural philosophy, but are at odds as to "the good".  The Bible also seems to say that we don't need to Bible to see from nature that there is not only a sensible reality (physical) around us but an insensible one (spiritual): Romans 1.  This bifurcation of reality into two realms is not distinctly Christian.  It can be seen in the ancient philosophers as well.  I don't think the Christian faith alerts us to the fact of reality, but rather makes claims about what that reality really is - i.e. tells us how to construe it.  As with all constructs, we have to decide whether we think/believe that the Bible is right in its claims.

Second, (this may be more of a clarification point), the Bible is written in a language.  How does that fit in to the equation?  I think I know what many of the passages in the Bible are saying, but that takes faith that my cognitive processes are intact and that language has some sort of order and objectivity to it.  And is this different than the fact that we need language for virtually all our interactions with others?  I guess this goes back to my first point: we don't need the Bible to come up with a concept of reality.

Third, I wonder how the hermeneutical spiral fits into all this talk about metaphor, language, and reality.  Do we not gain a better understanding of reality in our attempts to be precise, comparing our constructs to data, and refining our constructs?  Or is that all pointless?  And surely we can't start with scripture before science in this area because scripture has to be approached in the same way as other objects of science.  Our understanding comes from interacting with the text.  (Oh, boy, and then there are the questions of how to establish the scope of the text, the integrity of the text, the authority of the text, as well as its purpose.)

Fourth, I am becoming more and more convinced that for us to be confident that the Bible is true, God needs to intervene - that is, the Holy Spirit is needed.  The God of Christianity is far from certain unless he breaks into our reality.  Our faith is exactly that, faith.  Many have faith in the existence of the world outside of us without having faith in our God.

Thanks, again, Jim for your interaction.  Please know that my comments are meant to continue the dialogue not shut it down.  I'd love to hear your responses.

Eddie Kotynski