[MD] Mystics and Brains

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Craig]
For one thing, (a) seems to beg the question:  that words have literal and
metaphorical meaning shows they don't have meaning like paintings.

[Arlo]
I can say, Magritte's "False Mirror" is a picture of an eye, close-up, with the
pupil enlarged and black in the center. Does that capture the meaning of the
painting?

Take the metaphor, "Man is a wolf". Restate that to me using only "literal"
language. Do you feel your restatement captures the meaning of the metaphor?

Art, music, language are all symbolic systems. As such, they use symbols to
point to "things". When I say "the house is red", and in a conversation where
you and I agree the shared purpose is to contrast our experience of "color",
this statement (a metaphor) becomes frozen over time. For example, one could
argue, the house is not "red", "the house" and "red" are two different things.
One is not the other "literally". But the metaphor points to a commonality
between what we symbolically refer to as "the house" and "red".

The problem is (and its not really a problem, since its incredibly useful
pragmatically) is that as metaphors become "frozen", we not only forget they
started out as metaphors, but it becomes hard to even see that metaphoricity
when we try.

[Craig]
Also, could you always teach someone to use a word metaphorically if they
couldn't use i literally?  It would be like trying to explain a pun to someone
who didn't know the meanings of the words. 

[Arlo]
Metaphors, like art, are culturally and socially bound. We appropriate a host of
"frozen metaphors" as we are enculturated. But like any static pattern, if
there was no creativity in symbol use, the language would die. The "literal"
meanings of the symbols we use are simply those we've learned that our culture
accepts in most pragmatic contexts. But even then, words are rarely so easily
defined. What is a "car"? Any four wheeled vehicle? What about my pickup? The
point is, any "literal" definition is always "loose". But as we appropriate
this symbol convention, we learn to overlay symbols in creative and useful ways
to use the symbol-system to point outside of itself.