we often think we use metaphors to explain ideas. Good metaphors don’t explain but rather transform how our minds engage with ideas, opening entirely new ways of thinking. When crafting metaphors or communicating complex ideas, our role isn’t really to explain what exists, but to cultivate spaces where new understanding can bloom.we often think we use metaphors to explain ideas. Good metaphors don’t explain but rather transform how our minds engage with ideas, opening entirely new ways of thinking. When crafting metaphors or communicating complex ideas, our role isn’t really to explain what exists, but to cultivate spaces where new understanding can bloom.

It is kind of amazing how strongly the paper metaphor has shaped my understanding of computers. There really isn't any reason we didn't go with branches and leaves or child and parents or some other metaphor for the way data is structured in a computer: but files and folders is what we have. No question, computers would be different if our metaphors for understanding them had been different.

It's like you make a tool to get something done, but the shape of the tool and it's repetitive use changes your body and before you know it, you have become something different because of your tool. But metaphors are doing this to our minds.

You put a sidewalk and a bench on a street and all of a sudden you get a community. The same is true for the choice of metaphor we have in describing a thing. I'm definitely not as conscious of this as I should be: metaphor choice is a design tool. (also does this mean all writers are designers? because writers shape thought and understanding...designing the mindspace?)

Also: thanks for finding this article. Excellent!

As a language teacher and cross cultural enthusiast, I appreciate particularly the portions in which different cultures view time and space in ways that are foreign and counterintuitive to us. The world holds infinite ways of being