A Language of Metaphors: Chapter 5

Metaphors as a Second Language

I hope the little exercise from the end of the last chapter has tweaked your brain for this one. Perhaps you had noticed that the items I'd asked you to think of could all be classified as "belonging to branching chains". Like a chain of command, each of these examples would consist of items that were "more important" or "less important" than the others: Either master or slave in a long distributive or collective series - upstream or downstream. 

The electrical system may end as a spray of electrons on your monitors' screen or heating the elements of your stove, after a long journey from the generating station through many distributive channels. 

When you flush your toilet, rest assured that everyone else subject to the same  commercial break for the same popular TV show have engaged in parallel flushing, causing a sudden drop in your city's' water supply pressure (theoretically, one could use toilet flushings as a means of voting!!). These flushings will enter into a set of collective channels, often to a single sewage treatment centre, where the water portion will likely continue seaward or skyward, like any water tends to flow. 

But really, what is the difference between collective and distributive channels? If the answer is "bias", well, that is easily changed with something called back-pressure.

Back-pressure can be used in plumbing to remove build-up; or in electrical systems that allow consumers to contribute a surplus from a home generator back into the system. Some of these chains of command are bi-directional: we vote for a leader; we build decorative water fountains, a cycle of pumping pressure and gravitational pull; we pay social security then get it back as seniors; we recycle. 

The flow in these systems can be in various forms, for example: like a tide, back and forth along the same path; in a closed loop, such as an ecosystem; like an exchange, where two products are collected separately, then traded, then distributed. Whether distributive or collective, these systems have common elements. What words should I attach to these? Let's go with an old standard: letter, word, sentence, paragraph, et cetera.

If you have ever looked at a piece of plumbing, you may have seen a length of pipe, an elbow joint and a "T" joint. Of course, if you don't sick something on the end, such as a faucet, a mess is soon at hand. Each of these plumbing pieces are quite useless for the purposes of plumbing on their own - they need to be grouped into a functional sequence and, naturally, need some form of supply. Let's look at these pieces as if they were letters: if you place them together in a brief, complete series, requiring only a source and a destination, they become a word. A sentence, being a coherent grouping of words, could be the plumbing for your kitchen - with a "T" joint representing the conjunction "and".

"The water enters the kitchen, flows through a three-foot-long pipe, bends at 90 degrees upwards, then splits, then continues through flex hoses to the faucet and the ice-machine". (One could add much more detail, of course)

 Naturally then, the plumbing for your home would be considered a paragraph. The same plumbing parts - but on a bigger scale - supply the blocks of your city, each considered chapters for this view. (For those of you familiar with "fractals", you can see where I'm headed - iterant functions). Now the "Big, Big Book of Municipal Plumbing" is complete - at least the part about supply - and we know where every last letter can be found.

As was mentioned earlier in this writing, size is not as important to the "Language" as function. A length of straight pipe, whether pencil thin or big enough for a car, will carry the material along a straight path. An elbow joint of any size, will change the vectorial path, usually at a right angle. These two "letters" are the same, no matter how large or small, as they serve identical functions. "Words" formed in a similar fashion, again, see no change of meaning inherent with scale. [OBviOuslY, woRdS forMeD WiTH letTTeS oF inComPatiBle siZes, aRE nOT FULly fuNCtionAl.] Compatibility requires dimensional and parametric comparability: The "somethings", such as pipe and joint sizes, must be of fitting values or  will require a size adaptor; the material qualities, such as copper or plastic pipe, must have a means of forming a functional joint together or will require a material adaptor.

Cars deal with the same straight lengths, elbows and "T"s: only we call them streets, turns and intersections. Even though our roads are bi-directional, they are usually either fully separated; such as a divided highway, or virtually separated; by use of a line through the middle. Effort is made to ensure that traffic can readily collect and distribute at airports or stadiums, treating the cars like so much water - traffic flow.

Electrical wire can bend and turn, just as a flexible water hose may be used for plumbing; and it can have its own form of "T" joint, called a splitter. The wires of your home have been repeatedly split to distribute the power throughout your rooms. Like plumbing or roadways, they become smaller the further they distribute, such as the fine supply pipe in your toilet, or the fine wires in your computer. Like water or traffic, we refer to electron flow.

A clog will reduce the flow of water in a pipe, just as a traffic jam will reduce the flow of cars, just as a resistor may reduce the flow of electrons in a circuit. A valve regulates water flow; stoplights regulate traffic flow; potentiometers regulate electron flow. A reservoir holds water for a period of time; a parking lot holds cars for a time; capacitors hold electrons for a time.

Punctuation, whether written in this sentence, or in music, often serves the same purpose as the valve. A poorly written sentence will result in a clog in the language interpretation centre of our brains. I'll give you an  ic%$mpl. Confused...?! Our neurons expect the same speedy traffic flow as our car drivers. Computers, under comparable circumstances will "hang up". I hope that this is beginning to show you the vast flexibility available through this thinking: the principles are universal - remember, with so few dimensions available in the universe, there's bound to be a lot of crossover between things. It's only natural.

I trust you follow the flow of my reasoning...!

Let's look at letters again for a moment.

As a character, a letter can often be broken down into its ingredient parts. The letter "Z" is a group of elements, including two horizontal lines separated by a diagonal line, for example. The "letters" of the "Language" may also be broken down, as easily as they may be built up. So now we'll approach the letters not as set values, but as values set by perspective or context. A "word" in this view, is  a group of these groups of letter bits; a sentence is a group of groups of groups, and so on. Along the length of a chain of command, each tier will have a different view of what is "important", thus what will qualify as a "letter" or a "word". For example, a shipping manager may consider the drivers for one city as "words" and the parcels as "letters". The CEO for the same company, several strata higher in the chain of command, may consider the shipping manager as "word" and the city as a mere "letter". The way the CEO will spell out commands will appear as a totally different language than the manager, yet the command at any level ultimately has the same range of influence on the lowest form of letter. Try these:

CEO: "The unit costs of delivery in the North-West are killing our margins. We need to tighten the routes and reduce labor and fuel costs."

Shipping Manager: "I need Seattle, Wala-Wala and Portland to switch to minivans, the rest of you will be laid off and replaced with contract drivers."

Although it was not implicit within the CEOs' directive that the manager take these actions specifically, the actions reflect a calculation of the bottom line - a simple, logical decision. In a sense, the CEO has chosen the meaning of the "word" (tighten the routes...), while it is incumbent upon the manager to reflect that meaning accurately in the combination of "letters" used (minivans, layoffs, etc.). The CEO is not interested in the fine details of the element letters, only that the "word" suits the prescribed definition. When we sign our name, we do not concern ourselves with an exacting measurement of the loops or thickness of the ink; only that the signature satisfactorily reflects our personal identity and endorsement. The stray molecules of the ink could easily parallel the statements made by the laid off workers from above: "They don't care about the little guy - they only care about the bottom line."

A peer-level language, allows the CEO of one company, to properly communicate with another CEO from another company. So too, will the managers or drivers each have a language relevant within their own circles. This is evidenced by jargon, or by secretive terminology such as code-words. (Certainly the drivers are not likely to disclose their terms for the superiors of the company!) Often, the words taught in the course of a higher education are lost as one enters a specific level of the workforce. It's as if language is both cause and effect of tribalism.

It would seem as if these points are all headed off in different directions; that tribalism is far removed in principle to the earlier discussion of plumbing parts. Let's look more carefully: Plumbing parts are named and grouped according to size, material and function; those of compatible parameters, such as 3/4 inch copper tubing and 3/4 inch copper "T" joint are found in close proximity whether at a manufacturing plant, a store shelf or in the plumbing of ones kitchen. A compatible stainless steel pipe can be as a synonym, through its size and flow aspect of function; while as a dialect, through material and sterility properties. They are as tribes, often quite segregated from the large ceramic, cast iron or PVC  equivalents used for larger-scale municipal waterworks. Even though the unit terminology may be as much as identical in many respects, the people who speak the language of the small-scale plumbing need never associate with those involved in large-scale water supply. This is also true of the pipe fitters for natural gas, among many others.

Within each tribe of each scale, in every field of discipline, are words describing specific objects and concepts. But the objects are simply materials, subject to a simple set of desired properties such as resistance to certain forces, useful longevity or cost-effectiveness - these are universally demanded aspects; and the universe has a very limited number of available principles. This is why a single language governing all things is not only a theoretical possibility, but also an essentiality of multidisciplinary communication. I feel it would be most presumptuous of me to suggest the words to use in this language, but I will point out examples of its application and a format that may assist its incorporation into the computer world.

The computer chip designers, with such devices as transistors, capacitors and ground wires, could readily show plumbers how to use such parallel devices as valves, reservoirs and drains, in the design of water-based computers - and vise versa.

Here are a few examples of the letter/word/sentence categorization, using an arbitrary point along the scale as an elemental "letter":

Discipline           Letter               Word                  Sentence

English              a, b, c                The           The chapter was poorly written.

Math                cos, y, +             5(cos y)           x= 2n + 5(cos y)/3n

Music               A, A#, B            Cmaj                [ a "bar" of sheetmusic ]

Chemistry         C, H, O              CO2                C6H12+9O2=6CO2 + 6H2O

Computers        0, 1                    0110 0011         0110 0011 + 0101 1001= 1011 1100

Management    [workers realm]  [supervisors realm] [managers realm]

Military            [privates realm]   [corporals realm]   [sargeants realm]

Tree                leaf, bud, flower    branch                  limb

Matter             neutrinos, etc.        proton                  atom

Mechanics       gear, bolt...          transmission           machine

 JUMP...!! JUMP...!! JUMP...!!   

Copyright: John D. Casnig 2000 - Use with permission only.