2022-07-01

• One way of seeing the importance of metaphor is to relate it to databases. In general, metaphors are to language and thought what joins are to databases. Metaphor helps communicate about one idea/experience in terms of another, helping with understanding the original idea. They connect two experiences and provide an interesting lens through which to view those experiences. Joins in databases are similar, connecting data from different parts of the database to provide a more interesting view into the meaning/value of that data. Now, think of what joins enable in applications. Nearly every interesting feature of modern applications relies heavily on joins. The links between the data are typically just as important/interesting on an application level as the original data on its own. I lean towards thinking metaphors are similar here too. The choice of metaphor when communicating about an idea is a big deal. It tells you not just about the way in which two ideas connect but also about the way the person structures their thoughts, and it does so in a way that can lead to accurate generalizations. For example, people that tend to use a “war” metaphor for arguments will be more likely to use similarly adversarial approaches in other interactions (e.g might refer to sexual experiences as “conquests”). The choice of metaphor is typically not random/one-off to the situation, and tells you something more general about the mental models someone relies on regularly.

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