2023-09-29

• I wish more people relied on a “cloud” metaphor when thinking about/discussing ideas instead of a “point” metaphor. The “point” metaphor is, in my experience, the default way of conceptualizing an idea. In short, an idea is a “point” in concept-space. The definition of the idea corresponds to some set of coordinates. If you know the definition, you know the idea. If you know the coordinates, you know the point. Identifying ideas as “points” is, of course, mostly fine and sometimes very useful (true in most cases for cultural defaults). Precision has value. Placing an idea exactly and correctly in concept space is often very powerful (e.g. this is how you know your bridge won’t fall over). Additionally, it is often comforting to have the stability of a specific place you can rely on finding a thing/idea. It feels good to be certain. Of course, there are also notable drawbacks. The “point” metaphor contributes to people attaching their identity to the specific locations of their ideas/definitions. For example, many people have a very specific point in mind when they talk about politically charged topics. The specific-ness of the point has two negative effects. First, it makes it easy to vilify people who don’t seem to share those exact coordinates. Second, it makes it harder to move the coordinates to a different spot if you have new, better information. In many cases it’s hard to even be open to new evidence when you conceptualize an idea as having a highly specific location. Clouds present a better metaphor for avoiding these issues. Clouds maintain the ability to have high confidence in the location of an idea. Some clouds are thick and dense and take up a small portion of the sky. You can still feel confident in knowing what is or is not inside those clouds. You can feel confident in responding when someone asks you about the shape or location of those clouds at a given moment. With that said, clouds do move and change in response to external forces (i.e. the winds of evidence). Remembering this makes it easier to avoid the pitfall of attaching yourself to a specific shape or location of a cloud. Just like it doesn’t make much sense to have a strong opinion about the exact center of most clouds in the sky, it doesn’t make much sense to feel like you have the best knowledge/location of most ideas in concept-space. Furthermore, just like it doesn’t make much sense to want to protect a cloud from the wind, it doesn’t make much sense to avoid evidence that might change your current beliefs. On top of that, you gain powerful abilities to find common ground with people and tactfully identify places of disagreement. While the cloud metaphor retains the ability to decide, definitively, whether points are inside or outside the cloud, you also gain the ability to say things like “oh, that point is in the cloud, but it’s on the edges and is not really close to what I think of as the densest part of the cloud.” This kind of expression, and other variants, gives you tremendous flexibility where a point metaphor is quite rigid. Ok, so the cloud metaphor has various benefits. But, like all metaphors, it has both advantages and disadvantages as a frame. Sometimes you will probably want the point metaphor. Clearly, any conversation that really does depend on nailing the specifics to a high degree of precision (e.g. building a bridge that doesn’t fall over, math, systems engineering, etc), a point metaphor will be more appropriate. Additionally, some beliefs really are foundational for folks, and trying to transition those ideas to an unstable, amorphous blob that floats across the sky can be quite painful/damaging/unhelpful. But in general, it’s my view that these cases should be the exception and not the rule. Strangely, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Kind of a bummer. Would love to live in a world with more cloud-based thinking.

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