tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3833335047469919292.post4890717382678763906..comments2024-01-20T10:39:20.301+00:00Comments on Thought Bubbles: Rob Wheeler thinks about... MetaphorsThought Bubbleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03754577145892261504noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3833335047469919292.post-35769897377138648682009-08-20T00:12:36.525+00:002009-08-20T00:12:36.525+00:00Ok - I take your point about metaphors. I was bein...Ok - I take your point about metaphors. I was being a bit sloppy in my use of terms. Shooting myself the foot you might say given my insistence on being more rigorous.<br /><br />I'm not sure about about love and grief tho. You are right that we need to use figures of speech to talk about them but they are publically accessible phenomena that we can indeed see, touch and hear.<br /><br />When I see someone sobbing and rocking with grief I am not seing some accidental epiphenomena. These things are constituent of grief. Grief is not hidden or beyong human experience like God.<br /><br />Rob WheelerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3833335047469919292.post-3916623780426059912009-08-19T07:44:10.093+00:002009-08-19T07:44:10.093+00:00Rob, I don't want to be too picky about your p...Rob, I don't want to be too picky about your post, but your examples are both Similes not Metaphors. It would have been correct to say 'He was a three-toed sloth in that fight' or similar. Whilst the metaphor would have been wrong, as you intended, it would have been a metaphor all the same.<br /><br />You raise an interesting idea though, which is worthy of further debate. <br /><br />I would like to suggest that there are certain things which we cannot explain in the terms of standard sense-reference (which seem only to be sufficient to describe those things which can be touched, tasted, heard, seen or smelt) ie anything which is outside of the frame of reference of the physical or is unquantifiable. God would be one of those things. Try, for example, to illustrate the feelings of grief or love in words without resorting to metaphor and similie. Would you have us not talk of these things also?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com