New metaphors can create new realities (versus, Roman, about)

[coberst]

New metaphors can create new realities

Lakoff and Johnson, coauthors of “Metaphors we Live By”, speak of a newly arrived Iranian student who had mistaken the constant refrain he heard from other students that “the solution of my problems” meant that they were talking about a metaphor that was unfamiliar to him but sounded very intriguing. This Iranian student was very disappointed when he discovered that these other students were speaking in frustration rather than of a new and wonderful metaphor.

He had mistaken this ‘solution of my problems’ was some kind of chemical mixing bowl, “which he took to be a large volume of liquid, bubbling and smoking, containing all of their problems, either dissolved or in the form of precipitates, with catalysts constantly dissolving some problems (for the time being) and precipitating out others.”

The authors see this as an accidently developed but marvelous new metaphoric means for viewing problems and their solutions. The normal metaphor for problem solving is usually the puzzle metaphor, ‘problem is puzzle’.

This new problem metaphor, ‘problems in solution’, offers a deliciously new and useful slant on the nature of problems and the nature of solving problems in life.

Problems in solution’ metaphor would entail:

• Problems never completely disappear
• Solving one problem may precipitate another
• Since we have little control of what goes into he pot we constantly find new ones and old ones under another guise
• A catalyst for solving one problem my promote another
• A temporary problem solution may be the most we can hope for
• Problems are part of the natural order of things

[ParkTwain]

solution to versus solution of

The former is used generally to refer to the resolution of a problem.
The latter would be used in chemistry to speak of a solvent.

This is a semantic subtlety in English that was lost on the foreign student. Not exactly profound.

[june 7th]

Would it not seem to underscore the question of how "problems" are defined; how they are approached by one's respective (subjective) mindset; how they are both deconstructed/reconstructed; and the role that creativity might play in the overall process?

Metaphorically speaking, is it only a problem if I view it as such?

Take gentle care!