Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Miller
We think in metaphor.
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Scott,
First, welcome to the 'Sphere. Oh, and I promise not to make any mathematical assertions, ever again!
But I do wonder whether we actually think in metaphor. All I have, of course, is my own experience, but I can't say I ever actually do any "thinking." My mind is completely blank almost all the time. Things simply emerge out of the fog, as required. Oddly, I almost never even know, when I begin a sentence, how it will be finished.
So where do metaphors come from, and why do we delight in them? Why do we spend time fabricating them? I heard a pretty
interesting interview on Fresh Air yesterday. The article doesn't reflect what I found fascinating, all that was in the interview. First, you have to remember what Emily Dickinson said - that she had a specific physical sensation when reading a true poem, and by extension when experiencing a delightful metaphor. Others have said the same: a tingling, a shiver, etc., something that triggers the pleasure centers of the brain.
Anyway, the guy says there's an underlying biology in the pleasure circuit, and when you strip away the details, the results of pleasurable activities are the same. Some people excite their pleasure circuits through prayer, others through meditation, others through running, etc.
So Emily Dickinson creates a metaphor, and feels a delight both in creating it and experiencing it. It triggers the dopamine centers, and gets her to feel delightfully light headed. I think she describes it this way: 'If I feel physically as if the
top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.' She also describes other physical sensations.
But if poets, or anyone susceptible to aesthetic experience, are in some way addicted, what does it take to continue the reward? In other words, do we always need newer, fresher, more elaborate metaphors to get the same high? Does this explain why 'the shock of the new' is so valued in art? Do we begin to need different combinations, ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds?
It's an interesting thought, and it's absolutely in conflict with
Dutton, who said there are certain things which always delight us, no matter how often we experience them.
Is it possible, then, that metaphors are not "mental mistakes," but rather that we take delight in new and unusual combinations, that creating or viewing these combinations gives us a nice shot of dopamine, and all of these discussions about the nature or ethics of art are simply smokescreens for an addictive desire to stimulate pleasure centers...
Thanks,
Bill