For many people, “jelly beans” live in a bucket that is Very Good! The bucket has labels like “delicious” and “yes, please!” and “mmmmmmmmmmm” and
.
“Bug secretions,” on the other hand, live in a bucket that, for many people, is Very Bad[3]. Its labels are things like “blecchh” and “gross” and “definitely do not put this inside your body in any way, shape, or form.”
When buckets collide—when things that people thought were in one bucket turn out to be in another, or when two buckets that people thought were different turn out to be the same bucket—people do not usually react with slow, thoughtful deliberation. They usually do not think to themselves “huh! Turns out that I was wrong about bug secretions being gross or unhygienic! I’ve been eating jelly beans for years and years and it’s always been delicious and rewarding—bug secretions must be good, actually, or at least they can be good!”
While the main point stands, this particular image seems sort of misleading. The bucket—label analogy suggests that concepts we formulate to navigate the world live in neat, contained and well defined spaces (even if those spaces themselves are not accesible, or even known, to us in a conscious level, which is what I’m reading from this). But, more importantly, one of the traits of buckets is that by finding out something is in this bucket I know it can’t be anywhere else—They are exclusive in that way.
Furthermore, labels themselves seem to be sufficient to model this analogy. Why are not elements (bugs) labeled themselves rather than belong to higher level categories (the Bad-Bucket) which will be the ones carrying the labels?
While the main point stands, this particular image seems sort of misleading. The bucket—label analogy suggests that concepts we formulate to navigate the world live in neat, contained and well defined spaces (even if those spaces themselves are not accesible, or even known, to us in a conscious level, which is what I’m reading from this). But, more importantly, one of the traits of buckets is that by finding out something is in this bucket I know it can’t be anywhere else—They are exclusive in that way.
Furthermore, labels themselves seem to be sufficient to model this analogy. Why are not elements (bugs) labeled themselves rather than belong to higher level categories (the Bad-Bucket) which will be the ones carrying the labels?