More generally though, I’m curious if you find people talking about our “reptile brain” or “monkey brain” to be similarly useless?
I do indeed (and in fact I find this verbal/conceptual habit to be rather annoying).
The thing about analogical thinking is that it can be very dangerous—in several ways, but in one particularly insidious one: it’s easy to forget to tie the argument back to the actual thing you’re talking about. In other words, what I often see is that someone will say “ok, now imagine [some analogy]… in this scenario, blah blah… and therefore, blah blah… and so obviously, blah blah…”—and throughout all of this, they’re still talk about the analogy! I read such things, and I think: “ok, yes, now how do all of your claims, arguments, conclusions, etc., look when you translate them back to the real thing that all of this is an analogy for?”
In other words, analogies are good if they’re used as scaffolding, so to speak, to clarify the shape of an argument or a model, to help your interlocutor understand what you’re saying about reality.[1] But you had better actually have a real argument, with claims about real things, etc.! If you just have the analogy, and all your reasoning is in the analogy-world, and all your conclusions are in the analogy-world, then that’s useless at best, and tremendously misleading at worst. Analogical thinking cannot replace reasoning about the real world. If it does that, then it’s detrimental, not helpful.
[1] The proper structure, therefore, goes like this:
“I am making an argument that [insert claim about reality]. As an analogy, consider [analogical scenario]; in that case, we can see that [reasoning in the analogy-world]; and therefore, [conclusion in the analogy-world]. And so in reality: [analogous reasoning in the real world]; and therefore, [conclusion in the real world].”
I do indeed (and in fact I find this verbal/conceptual habit to be rather annoying).
The thing about analogical thinking is that it can be very dangerous—in several ways, but in one particularly insidious one: it’s easy to forget to tie the argument back to the actual thing you’re talking about. In other words, what I often see is that someone will say “ok, now imagine [some analogy]… in this scenario, blah blah… and therefore, blah blah… and so obviously, blah blah…”—and throughout all of this, they’re still talk about the analogy! I read such things, and I think: “ok, yes, now how do all of your claims, arguments, conclusions, etc., look when you translate them back to the real thing that all of this is an analogy for?”
In other words, analogies are good if they’re used as scaffolding, so to speak, to clarify the shape of an argument or a model, to help your interlocutor understand what you’re saying about reality.[1] But you had better actually have a real argument, with claims about real things, etc.! If you just have the analogy, and all your reasoning is in the analogy-world, and all your conclusions are in the analogy-world, then that’s useless at best, and tremendously misleading at worst. Analogical thinking cannot replace reasoning about the real world. If it does that, then it’s detrimental, not helpful.
[1] The proper structure, therefore, goes like this:
“I am making an argument that [insert claim about reality]. As an analogy, consider [analogical scenario]; in that case, we can see that [reasoning in the analogy-world]; and therefore, [conclusion in the analogy-world]. And so in reality: [analogous reasoning in the real world]; and therefore, [conclusion in the real world].”