Analogy is everything (1, #33)
On the blue that fills the whole sky — Estimated Read Time: 46 seconds.
One should not think of analogy-making as a special variety of reasoning (as in the dull and uninspiring phrase “analogical reasoning and problem-solving,” a long-standing cliché in the cognitive-science world), for that is to do analogy a terrible disservice. After all, reasoning and problem-solving have (at least I dearly hope!) been at long last recognized as lying far indeed from the core of human thought. If analogy were merely a special variety of something that in itself lies way out on the peripheries, then it would be but an itty- bitty blip in the broad blue sky of cognition. To me, however, analogy is anything but a bitty blip — rather, it’s the very blue that fills the whole sky of cognition — analogy is everything, or very nearly so, in my view.
Do you see what he did there?
Insight by Douglas Hofstadter from this incredible article: Analogy as the Core of Cognition. It may be my favorite thing I’ve read this year—both insightful and delightful. Or, if video is more your thing, watch this talk that he gave at Stanford on the same topic.
And thanks to Read Something Wonderful, where I found this article and (I’m sure) will find inspiration for many future 1 editions.