I am a philosophy noob.
I have been reading about analogies and how they form the core of cognition.
Consider this analogy:
Putting a resistor reduces the flow of electrons in a wire.
Putting a small obstacle in a narrow street reduces the flow of people.
Although people and electrons are noway similar, why this analogy is working! Solution from one domain can be translated to other domain too.
Why rules for flow of electrons and rules for flow of people same? Why understanding the street can also illuminate the understanding of electrons in a wire!
May be reality is one big fractal?
Consider cognitive entrepreneurs such as scientists,philosophers,business men etc., these are people whose profit currency is "valuable insights/ideas/patterns". Essentially these people are tremendous pattern recognition engines discovering valuable patterns in the idea/pattern space. These people use tools, one of which is analogical thinking. Looking at the massive accumulation of profits by these cognitive entrepreneurs (take Einstein and his ideas which were build with analogies) my mind is blown!
I have always thought analogies as crutches or a training wheel to understand complex concepts but it seems analogy is like a strong search light, when turned on in a dark room, we could see things which we were once blind to! It's not crutch but the very core!
If one of the tool i.e analogy is behind racking up massive cognitive profits, I wanted to know, what's behind this tool making it so successful!
Thanks!